Homesteading in the 21st Century

In today's economy the ideas of traditional employment have shifted. When I first moved here a traditional 9 to 5 (that actually turned out being an anything but traditional 12 to 14 hours a day 5 days a week) seemed to be the only option. I knew of the homestead history of this house, but in my mind homesteading was farming or work that originated from the land like woodworking. As the economy got worse, I found myself unemployed with no available jobs. I started doing some research into alternate forms of income. I came across some homesteading sites and stopped for a read. My entire perception of homesteading was changed. What running a homestead in the 21st century means to me: You must have respect for the land and do no harm. You must try to cut living expenses and live as green as possible. We had actually been doing this more from necessity than anything else. See the post on missing trash service below. The household income needs to come exclusively from endeavors that occur either within the home or on the land. This opens up the entire world wide web as an employment option. Using my new definition I have now been operating a successful homestead for the better part of a year. I won't dwell on the how's and why's of my income or even all the missteps that I have taken. That is for another blog. For anyone interested the story can be found on my other blog HERE. A true homestead life was not as hard to achieve as I would have thought. I now spend my days "working" on my laptop from the wrap around front porch.

Adding Two Centuries

The first realization that occurred was that we had moved from cities with prevalent wireless coverage and easily accessible high speed internet to a house that, to a large percentage, was still in the 19th century. The house did come equipped with the highest technology available circa 1955. We have indoor plumbing, storm windows, and screens. There is an outbuilding that is more like a motel room or apartment that was constructed about 25 years ago. This is the most modern of the structures. The main house is a mix of different centuries and decades.


Around 200 years ago the main house was started. There stood a log cabin with fireplace heating and a “shotgun” design for cooling. When the front and rear doors were open, the breeze would travel through the house cooling the occupants. Slowly, the house was expanded. A bedroom added here. A kitchen added there. Over time it grew into a very comfortable house with all the “modern” amenities. We have baseboard heating in most rooms, 2 fireplaces, a small bathroom, an electric stove, a wood burning stove, a side by side refrigerator, and a porcelain sink. Water is supplied by a well pump that is submerged in a stream. Years ago the end of a stream was enclosed with a single outlet pipe. Water is constantly being filtered by underground limestone, filling this holding area, and then continuing its path down the mountain through the small pipe. We then pump this fresh water around 200 feet, uphill, to the house. This process supplies very fresh tasting, yet very hard water to the house. We had our starting point.

Coming from Big City USA with its high technology we were in for a bit of a shock. We were accustomed to using cell phones as home phones, high speed internet, online gaming, easy access to fast food and supplies, and invisible items like trash collection. I really miss trash collection. In our first two months here we produced and accumulated more garbage than we have in the last year. We had to completely rethink our uses and lives. As a city dweller, you pay your city taxes, you place your trash and/or recyclables on the curb one a week and, as if by magic, they disappear. If you are reading this from a comfortable city buy your garbage collectors a card or small gift. Of all the interactions you as city dwellers do or don’t have with people in a given week they are truly the most missed if they disappear. We had to switch from bottles to cans. We had to start using products that came in boxes rather than plastic bottles. We had to build a fire pit to burn as much as possible. We had to start separating our garbage and find a location for non-burnable trash until we could take it to the dump. As consumers used to a disposable lifestyle, handling garbage was the largest change we had to make in our lives.

We are so far from the land line telephone junction boxes our carrier, the only carrier available, can’t supply enough voltage through our phone line for solid, static-free voice service. We can’t use dial-up internet providers or get the DSL offered by this carrier. There is no cellular service at our home. We had a visitor with a satellite phone and could not find service. Apparently our trees blocked the phone from the satellite. The cable companies can’t even find our address in their computers. No cable or cable based internet. For internet we ended up going with HughesNet. There is now a slightly smaller than massive dish on the roof of our carport that required the removal of two black walnut trees to acquire a clear line of sight. Compared to cable speed and pricing, HughesNet is slower and overpriced, but for our area it is blisteringly fast and affordable. I pay roughly double what a cable company would charge to get half the speed without stability. That said, considering the fact that our internet signal travels to outer space and back to HughesNet through two different locations weather patterns and clouds over thousands of miles, their service is pure genius. The new dish offers more stability then most and at peak the download speeds are amazing. I can download games and updates on the video game systems, but considering the travel time of the signal online play is a thing of the past. Just since I have joined HughesNet, their speeds have increased twice and their service has become more stable. I am very happy with their service and would recommend them to anyone else that has no apparent high speed internet options.

For our entertainment options, we have a high definition DLP television that we brought with us from Big City USA. We have to remove several more trees to get satellite television service and as such have been spending the money most spend on cable with Netflix. They supply us with all the movies and television series DVDs we could ever wish. Since most television series these days are releasing seasons to DVD before the next season starts airing we aren’t even that far behind on our favorite shows. Considering the fact that our big screen and surround sound produce better picture and sound quality than what the locals call a movie theater, Netflix is all we need to stay happy.

All three of us are gamers. We have been gamers for years. I have owned virtually every system available since the Atari 2600. In fact, as I write this article, my wife is beating John Daly on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of the two current systems. I know there are three, but the Wii is hardly a current system for adult players. The Nintendo’s games are mostly aimed and marketed for younger players and the graphics are on par with the Playstation 2. I exclude it from the current systems list although I have owned one. The Xbox 360 has very public reliability issues and we have had one red-ring. The system is woefully behind on media capacity since a DVD can only hold 7.35GB. Why do you want one? The price is appealing, the graphics are bright and amazing, the controller layout is natural for both first person shooters and racing games, and Xbox Live. Xbox Live is the easy to use standard that all other systems can only hope to obtain. The content is wonderful and now that they have partnered with Netflix they are an unbelievable force. Clearly then the 360 is my favorite, right? Not a chance. The Sony PlayStation 3 is more than a gaming system. Using Blu-Ray media your games will always be single disk, you can view not only DVD movies but also Blu-Ray, the controller is perfect for sports, adventure, and platforming games, the load times are less, the graphics are very natural, and it has the ability to operate at a stunning 1080p resolution. If I had to choose just one system to have, the Sony is worth every penny of the extra $100.

Now at the start of the 21st century, we have a house with all the basic amenities, high speed internet, and plenty of modern entertainment.

A Quick Update On My Life

I live in a farm house on 50+ acres of woodland in Southwest Virginia with my wife and 17 year old step-son. To give you an idea of how far this side the middle of nowhere we are, the nearest McDonalds and WalMart are over 20 miles away. We actually reside in a small town, which has fewer total residents than the number of students that attended my High School with me, lives and dies by it's High School football games. The main street resembles Mayberry's friendly feel with small family owned and operated storefronts and a polite, curteous attitude. I was born in West Virginia, but moved with my family to Big City, OH at the age of 8. My wife and step-son were born and raised in a city of roughly 1.5 million. We have a certain sensibility and an ideal way of life that sometimes clash with the acres of woods and neighboring live stock. Through this blog I will give you insight into our lives. You will be with us as we attempt to mesh our big city fun and entertainment with the small town feel and slower way of life that our home affords. I will be adding to this blog often, so keep checking in.