Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 3: Arranging Your Homestead
• Part 2 of 3: Grow your own food
• Part 3 of 3: Developing Peasant Skills
• Tips

The farmer finds great joy in setting up a basement instead of going to the store and buying something for dinner. Living in nature involves using the available land and resources to create a self-sustaining environment, or as close to one as possible. This lifestyle can span categories from construction to food and energy. Some people start out living as peasants for economic reasons or focus on a healthy lifestyle in their local setting. Building a homestead will take effort, patience and determination - but the rewards are well worth it.

Steps

Part 1 of 3: Arranging Your Homestead

1. 1 Make a plan. Before you throw yourself wholeheartedly into a peasant lifestyle, take a step back and really assess the situation. What are your long term goals? Are you just hoping to live more securely by growing food for yourself and finding your place in the community? Or are you hoping to become completely self-sufficient and live completely offline? Whether you're looking to buy a 26-acre parcel of land or just make your suburban home more resilient, you'll have to set goals and take time to come up with a plan. The following steps will help you learn the basics of peasant life, but you will also need to personalize your homestead and adapt it to your goals.
   • It will be really helpful to talk to someone (or several people) who have already started living like a peasant. They will be able to give you advice.
2. 2 Consider alternative energy sources. Part of peasant life is the concept of offline life. In particular, renewable energy methods are important when planning your homestead. Consider building your own solar panels, investing in wind turbines, or various hydropower systems. Consider logging at your property to heat in the winter.
   • Alternatively, alternative fuel sources such as biomass, ethanol or biodiesel could be considered.
3. 3 Prepare your homestead for winter. If you plan to be self-sufficient, you will need to winterize your home in order to live comfortably in your homestead during the winter. This is especially important for those settlers who live in colder climates. If you don't winterize your home but plan on heating, you will be wasting a lot of energy trying to keep your home warm.
4. 4 Create your own organic fertilizer source. Most farms grow a garden, the benefits of which you can take advantage of (and feed your family.) ... However, there are other ways to make fertilizer, such as composting and mulching leaves and grass.
5. 5 Get a dog. Every good homestead should have a dog, especially if your homestead is located far out of town. Dogs act as guards for both your family and your livestock. They are also great companionship when you go about your day to day household chores.

Part 2 of 3: Grow your own food

1. 1 Plant a garden. With a financial investment of just a few seeds, you can reap a harvest that far surpasses the cost of purchasing equivalent items from the store. Fresh produce not only provides better nutrition, but growing on your own land means you'll have better control over the pollutants that ultimately affect the food you eat. Any surplus can be sold or given away.
   • Plan ahead to grow fruits and vegetables that will ripen at different times throughout the year, so you can have food all year round.
   • Plant a herb garden so you have greens when you need them. Once your herbs have grown, you can dry them out and use them throughout the year.
   • Examine the crop turnover. If you choose to plant crops in large quantities, you must know the crop turnover.
2. 2 Build a chicken coop. Chickens are among the easiest to raise farm animals. However, instead of letting your chickens roam back and forth, you will need to build a chicken coop to house your bird. The best chicken coops have a place for chicks to walk and also nesting places where your chickens can lay their eggs. Alternatively, consider raising ducks or geese.
   • You can also build a rabbit cage. Rabbits are farm animals that are relatively easy to care for. Many settlers find that rabbit and chicken droppings work together very well, as rabbit droppings are "cold" and chicken droppings are "hot".
3. 3 Consider raising a cow. Of course, you can only do this if you have land to properly support the cow. In general, the minimum amount of land you should have when raising a cow is one acre. The benefits of having a cow are endless. Your family will be consuming fresh, all-organic dairy products, your other animals will be healthier because they are consuming milk by-products like whey, and your garden will be happy with the sheer amount of fertilizer your cow will produce.
   • If you have the opportunity and the land to do this, raise both dairy and beef cows.
4. 4 Raise other farm animals. Goats and pigs are excellent livestock. Goats are especially good because you can supplement the dairy you get from your cow with goat milk. Pigs are an excellent food source and can be sold as well. They can also be used to help plow the land and apply fertilizer.
5. 5 Get started with beekeeping. Beekeeping is another great way to become self-sufficient. Eat harvested honey, make waxy foods, sell it, or ferment it to make mead (among other uses).
6. 6 Preserve your fresh produce. Almost all fresh fruits and vegetables can be canned (although some are better than others). If you have a surplus of fruits or vegetables in your garden, you can store them for the season when produce is in short supply. If you plan on making a lot of canned food, it might be wise to invest in a pressure canning machine as it makes canning much easier and more efficient.
   • Learn to marinate food as well. Like canned food, pickled food can be very helpful in winter when fresh produce is scarce.
7. 7 Make your own dairy products. If you have a cow or goat, you need to learn how to make dairy products from their milk that can be made available to the whole family (or sold at farmers' markets.) Make butter, cheese, yogurt or ice cream and enjoy the fresh milk that your livestock provides for you.

Part 3 of 3: Developing Peasant Skills

1. 1 Learn to work with tools. When you were building and maintaining your homestead, you undoubtedly faced many problems that can only be solved with a toolbox. Check out the basics - hammers, screwdrivers, saws - and learn how to use a wider variety of tools.
   • You should also buy yourself a good knife and scabbard that you can tie to your belt.At the homestead, you never know when a knife will come in handy - whether you will have to use it to cut the rope or gently trim the wool of a sheep that is entangled in a rose hip.
2. 2 Learn how to sew your own clothes. Part of being self-sufficient is not having to buy anything from someone else. At the very least, you will need to know how to patch up clothes, mend socks, and sew up torn areas. If you can create your own clothes, you will be even more self-sufficient.
3. 3 Consider raising animals for wool. Llamas and sheep in particular are excellent livestock for a farm, and their wool can be traded or sold.
4. 4 Make your own soap and other products. Foods like soaps and candles can be made easily at home - all you need is a little practice. Learning how to make basic household items can help you make the transition from consumer to manufacturer.
   • You can also sell or trade your homemade products. Establish yourself as a seasoned artisan in your community.
5. 5 Reuse as many items as possible. Creating a cycle of use of your resources, where you can reuse materials, or where you can use something made by your efforts without having to go to the store to make a purchase, makes life at the homestead easier and more successful. You can use your chicken eggs. You can replenish your seed pool from plants that have gone to seed. Collect and reuse rainwater.

Tips

• Talk to people who started living in the homestead before starting this lifestyle yourself. Most likely, they will be able to give you a lot of helpful tips.
• Read this article as a guide to help you get started, but rethink these tips to fit your plan and goals.