Homesteaders were a unique breed. They were people filled with a spirit of adventure and a heart full of determination.I think every homesteader has a different answer, but they all have a common theme. Homesteaders are trying to increase their self-reliance and reduce their consumerism. Survivalists who talk of setting up a "retreat" to live on "after the crash" are anticipating a homesteading lifestyle, whether they know that's what it is called or not.Whatever your surroundings, homesteading is a state of mind, a state of awareness, and a state of being. The rewards include a sense of pride, accomplishment, and self-confidence that comes from knowing you can (and do) take care of yourself and your family, as opposed to merely "taking care of the bills". Homesteading is whatever you make it. Homesteading means that your life has whatever meaning you give it.
"It's not a single idea, but many ideas and attitudes, including a reverence for nature and a preference for country life; a desire for maximum personal self-reliance and creative leisure; a concern for family nurture and community cohesion; a certain hostility toward luxury; a belief that the primary reward of work should be well-being rather than money; a certain nostalgia for the supposed simplicities of the past and an anxiety about the technological and bureaucratic complexities of the present and the future; and a taste for the plain and functional." --- JD Belanger, Countryside Magazine
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