Simple

Homesteading means a lot of things to a lot of people, but in my years of doing it, I can tell you one thing:  After the first few seasons, it is not so much about doing new things all the time, but rather getting better at doing the same things, over and over.

Some people might find this boring.  And the truth is, they'd be partially right.  

Your first year of homesteading is filled with the thrill of the new. Your first spring planting, your first clothesline, the first time you make a meal completely from what you gathered from your own property. It's tremendously exciting.  Add in your first livestock, your first big harvest, and your first winter of eating the stores you put up and it's, frankly, beyond thrilling. 

I remember watching our electric bill drop when we stopped using the clothes dryer and started hanging our wash.  Seeing the gas bill drop when we started using the solar oven.  We weren't off the grid, but we were less tied to it than ever before, and we had such a feeling of freedom and of pride about that.  Our neighbors would gape at us over the fence (some in an admiring way, others looking at us like we'd lost our minds) when they'd see us doing all those things, because at the time, we were the only ones doing them.

It's not so much that way now.  Homesteading has become quite trendy, and yards once again have clotheslines and vegetable gardens.  And for us, since we've been doing it for several years, it's not quite as exciting as when we first started.

It's a little bit like your first year of driving....you know, when everytime you got into a car and started up, a little tingle would run up your spine and you'd think to yourself, "Hey, I'm actually driving Mom's car now!  Holy cow!"  That feeling only lasts for a little while. One day, you get in the car, start it up and head off to school, work, or wherever, completely unconscious that, hey, you're actually driving.  Driving becomes all about watching the road while making task lists in your head and changing the radio station.  It's just one more thing you do.

And so it is with homesteading.  This morning I had a lovely harvest of spring onions, lettuce, carrots, and three eggs from the hens.  Later I went outside and gathered a basketful of mustard greens, boiled them and put them into freezer bags, for omelettes and what-not in the coming seasons. Then I cleaned out chicken coops and loaded the waste into the composter.   
  
All those things are now just stuff that happens, in one way or another, most days here. And while I enjoy and appreciate it all, I no longer shout about it from the rooftops.  Maybe I should, I don't know.  The one thing I do know is that fact that its routine does not necessarily mean it's time to charge off in search of another all-consuming tchotchke related to the homesteading lifestyle.

Because I've seen people get to the point where they have several homesteading skill sets under their belt, who go on regular quests to find something new to do (which usually means something new to buy), like a horse cart, some llamas, or an expensive loom, which will become their new focus and give them the excitement of the new all over again.  And it seems to me that's just a crunchier form of consumerism and the need to have a constant stream of novel stuff in their lives, just like their hipster, urban counterparts.

There's nothing wrong with gaining a new skill here and there as you master others and they become less time-consuming.  But the simple tasks of growing, harvesting, and making things yourself should always be the chores that take up the most of your home time, if you're really doing the homestead thing right.  Otherwise you're sampling, dabbling, hobbying -- whatever you want to call it.  

And that's OK, if that's where you are at and you're happy there.  Just don't call it homesteading.  It's really another form of consumerism, the antithesis of homesteading.

The reason homesteading is difficult to do long-term is exactly the reason so many of our parents and grandparents left it behind for the suburban, modern life.... it can be mundane and repetitious at times. Many of our ancestors found more excitement and variety in the Convenience Lifestyle, where it was OK to purchase the latest thing and be part of the newest trend.  Homesteading only offers variety in terms of what can go wrong after the first year or so, and while that's a challenge, it's not, strictly speaking, fun. (It IS fulfilling, meaningful, comforting and gratifying, however.)

But the answer to the dwindling fun quotient should probably not be to start adding expensive new new cob ovens, or cart horses, or llamas to our property because we're bored with the usual farm or home work we do on a daily basis.  

Those chores may not be as sexy and trendy as having a llama in your front yard or a horse and cart, but they are the simple jobs that make a household run, and that, if nothing else, should give us a sense of real satisfaction and pride.  It seems to me that making a home or farm work is, at its most basic, what homesteading is all about.

OK, rant over.