Today I'm talking with Troy at Homesteading-ish. You can follow on Facebook as well. Homesteading-ish is a conference for new or current homesteaders. "Do you want to learn how start your own homestead? Already have a homestead property and need some extra help? We're bringing the homestead community together. Real people, real life homestead experience, all in one place, learning and living out dreams." Use coupon code HOMESTEAD24 to get $10.00 off admission price If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Troy at Homesteading-ish. Tell me about Homesteading-ish. Why is it called that? So it's Homesteading-ish is kind of an acronym. It's homesteading in search of help. So the ish is an acronym. 00:29 And it was really, obviously the homesteading movements is really taken off here in the last several years and there's a lot of conferences and those things popping up. But here in West Virginia, we have not had one yet. So we thought, well, this will be a great opportunity to kind of do an inaugural conference here in the state. You get in these mountainous states, homesteading becomes a little bit more of a challenge in certain areas. So we thought, well, there's a lot of people in 00:58 It's a rural state, so there's a lot of people that already kind of have that. You know, we raise a backyard garden, we do that kind of stuff. But what can we do to encourage them to maybe look deeper into a homesteading lifestyle? So that's kind of why we thought in search of help. So you're kind of already homesteading, but you're also in search of help. You're looking for that extra push or some of those new ideas. 01:22 Awesome. I didn't even think about the fact that the ish was an acronym. I'm not with it today. So define your version of homesteading for me because I have talked to so many people in the last year who have different definitions. So what's yours? Yeah, so that's a great question, Mary, because it is all over the board. So I personally have a social media presence and talking about 01:53 for goodness, probably eight years now. And I still get people saying, wait a minute, you're not homesteading. The Homesteading Act of 1863 was, you know, that's done, nobody's doing that anymore. And it's like, well, okay, maybe we need to call it modern homesteading, or as my grandma would say, well, it's just everyday life because that was rural life for her. So I think it means different things to different people, but I look at it as taking more responsibility for 02:20 your livelihood when it comes to food, when it comes to income, when it comes to security, when it comes to just keeping the lights on type of thing. I think it's a pretty broad brush that we can paint with, but it'll mean a little bit of different things for different people. Somebody said, well, you're not really homesteading if you don't have this many acres, or you're not really homesteading if you don't have this many animals, or if you don't at least grow this much percentage of the food that you consume. 02:49 And I don't think there's any specific parameters that we need to put on that. I see people, I've got a friend, Harold Thornbrough, my goodness, that guy's homesteading on like two acres and he puts away more food than people on 10 acres do. So I don't think there's limitations that could be set on that, but I think it does have some fluidity for people depending on what their motivations are. Okay. 03:14 And you just made me really think about this because I haven't really defined it for myself either. And as you were talking, I was like, so the only people who aren't doing homesteading are those who don't actually do anything themselves. Like they don't cook for themselves. They don't do their own laundry. They don't grow anything. You know, if they don't have any self-sustainability skills, then they are not a homesteader. That's how I would define it. Yeah. And I think there has to be a conscious effort. Again, 03:41 I don't think my grandma, obviously, she didn't call it home studying back then, but if you came back and said, are you trying to be kind of push against the cultural norm in what you're doing when it comes to your food and your income and how you raise your family, all that type of stuff, you'd say, well, no, no, this is everyday life for us. So you fast forward now to our generation and say, what's everyday life? Well, everyday life is kind of a nine to five. It's a... 04:11 commute to an office, it's a majority of the population living either urban or suburban. And so home setting would be, well, we're kind of ...
