| The Homestead Manifesto Page 6 Once the land is secured, shelter is the next item necessary for the homestead. There may be some type of structure already occupying the land� a farmhouse, cottage or log cabin�or one may need to be built. This seems like a daunting task to many, including me, but I have read again and again about people with no building skills constructing their own homes. Most use wood, some use various earth-friendly techniques (21) , and some even use stone, as Helen and Scott Nearing did, using materials found on their land, first in Vermont and later in Maine. What is important about the structure is that it is serviceable, comfortable, and affordable, that it fits within the landscape, and that it feels like home. More and more, as the waves of sprawl widen, gargantuan homes are popping up in rural locations and their size and gaudiness are vulgar. The home is for living, working, hosting guests, and relaxing, it need not be used to indicate status or to become a monument to the modern world. Third on our list is water. A clean water source is necessary to any home, and here there is quite a bit of variance when it comes to homesteaders. Some are connected to a town water supply, some have wells on their land, and a few even use rainwater collection. Whatever the source, homesteaders are mindful that fresh water on earth is a scarce and precious resource, one necessary for life, yet one that many people around the globe struggle to have. As always, using without wasting is the homesteaders� creed. The fourth area that the homesteader must consider is food. Ideally, a homesteader grows a good deal of his or her own food. Other foods that are needed are purchased locally from farmers (or even better, bartered for with the surplus from the homestead) or local farm stands, general stores and small natural foods stores. The goal is to use food that is grown as locally as possible. Food grown locally is fresher, and the buyer is generally more familiar with the conditions in which the food was grown or raised. Dangerous pesticides and genetically modified crops can be avoided. Additionally, the processes of transporting, packaging and marketing the food are eliminated, all positive steps for the environment. Helen and Scott Nearing proved that even in New England�s abbreviated growing season it is possible for a small garden to produce plenty of good food, and they ate well all year round without doing much canning or bottling. They grew a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and herbs, and made use of a greenhouse and root cellar. Granted, not every fruit, for example, can be available in every season, but the homesteader is willing to accept that small drawback in exchange for the opportunity to grow his own nourishment right outside his or her door. For those homesteading in a climate that has cold winters, heat becomes the fifth item on the list. Burning wood is generally the method of choice, as it keeps the homesteader �off the grid� and, via the gathering and chopping of wood, brings him or her in contact with the land. The carbon dioxide released by burning wood returns to the environment whether the tree is used for heat or breaks down naturally in the forest, so no extra pollutants are added to the air, and clearing dead wood or cutting down the occasional tree is part of good land maintenance. Those who are not in a position to gather wood from their own land can often buy it (or barter for it) from a neighbor. The homesteader who uses a wood-burning stove has a heat source that is more efficient than a fireplace and has become self-sufficient in yet another area. Item number six is an area that most of us in the modern �civilized� world are somewhat squeamish about, and I know some will wince at its discussion, but it is normal and natural, and something that the homesteader has to deal with more directly than most Americans: human �waste.� In fact, as Wendell Berry writes in The Unsettling of America, in our progress and modernity, what is, in fact, a link in the natural cycle is now considered waste by most people. This cycle�in which plants take nutrients and water from the earth, animals ingest those plants, and organic matter, necessary for the fertility of the soil, is then returned to the earth, via excrement�is the way that the natural world functions and the healthiest way for it to function. Instead, we have a �waste� problem because the vanity of the modern world requires immediately removing one step of the cycle. A whole industry deals with this, while agribusiness corporations reap profits from selling fertilizer. As usual, in the name of progress we create a problem and then we pay for some corporation�s solution, which always leaves us worse off than when we began. Certainly I do not advocate all urban residents abandoning their flush toilets, but I do suggest that some of them consider moving to the countryside and, once here, think about the connections that human beings should have with nature and how such links have become perverted by progress and capitalism. Some homesteaders have flush toilets, but many use outhouses or simple indoor sawdust toilets, which are supposed to be odor-free if used properly. (22) When it is time to empty the bucket it is dumped onto a compost heap along with other organic matter, such as food scraps, leaves, sawdust, weeds, hay, etc. Earthworms go to work and in time the compost will be ready to spread on the garden. This is another way to break free of modern systems that are traipsing on the sanctity of nature. The seventh area for the homesteader to consider is how to address the matter of electricity. It is certainly possible to live without electricity, and humans survived quite well without it for thousands of years. In fact, Americans in great numbers have only acquired electricity�as well as the automobile, the telephone, the flush toilet, and other technologies�in the last 50 or so years and many people in the world STILL live without it. Some homesteaders, the truly hardcore, are able to live a satisfying existence without electrical power. The average homesteaders wants to remain �off the grid,� but still would like the convenience of lights, a refrigerator, and other objects operated by electricity. There are several options, and most homesteaders would prefer to use solar, wind or water to power their homes; however, it can be costly for these systems to produce the amount of energy needed. Generally, homesteaders rely on a generator powered by propane, diesel or gasoline. Beyond these seven basic areas, there are some other topics that can be addressed at the homesteader�s discretion, most notably communication and transportation. Like the other matters, there are a variety of options and the homesteader has to balance convenience with cost, impact on the environment, and the degree that he or she wants to separate him- or herself from modern technology and the capitalist world. Homesteaders vary from the totally self-sufficient hermit in a shack at the end of a dirt road to the small town family deeply involved in their community, working away from home, but trying to exert some autonomy on their world. All that matters is a commitment to live a simpler, more earth-friendly, and self-sufficient existence. |