What I Got Wrong When I Started Homesteading

When I first started homesteading, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into.

I was wrong.

Not completely wrong. I had some things figured out. But I underestimated how much work was involved, how expensive some things could become, how often plans would change, and just how much I would learn by doing things badly the first time.

That’s probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since starting Blue Gypsy Homestead:

You don’t really learn how to homestead by reading about homesteading or watching YouTube. These are just the starting point.

You learn by homesteading.

And sometimes the lesson comes with a price tag.

Sometimes it comes with a broken piece of equipment.

Sometimes it comes with a failed crop.

And occasionally, it involves chasing rabbits around the property because a door was left open.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes.

Here are some of the bigger ones.

I Thought I Needed to Do Everything at Once

This was probably my first mistake.

I had ideas.

A lot of ideas.

- - Gardening.
  - Rabbits.
  - Chickens.
  - Food preservation.
  - Freeze-drying.
  - Greenhouses.
  - Infrastructure.
  - Selling products.
  - Building a business.
  - Improving the land.

It all seemed connected, and in my head, I could see how everything was eventually going to fit together.

The problem was that eventually is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

A homestead doesn’t appear overnight.

Neither does the infrastructure required to support one.

I’ve learned that trying to do everything simultaneously is a fantastic way to make yourself feel like you’re accomplishing nothing.

These days, I try to focus on what actually needs to happen next.

Not everything that could happen.

I Thought Homesteading Would Save Me Money

This one deserves a laugh.

Because technically, homesteading can save money.

But it can also cost a hell of a lot of money.

- - Seeds cost money.
  - Soil amendments cost money.
  - Tools cost money.
  - Lumber costs money.
  - Feed costs money.
  - Fencing costs money.
  - Animal housing costs money.
  - Equipment costs money.
  - And then there are all the little things.
  - The $20 item.
  - Then another $30 item.
  - Then the thing you forgot you needed.
  - Then the thing that breaks.

Suddenly your inexpensive project isn’t quite as inexpensive as you imagined.

I’ve learned that homesteading isn’t automatically cheaper than buying something at the grocery store.

What it can provide is something different.

- - Control.
  - Knowledge.
  - Food production.
  - Less dependence on outside systems.
  - The satisfaction of knowing exactly where something came from.

Those things have value too.

I Underestimated How Much Time Everything Takes

This may be the biggest one.

Something that looks like a two-hour project has an irritating habit of becoming a two-day project.

You start by fixing one thing.

That reveals another thing.

Which leads to another thing.

And suddenly you’re standing in the middle of the property holding a tool you don’t remember picking up, wondering what happened to your afternoon.

That’s normal.

I’ve learned to build more time into my plans.

I’ve also learned that some projects don’t need to be finished today.

That’s a difficult lesson for someone who likes solving problems.

Sometimes the smartest thing I can do is stop, think about it, and come back tomorrow.

I Thought I Needed the Best Equipment

I have a technical background.

I like equipment.

I like tools.

I like technology.

That can become dangerous when you’re trying to build a homestead on a budget.

It’s very easy to convince yourself that you need the best version of everything.

- - The biggest.
  - The newest.
  - The most capable.
  - The thing with twelve different features you probably won’t use.

I’ve learned to ask a different question:

What do I actually need this thing to do?

That’s a much better question.

Sometimes the answer is a high-quality piece of equipment.

Sometimes the answer is something much simpler.

And sometimes the answer is that I don’t need the thing at all.

I Thought More Animals Meant More Production

When I started looking at livestock, it was easy to think in terms of numbers.

More rabbits means more meat.

More chickens means more eggs or meat.

Simple, right?

Not really.

More animals also mean:

- - More feed.
  - More cleaning.
  - More housing.
  - More water.
  - More management.
  - More potential problems.

I’ve learned that the goal isn’t to have as many animals as I can physically keep.

The goal is to have the right number of animals for my land, resources, time and needs.

That’s a very different way of looking at livestock.

I Didn’t Take Predator Protection Seriously Enough

I understood that predators existed.

I just didn’t fully appreciate how creative they can be.

A rural property isn’t a sealed environment.

- - There are coyotes.
  - There are wolves.
  - There are smaller predators.
  - There are birds of prey.

And there are animals that seem to have made it their personal mission to figure out how to get into whatever I’ve just spent money building.

I’ve learned to look at animal housing differently.

Instead of asking:

“Does this look secure?”

I ask:

“How would I get into this if I were a predator?”

That mindset has saved me from more than one potential problem.

I Thought a Garden Was Mostly About Planting

This one makes me laugh now.

You put seeds in the ground.

You water them.

Plants grow.

You harvest vegetables.

Right?

Sure.

Except there’s also:

- - Weeding.
  - Pests.
  - Weather.
  - Poor soil.
  - Too much rain.
  - Not enough rain.
  - Disease.
  - Animals eating things.
  - Plants growing where you don’t want them.
  - Plants refusing to grow where you do want them.

And then there’s the harvest.

Sometimes everything ripens at once.

The garden doesn’t care that I already have three other projects waiting.

I’ve learned that growing food is only part of gardening.

Managing the garden is the other part.

I Didn’t Plan Enough for Food Preservation

This is something I’ve become much more conscious of.

Growing food is great.

But what happens when I have more food than I can eat?

That’s where preservation becomes important.

- - Canning.
  - Freezing.
  - Dehydrating.
  - Freeze-drying.

These aren’t just ways of dealing with leftovers.

They’re part of the production system.

I’ve learned that if I don’t think about preservation before the harvest arrives, I can end up with a very large problem disguised as a very successful garden.

The more food I grow, the more important preservation becomes.

I Thought Every Project Needed to Be Finished Properly

This is another mistake that took me a while to get over.

There’s a temptation to build everything properly from the beginning.

- - Permanent structures.
  - Perfect layouts.
  - Professional materials.
  - Everything exactly where it belongs.

But when you’re building a homestead while watching your budget, that’s not always realistic.

Sometimes I need a temporary solution.

Sometimes I need to use what I already have.

Sometimes I need to build something inexpensive now and improve it later.

I’ve learned that functional today is sometimes better than perfect someday.

That doesn’t mean I want everything to be temporary.

It means I don’t need to spend money I don’t have simply because I want the finished version immediately.

I Thought I Needed to Know Everything Before Starting

This might be the biggest mistake of all.

I spent a lot of time researching.

And research is useful.

But at some point, you have to stop reading and start doing.

There is only so much you can learn about raising rabbits without actually raising rabbits.

Only so much you can learn about gardening without putting something in the ground.

Only so much you can learn about food preservation without actually preserving food.

Experience fills in the gaps that research can’t.

And experience has a particularly effective way of teaching lessons I would rather not forget.

I Didn’t Expect How Much I Would Have to Adapt

I used to think of plans as something you created and then followed.

Homesteading has changed that.

Now I think of plans as starting points.

- - Weather changes.
  - Animals behave differently than expected.
  - Equipment fails.
  - Money gets redirected.
  - Crops fail.
  - Something more urgent comes along.
  - A better idea appears.
  - The homestead changes.

So I change with it.

I’ve learned that adaptability isn’t a sign that the original plan failed.

Sometimes adaptability is the plan.

I Underestimated the Value of Doing Things Myself

This one surprised me.

At first, I was mostly focused on the practical benefits.

- - Growing food.
  - Raising animals.
  - Preserving food.
  - Saving money.
  - Building a business.

But there is something else happening.

I’m becoming more capable.

Every time I repair something, build something, grow something, preserve something or figure out a problem, I know a little more than I did before.

That knowledge accumulates.

And eventually you realize that you’re not just building a homestead.

You’re building yourself into someone who can handle more things.

That’s worth something.

I Thought Failure Meant I Was Doing Something Wrong

I’ve changed my thinking about this considerably.

Failure is inevitable.

- - A crop fails.
  - A project doesn’t work.
  - An animal escapes.
  - Something breaks.
  - A product doesn’t sell.
  - A plan turns out to be a bad idea.

The important part isn’t avoiding every failure.

It’s figuring out what the failure is trying to teach me.

If I make the same mistake five times without learning anything, that’s a problem.

If something fails once and I understand why, it becomes useful information.

I’ve stopped treating every failure as evidence that I shouldn’t be doing this.

Sometimes it’s simply evidence that I need to do something differently.

What I Would Tell Myself If I Could Start Again

I wouldn’t tell myself to stop.

- - I’d tell myself to slow down.
  - Start smaller.
  - Spend less.
  - Learn more by doing.
  - Don’t try to build everything at once.
  - Don’t assume the cheapest option is always the best option.
  - Don’t assume the most expensive option is necessary.
  - Pay attention to the animals.
  - Pay attention to the land.
  - Pay attention to what actually works.
  - And NEVER get too attached to the original plan.

Because the homestead I have today isn’t the homestead I imagined when I started.

It’s better in some ways.

Worse in others.

Messier than I expected.

More work than I expected.

More expensive than I expected.

But also more meaningful than I expected.

The Biggest Thing I Got Wrong

I thought homesteading was primarily about doing things.

- - Growing food.
  - Raising animals.
  - Building things.
  - Preserving food.
  - Selling products.
  - Fixing problems.

But I’ve come to realize that it’s really about learning how to live differently.

It’s learning to look at a problem and ask what I can do about it.

It’s learning to use what I already have before buying something new.

It’s learning to accept that not everything will work.

It’s learning to make use of abundance when I have it.

It’s learning to prepare for the times when I don’t.

And maybe most importantly, it’s learning that I don’t need to have everything figured out before I move forward.

I just need to figure out what comes next.

That’s probably the best lesson homesteading has given me so far.

And I’m know it isn’t the last.

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Blue Gypsy Homestead is a 62-acre farm located approximately 35 minutes south of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The homestead is a one-man operation focused on practical homesteading, gardening, livestock, food preservation, freeze-drying, small-scale agriculture and rural entrepreneurship. Through personal experience, Blue Gypsy Homestead shares the mistakes, lessons, successes and challenges involved in building a productive homestead while working within real-world financial, time and resource constraints. This article provides a first-person account of the lessons learned from starting a homestead, including the realities of costs, livestock, gardening, infrastructure, food preservation, equipment, planning and adapting when things don’t go according to plan.