By NBC Television Network - eBay item photo front photo back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20327716
I have joked that the reason I want to live this way is because I watched too much Little House on the Prairie when I was a kid. This actually has a bit of validity. The dusk to dawn ever toiling life of the Ingalls family was written by Laura Ingalls Wilder right here in Missouri and published in the 1930s and 1940s. The timing of the television show, however, couldn’t have been better, unless it was now.
The 1973 Oil Embargo caused the prices of fuel to quadruple and quickly resulted in a recession that continued until 1975. Only five years later, the recession of 1980 forced Americans to once again tighten their wallets. Growing our own food and finding as much self-reliance as possible was a way to make food more affordable. There are two ways to deal with hard times, complain about them or embrace it. The Little House television series, while surprisingly depressing at times, romanticized pioneer life, and people loved it.
The 1970s also ushered in an era of organic gardening right on the heels of the first Earth Day. Americans were talking and writing about toxic chemicals both in general use and in agriculture. Wendell Berry’s 1977 book, The Unsettling of America, brought about a movement to grow and source healthy, chemical-free food. My husband and I grew up in this era. Our parents and grandparents canned on gas and electric stoves instead of woodstoves (although there was some woodstove cooking in our homes). Our gardens were tilled with engine powered rototillers instead of mules. Our clothes were washed in machines instead of on a creek bank, but they were still hung outside to dry. True to the decade, my mom made homemade yogurt. But this was rural life. In a moment of culture shock, my family moved to the vast expanse of suburban Detroit in 1984. Surrounded by neighborhood girls obsessed with Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and purple eyeshadow, I was a fish out of water and despite trying to live in both worlds from that point on, I didn’t fully return to my roots until the pandemic hit. And I don’t think I’m alone.
2020- The year history will try to forget. Already burning the candle at both ends, many of us were going a hundred miles an hour when we heard the rumors of a bad illness spreading in China. Three months later we were going zero miles per hour. The stillness was eerie. The empty daytime skies were reminiscent of September 11th. The empty parking lots were like scenes in apocalyptic movies. Stuck at home with nowhere to go at the same time the ground had become warm enough for seed made the next move obvious. When my husband made the brave trip to the grocery store the night before our world shut down I told him to buy six boxes of canning lids if he could find them (my foresight didn’t include a few extra packages of toilet paper, missed that one). It would be two years before we could easily get canning supplies, we were far from the only ones responding to the pandemic in this way. While any four walls and a roof is currently as much in demand as hand sanitizer was in 2020, anything with any amount of land is at an unprecedented premium.
Putting our new clothes line to good use
Why are so many of us opting for a homestead kind of lifestyle? I don’t think it’s a fad. We spent enough time removed from the treadmill to get a little clarity and perspective. We have a dysfunctional health system. We watched and read the news reports that millions of animals raised to land in our grocery stores were put down and buried. At the same time millions of pounds of vegetables, milk and eggs were also destroyed. This ended with the highest rate of inflation seen in a lifetime. Food prices are almost 26% higher today than in 2020. Vegetables grown up to thousands of miles away with the use of the chemicals we see listed in class action lawsuit advertisements. Meat from animals inhumanely raised in cramped spaces where diseases like bird flu flourish. If we can fill our own pantries and freezers with food from our own backyard, a neighbor’s or even a local farmer’s market, why wouldn’t we?
The definition of homesteading is a little fuzzy. Today it rarely refers to the act of acquiring government land through agricultural improvements. The Urban Dictionary defines homesteading as: “To do tasks and chores relating to being self-sufficient from the home. Examples would include: mucking the chicken coop, making jam, setting up a rain barrel, turning the compost, or even cleaning house. Can’t go out Saturday ‘cause I have a long day homesteading Sunday. I plan to install a rotating bookcase to a secret passageway or make muffins.” [1] Without getting in the weeds of the differences between homesteading and prepping, I think the point here is that any attempt to reduce purchasing your needs and become more self-reliant counts. Here we have chickens, honeybees, two gardens, ten fruit trees, perennial berries and rain barrels. Someday we hope to have solar panels, and a greenhouse. We’ve even talked about raising a few cows, for now bow hunting brings venison.
However and whyever you’re homesteading, you’re a part of what I believe is a great awakening. Whether you’re growing in an urban garden in a major city, making the most of a suburban lot or off-grid on a hundred acres, you are far from alone. As for Little House, there are some great lessons to be learned from that time and we should use them. However, I don’t see this as a call to martyrdom. My indoor bathrooms with hot water and toilet paper, air conditioning, deep freezers and gas-powered rototillers aren’t going anywhere.
Audrey L Elder
Fourteen Acre Wood
Fun Facts about The Little House on the Prairie-
A few pics from our 2015 visit to Mansfield, Missouri (which is also home to Bakers Creek Heirloom Seed Company). The house above is where Laura wrote the Little House books.
-Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 years old when she began writing the Little House book series.
Her daughter Rose was an accomplished writer and financially supported her parents. She pushed Laura to write about her childhood.
-The rights to the books were inherited in 1968 by Roger MacBride, a lawyer and politician who was the heir to Rose Wilder Lane’s estate. MacBride created and produced the Little House television series.
-Both the books and the television show were fictionalized versions of Laura’s life, family, and Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The Ingalls’ moved often and only lived in Walnut Grove for a few years, Mary was blinded from a childhood illness, but never married and Nellie Olson was a composite character of three mean girls Laura dealt with in her life.
[1] Urban Dictionary by Rubblegarden September 21, 2015
Nice blog articles! We all need to learn homesteading in order to be self-sufficient. And there is a huge sense of accomplishment when you grow the perfect vegetable or take an egg from a nest (of course, the chickens do all the work). LOVE your blog!