7 Unexpected Signs You're Meant to Become a Homesteader

(Or You'll Survive the Apocalypse...)

Cows on Content Farm Road

There are people born to be homesteaders and don’t know it yet. People with dispositions so inline with that it takes to manage a small farm, not only would they survive, they would thrive.

It’s not who you think. It’s not the people who love the outdoors, cooking from scratch, pets, and gardening that make the best homesteaders. They make up a lot of the people that give it a shot, sure. Homesteaders do share a lot of those qualities, but most of them realize after a few years that a farm isn’t an aesthetic, address, or lifestyle. It’s a mentality.

Maintaining a homestead isn’t about how much you know about grafting fruit trees, field drainage, or sheep shearing. It’s about how you see your place in the world and function within it. It’s about seeing all goals as long-term. It’s about presence, dedication, and a thirst for well-earned rewards.

I made a list of characteristics that I’ve noticed in every homesteader I know that’s lasted more than 5 years. Some of them own hundred-acre farms and some have city apartments growing all of their produce on rooftop raised beds. All of them are stubborn, long-game, accomplishment addicts.

If the majority of these traits describe you it’s time to start looking at your backyard a little differently. You were born to do this, baby!

You Practice Quiet, Productive, Fiber-Related Hobbies

Gibson and Monday, both now passed, my first sheepdog and ram

The sewers, knitters, embroiderers, weavers, and quilters reading this right now may not realize how perfect your hobby matches the mentality of a homesteader.

Besides the desire to create something utilitarian from scratch; you understand the feeling of true accomplishment that comes from dedicated work without instant gratification.

Not only do you understand the time and effort involved in weaving that shawl, you probably understand the other steps in the process like shearing, skirting, washing, carding, and spinning wool before it hit your loom. It’s a way to look at your work as part of a system that started with an animal and ended up a sweater.

You value the time and effort needed to produce your creations. You can entertain yourself in a way that doesn’t require a screen. You can focus on a rose in a sampler for three days, just to make one small corner of a blouse or enclave in your home a little more beautiful. IMAGINE what you could do with a flower or herb garden?!

You Aren’t Impressed By Purchased Accomplishments

You see pictures of your coworkers’ vacations or your cousin’s new car on social media (and while you may feel a tinge of envy) you aren’t impressed. What impresses you is effort; not things that can happen with a clean record and a credit card.

Most of us can apply for a passport, get a plane ticket, rental car, hotel, and order off a restaurant menu in another country and then take photographic evidence. That doesn’t make it impressive. It just proves you spent money.

Anyone can get money. People do horrible things for money. And if your “accomplishments” are things anyone else can do with a stolen bank account, it’s not an accomplishment at all. It’s a tourism receipt.

But that kid that works at the bodega and has been learning French a little every day on duolingo to help the old woman who just moved from Montreal get the right groceries - that’s culturally impressive.

Is what you’re working on in life making yourself and the world a better place or just decorating your coffin with National Park Stickers?

Note: I am not shitting on travel. Travel is great! Tourism isn’t. That’s just consumerism in a different country that doesn’t challenge you in anyway. It’s a vacation.

Travel is putting yourself in unknown places and situations where you absorb a culture, landscapes, language, and food outside your lived experience to grow and learn. Tourism requires none of those things, just money.

Travel is Anthony Bourdain.
Tourism is White Lotus.

Homesteaders are the Bourdains, excited to get out there, challenge themselves, get dirty or sick, and are still hungry for more…

You Never Pass Up a Renn Faire

A normal yard scene here in June

Lords, Ladies, and anyone in betwixt! Hark! You were MEANT to be a small farmer! Besides a love for the idealized past and skills of centuries yore, you understand the romantic desire for a simpler way to be in the world.

Reenactors make fantastic homesteaders because they already feel a kinship to a time when nearly everyone homesteaded out of necessity.

You may not be religious, but you strongly feel a person needs a code of honor, and these kind of folks never give up halfway through turning over a garden or flake on friends that need to borrow a hay elevator.

You respect time put into a craft. You may never hurt a fly, but feel learning to shoot a long bow is as valuable as learning to tan and sew the hide of the animal you shot with it. There’s a real thrill out of doing things the historical way over the easy way.

Some reenactors end up on homesteads because it’s the natural progression, almost how chefs end up gardening or raising chickens for the better ingredients. You folks need a place with the space, time, and affordability to practice these skills. Which is why there are so many rural rennies out here! They needed a place cheap enough to practice jousting and raise their wool sheep for garb, very expensive to do in the suburbs. Cheaper than joining a country club in the sticks.

Also, reenactors already know carpenters, equestrians, leather workers, blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, and archers. Your friend group shares hobbies homesteaders use every day (or at least some part of it. For example: a portable forge for a farrier).

If you gentlefolk had to farm, you’d love it and look amazing doing it.

I would rather start a homestead with someone dedicated to making their own chain mail and ramparts than someone great at Excel. You’d be great in any homestead or apocalypse.

P.S. If the idea of Wiccan Renn Faire folks creating a pagan farming community post apocalypse sounds interesting, you should really check out the Emberverse Series by S.M. Stirling.

Hikers, Backpackers, & Distance Runners

Outdoorsy folk of the crunchy variety are underrated on the farm (or post-apocalypse) and shouldn’t be. Again, it’s the long-game mindset that makes you perfect for farming. You’re also probably used to bugs and sun protection. Bonus.

We all think of butch hunters with guns as survivalists but that IT nerd whose vacations always include a tent and water filter probably has more stamina, gear, and survival skills than any of the gym rats from marketing.

Hikers and backpackers already know physical hardship as a source of accomplishment. Every personal best time or new summit makes you glow, which means you find meaning in personal challenges and earned rewards. Just wait until you start serving winter meals from your own home-grown pasta sauce. Your recipes will have the same stories of work, sweat, and beauty as that mountain top!

You distance runners were born to understand the long haul and big picture. You don’t see the garden as a single recipe; you see a grocery store. You don’t see a project’s end as a prize, but the next step uphill. You can probably run around a small farm all day and still have the energy for an 8-mile run to cool off. We need your moxie! Join us!

Gamers and Readers

Red Dead Redemption 2

Homesteading is an open-world game and you’re the main character focused on cooking, mounts, and player housing. You understand that small actions enhance your experience, that a farm is a series of unlocked achievements.

Gamers (especially MMORPG players) are natural problem solvers. They get dedication, teamwork, communication, leadership, and the grind of not giving up until you defeat that boss you could never handle alone.

And readers! Hoo! (Not writers. Stay away from that sort.) Readers are people who share the ability to entertain themselves the same way gamers and quiet hobbyists do, but they are on another level. Gamers understand attention and time get results, but readers are willing to do the same work entirely in their heads.

You may never want to touch a cow or get a sunburn, but if your life ended up entirely centered on rural self-reliance, you’d fit right in. Mostly, for all the knowledge in that big beautiful brain of yours. The farm memoirs alone will teach you more than most how-to books!

If the idea of living a quiet life in the country where you can schedule your outdoor farm work around chapter breaks or gaming sessions is so ideal you’re starting to tear up… You might be happier raising livestock.

Horse Girls

My friend Patty became a farmer because horses lead her there

Not in the way you think! While some horse girls already have farms and livestock, I am not talking about ranchers and trail riders. I am talking Horse Show Girls. I am talking competitors, hunter jumpers, dressage addicts, even barrel racers. The kind of women with a competitive edge they cant smite. That hunger goes a long way on a farm.

Also, the moxie. Don’t underestimate the gusto, folks. Despite being a woman who thinks a thousand-pound animal is something manageable from its back, you understand confidence is about so much more than half-passes and ribbons. It’s part of who you are.

Horsery also demands patience and understanding of animals too big to go to the vet in a Honda. Besides already being versed in large livestock care, you understand the joy of working directly with animals as a team.

You don’t have to hang up your full-seat breeches either. If you live in the country you live close to a lot of neighbors and clubs also into equine sports. Even I once competed in dressage! And just wait till your kids start showing heritage sheep in 4-H, that competitive edge will come right back, darlin.

The Hero’s Return is Your Life’s Goal

Are you the kind of person who feels a truly accomplished life is one where you are able to embrace the unknown, challenge yourself, overcome hardship (even possibly danger), and after all of that; finally feel content enough to reward yourself with security and safety? You might just be a better homesteader than you realize.

I am talking about the Hero’s Journey, specifically the return of said Hero. That very specific feeling of coming home again changed and improved.

I really believe that most first-generation farmers are drawn to this life for exactly this reason. Changing your world is an adventure, and making it to the point of safety is all any of us could ask for.

For example: the Hobbits coming back to the Shire after saving the world. You also dream of clinking tankards in a safe pub with friends after proving yourself in the field. You want to live a life of stories and lessons, not accumulating stuff and things. You’d rather be the example of courage’s reward than a well-paid conformist.

People with adventurous spirits understand this desire and so do people that craft stories. Your soul and your story wants to feel like there’s a happy ending, a safety that can be returned to. A place where you can settle down and focus on what you love instead of what you’ve been told you need.

You would be so content on a farm you might even pass on the chance to join an inquiring party of dwarves that want your help burgling a dragon.

Fortune favors the brave. See you out in the fields!

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