It happens. Some life-changing situation occurs, and your homesteading needs to change too. It might be temporary or it might be a permanent change; you might have to take care of your family, you have a new job or a new baby. Or maybe you just took too much on and you want to slow down. Whatever the reason you shouldn’t have to give up your dream of homesteading. But since you are not a superhero, or at least I’m not even after years of trying, something has to change.
It happened to me. After 10 years I went back to working full-time, away from my home. Consequently, I knew things would have to change for me. I couldn’t do it all, nor could I expect my family to take on everything I was doing before. After eight months of full-time working, I finally feel like I have time again to really invest in my homestead. So as my first investment, I thought I’d share lessons learned about downsizing my homestead with you. Here’s how to change and keep homesteading too.
- First, give yourself a break. Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s ok to downsize and change. Change is good, you learn from change. This leads me to my next suggestion.
- Stop and reassess your goals. Think about what you are currently doing and what you think you can handle realistically with your new lifestyle. Start by asking yourself the following questions and write down your answers.
- What are your top five favorite things you currently do on your homestead, the things that just make you happy regardless of how useful they might be to anyone else?
- What are your five least favorite things you currently do? Now if you can stop doing these activities then do so. See life is already easier.
- What part of homesteading makes your family healthier?
- What part of homesteading saves you money?
- What are the biggest time sucks on your homestead?
- Don’t take on anything new or if you do practice the one-in-two-out rule. If you are short on time really try not to start any new projects, at least for a while.
- Get rid of half your animals. I know I know, this is the really hurtful suggestion. If you are an avid animal collector like me, the idea of getting rid of half your animals is almost unfathomable. But I’m telling you I did this and I have not regretted it at all (see the question about ‘time suck’ above). Animals are very time and labor-intensive. If one of your goals is to feed your family healthy food do you really need 40 chickens or will 20 suffice to feed your family? This is assuming you don’t need the money from egg sales to make ends meet. The same with rabbits or pigs. How many are enough to feed your own family, versus how many are around because they’re a pretty color (i.e. rabbits)?
- Skip a year (bees, turkeys, gardening, etc). I also did this and again I did not regret it. You can always do it another year.
- Trade, collaborate, and share – you don’t have to do it all. Does your neighbor have a great garden you can trade eggs for produce? Share a garden space. If you don’t have time to weed and feed your garden, chances are a friend or neighbor doesn’t have time either. But half the responsibilities of growing a garden already make life less stressful. Â
- Have your family or friends help you. My kids were master weeders and waterers last year in the garden. I came back from a two-week work trip and the garden was immaculate. I was so proud of them.
- Work with your new schedule not against it. I didn’t have time to make finicky cheese or bread that required time and attention, so I purposely chose recipes that you could ignore and that were forgiving of inattention (kombucha, sourdough bread, chevre, yogurt, etc.)
- Make big batches of things on the weekends. (jam, broth, cheese, smoked foods, bread, etc.) It takes almost the same amount of time to make small versus big batches, and freeze or can as needed.
- Gradually add activities back in as you have time, like blogging 😊. But I’d suggest giving yourself a good six months first to establish a new routine.
These are probably not all the things I’ve done differently since starting work again but they are the major ones for sure. I know I can’t be the only one that has gone through downsizing my homestead lifestyle. What suggestions do you all have? What did you do differently to create a balanced lifestyle again?
Nice job April