The Farmplate Blog

It’s no surprise that there is a widespread desire to know where food comes from, to be connected to our sources of energy and know our neighbors. It’s led to increased sales of direct-to-consumer food sales among farmers, a profusion of backyard gardens, and even amateur backyard animal husbandry.

Mother Earth News highlights a group of people who are living the national ethos. They are homesteaders, DIY in the truest sense of the word, and they all have a few things in common – commitments to food, energy, and community independence and strength.

They take responsibility for improving their lives and communities, and their stories of building, growing, cooking, knitting, canning, saving and surviving by their own wherewithal are inspiring. 

Read on for more:

"The word “homesteading” may conjure images of families lined up in front of a sod house, a mule hitched to a plow working the fields in the background. Such pioneers truly labored for their livelihood, sweating to construct homes, produce food, haul water and raise animals. Modern homesteading doesn’t fit that description, but those who choose it have the same can-do attitude and have found new ways of living the good life.

Last fall, when MOTHER EARTH NEWS called for nominations for our 2012 Homesteaders of the Year contest, we never could’ve predicted the variety of do-it-yourselfers we’d hear about. From families on 100-plus acres in rural Canada to couples in tiny homes on one-third-acre plots in a bustling metropolis, all kinds of self-reliant folks from across North America were nominated…"

Read the full article here > 

Image courtesy of Kristen Johanson & Blackberry Meadows Farm