I not too way back spent two days on the Homestead Competitors in Columbia, TN. It was very good.
Events like these actually really feel like coming home.
I experience a deep sense of support as soon as I get to to hold round with people an identical to me.
They don’t improve an eyebrow as soon as I level out milking a cow.
They commiserate as soon as I discuss animals dying or the wrestle of balancing all of it.
They share determining laughs as soon as I inform of my husband impulse-buying six piglets whereas I was gone (which actually occurred over the weekend…)
They understand our family’s unorthodox picks and loads of are following on this comparable path.
For a short while body, I’m “common.”
It feels good.
You see, I don’t have a ton of homesteading buddies regionally.
There are a few, nonetheless most want to remain a further typical life. And that’s OK. We nonetheless have a great deal of frequent flooring and relationship.
However usually as soon as I’m attending homestead events, I uncover myself wishing we might all keep in a farming commune of blissful, comfortable sameness.
The thought is type of irresistible.
Nevertheless as my creativeness runs wild dreaming of a “Prairie Homestead Compound” (ha!), I can’t help nonetheless marvel…
Would I be the place I am now if I’d solely stayed spherical comfortable people?
You see, the impetus for the unbelievable journey I’ve taken over the previous 15 years has been the stress.
A stress born from watching the trendy world spherical me and craving one factor totally fully completely different.
The very friction that made me so uncomfortable is what prompted change. It gave me the oomph to forge into unknown territory and to remain a life as counter-cultural as they arrive.
Would which have occurred if I’d solely ever lived spherical people an identical to me?
I don’t assume so.
As I signed bookplates for my upcoming e-book and chatted with many nice people, I ruminated on this.
I’m grateful for homestead events the place I can soak inside the sameness. I need the cases to fill my cup.
BUT.
Pioneers aren’t pioneers because of they stayed inside the safety of the herd. Or clustered with people exactly like them.
The pioneers of yesteryear seize our creativeness because of they ventured into the unknown. Proper right into a wilderness of hazard, and risk, and discomfort.
They held true to their imaginative and prescient and they also lived legendary lives as a result of it.
Good good friend, that’s how I see you and me.
We’re taking these old-fashioned skills and ideas and bringing them into the wilderness of a practice adrift.
Whereas it’s implausible if you’ve obtained camaraderie on the journey, usually you gotta be the Lone Ranger, too.
And even when there’s no one else in your area who “will get” what you’re doing…
You’re really not alone.
Know that there are 1000’s and 1000’s an identical to you— planting, rising, milking, crafting, cultivating, kneading, nurturing.
We’re scattered all through this nation (and the world) and our numbers are rising like wildfire.
And I can’t think about one other movement I’d pretty be a part of.
Pioneering ahead,
-Jill Winger
P.S. My upcoming e-book, Outdated-Unique on Goaldives DEEP into this matter. I provided a pile of bonuses on the competitors for anyone who preorders it, and you’ll seize them too!