Countryside magazine talks about Urban homesteading. Do you know what it is?

**homesteadmamma** · 08-20-2002, 05:08 PM

Countryside magazine is one of the best homesteading magazines that I've found. Recently they had an article about urban homesteading. Do you know what urban homesteading is and do you classify yourself as an urban homesteader?

**aylasmommy** · 08-20-2002, 05:12 PM

i don't know, what is it?

**bmiltimore** · 08-20-2002, 05:42 PM

What is it?

**PrairieRose** · 08-20-2002, 05:44 PM

Do tell! I might be a tried and true one...but before I fess up I wanna know what I'll be fessing up to!

**homesteadmamma** · 08-20-2002, 05:46 PM

Got you all guessing. I'm going to wait and see if we get anymore responses then I'll tell you.

**bmiltimore** · 08-20-2002, 05:47 PM

Okay, I went to the magazines website, so now I know what it is

I signed up for a free issue!

If I had the time and resources--I would totally do it!

**~Sherry~** · 08-20-2002, 07:10 PM

I think its homesteading, but in the city setting.
You can homestead anywhere... just a bit differently.

**homesteadmamma** · 08-20-2002, 07:47 PM

Yes your right. Its homesteading in the city, small rural town or anywhere for that matter.

Urban homesteading is becoming as self-sufficient has you can wherever you live. We live in a small rural town of under 500 people. We are true urban homesteaders in that we garden, quilt, knit, make my own bread, can/preserve, make as much food as we can from scratch, grind my own grain, etc. We also have a generator should our electricity go out.

We won't ever be totally off grid, but we are working at not being as reliant on big businesses so that should an emergency happen, we are able to take care of ourselves along with helping others.

We started when we lived in the city. I read as much as I could and began with a small garden. Each year I tried something new, increased our garden size and its blossomed to where its at now. We love it.

Whenever we build something or want to learn something, we look at what we have in order to do so. We wanted to build an garden shed and instead of building a seperate building, were making an addition to dh's workshop (an old garage he totally redid with recycled supplies) and decided to to use old doors and windows from our home (were replacing with new ones). Almost everything will be recycled including the door handle on the door.

We don't have animals because when we purchased our home, we wanted to pay cash for it and to purchase land and a house would have put us into debt, something we refused to do. So we make do with what we have, dh and kids fish, and dh is taking up hunting this coming fall.

Do we work hard - nope. Not any harder than others do. Do we live a simple life - YES. Are we enjoying ourselves - you bet!!