If you knew me growing up you’d probably be surprised to find out that after a perfectly normal suburban childhood, I ended up standing in a chicken coop at 5 a.m. ankle-deep in straw and chicken poo.

After all, that was never the plan. I grew up in the complacency of small town America. We had a fine house with a beautiful back yard, neighborhood friends, and wonderbread sandwiches. Once a year near Halloween, my parents would take us three kids to a small family farm with a pumpkin patch. I’m fairly certain that annual trip was the closest I ever got to the farmlife.

Now, 26 and on my own in rural Vermont — things have changed. Bread comes from my oven — not plastic bags with twist ties. Eggs come from the chicken coop — not a styrofoam container. And vegetables come from the garden not the produce section (though technically, the garden is the produce section of the property, but you know what I mean.) My life went from an urban design job in the city to the path of an apprentice shepherd. While I still have a 9-5 job, my weekends are spent at sheepdog clinics and lambing seminars. The dream is to raise lambs up here in the gambols of Vermont. And the road to that reality is a lot different than the one I’ve been trained for in college. (They don’t teach you how to pull out an inverted lamb from a stubborn ewe in typography classes, just a heads up for any designers-turning-farmers out there.) Anyway,  I’ve been sweating, tilling, and stepping in random feces for a few years now and whenever someone who knew me before all paths lead to sheep runs into me, they always ask me the same question.

Why?

Why would a perfectly normal middle class gal, who had a nice city job, and a pleasant apartment pick up her life and shake it till trowels and feed sacks fell out? Why spend a year learning to raise chickens and keep bees and nearly pass out of heat stroke in the garden when eggs, honey, and broccoli are all for sale at the grocery store for less than the cost of that hoe in your blistered hands?

There are a lot of canned answers to this and you know them already. As fellow homesteaders (or friends there of) you get the whole “homegrown-satisfaction-quality-of-life-green-living” bit. All those reasons ring true for me too, but there’s something else writhing below those surface answers. Something deeper that makes me smile in the garden or laugh from my belly in the bird yard.

It’s the honesty of knowing what I do everyday directly helps keep me alive.

It’s that simple.

Gardening, farming, raising animals — these are seen as labor or hobbies to most. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me “Farming isn’t my thing” which is always said with flippant arrogance masquerading as either city-slicker inadequacy or self-effacing ambivalence. Which is fine. If it weren’t for people not wanting to farm, farmers wouldn’t have any business in the first place. But here’s the thing. If you ever ate anything that had to be raised, slaughtered, or planted — farming is definitely your thing. Actually, It’s the only thing.

We can sit on the porch and talk all day about philosophy and religion and what people want. But the conversation about what the human animal needs is pretty short — food, shelter, water, protection. While I love the literature, art, and amazing questions people ask about ‘what we want’. I find true peace and purpose taking control of what I need.

Raising and growing your own is more than a lifestyle — it is life. Contrary to popular belief there is nothing altruistic about it. Homesteading is the most self-involved way to live. But it’s exactly how most animals do live, and there’s no logical reason for any of us to think we have the world figured out better than anything else stumbling around the planet. Animals live a wild life of procuring food and creating life. The shepherd with a lamb in his arms is no different than the wolf with a lamb in his jaws. Two animals with food being the center of their present lives. I love that so much about farming, you just can’t know.

So I suppose that is why I homestead. The correctness of survival. The wildness of understanding basic needs. It all draws me in and keeps the bit between my teeth. It lets me feel more a part of the world in the most basic sense. Thanks to the egg, garden, and lamb — I too can gain all the satisfaction I need from being in charge of my own life. You know, there’s a reason eating a salad you grew yourself tastes so good, and if you don’t believe me, you can ask that wolf.

Jenna Woginrich is the author of the forthcoming book,  Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life, from Storey Publishing. Visit her Web site at coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com.

Ponds serve several purposes from fishing to swimming to even increasing the value of your property. Building or maintaining one can be easy if you put a moderate amount of time and work into keeping it up. To learn more about constructing or keeping your pond happy, check out the The Pond Guidebook, recently published by the NRAES ( Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service). It offers plenty of information, including management tips, information about water chemistry, and a step-by-step procedure on how to construct a pond. The book was written for ponds that reside in the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and the Mid-Atlantic United States, but it looks like ponds from all over could benefit from this information. Or it’s just fun to look at the photographs of different landscapes and wildlife. Visit www.nraes.org to view some sample pages of the book.

Remember summer camp and the crafts you made there – multi-colored gimp lanyards, clay-rope pots, belts woven on hand-held looms? It was a special time made up of nature walks, communal living and learning new skills. Some of us wish those summer camp days would never end. And they don’t have to.

In Brasstown, North Carolina, is a wonderful school, The John C. Campbell Folk School, that “offers year-round weeklong and weekend classes for adults in craft, art, music, dance, cooking, gardening, nature studies, photography and writing.” In fact, each year the school offers 860 weeklong and weekend classes. Imagine spending a week learning how to blacksmith or make brooms and chair seats.

The school was founded in 1925, based on Danish folkehojskoles (folk schools), and over its 80-year history has invited thousands of people to spend a few days in the mountains learning a new handicraft or skill.

Have you attended a similar school? Share your experiences in the comment section, below.

If you’re anything like me, it’s not easy for you to saunter up to a vendor at the local farmers market and grill them about their growing practices. I’ve always felt funny asking for a tomato’s life history — it’s such a relief when the vendor posts a sign stating whether or not their product is organic. What if they do use pesticides, and you’re the 80^th person that day to give them an unintentional guilt trip? It may not be pretty. Grist posted a handy farmers market etiquette guide to help you through the sometimes uncomfortable experience of exercising your right to know what you’re eating.

Urban homestead gardening can take many forms, from courtyard raised-bed gardens to potted tomatoes on an eighth-floor apartment balcony.

But what if you don’t have the time or space to plant, weed and harvest? Buying and eating local is one option. But check out how some urbanites are becoming clean-hand garden owners, right in their own backyard. You might even be inspired to put your gardening experience to work starting an urban garden business.

According to Melissa Breyer in The New York Times magazine, in the Northeast alone, nearly 20,000 farms are run by women. Here are a few inspiring tales of women who respect real food, and the land from which it comes. 

There’s good news today from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, (USDA). They’ve finally taken a step in the right direction when it comes to informing consumers about beef recalls. According to a press release from the Consumers Union, the USDA will now disclose which retailers carry the beef involved in any “Class 1” recall. 

Class 1 recalls are issued when it’s believed that a supply of beef could have potentially serious adverse health effects to those who consume it. The largest recall in U.S. history to date — the Hallmark/Westland downer cattle debacle — was a Class 2 recall because officials didn’t think beef from the facility's sick/injured cattle put the public at risk. 

Prior to the USDA’s announcement, when a shipment of beef was believed to be contaminated (usually with deadly E.coli bacteria), consumers were only notified of the states to which the beef was shipped. In some cases, they were lucky enough to receive a number or date to look for on a package. Now we’ll have a list of grocery retailers and supermarkets to reference.

If you’re listening USDA, thank you, but we’d also love to see the new rule extended to Class 2 recalls as well. Consumers have the right to know what they’re purchasing and from where. 

Recently, it has been suggested that Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land be taken out of the program and put into corn production. According to the Natural Resources Conservation Services, a branch of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “the Conservation Reserve Program reduces soil erosion, protects the Nation's ability to produce food and fiber, reduces sedimentation in streams and lakes, improves water quality, establishes wildlife habitat, and enhances forest and wetland resources. It encourages farmers to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filterstrips, or riparian buffers. Farmers receive an annual rental payment for the term of the multi-year contract. Cost sharing is provided to establish the vegetative cover practices.”

The USDA estimates that CRP land reduces greenhouse gas equal to taking 11 million cars off the road.

You can read more on this debate on the Environmental Working Group’s blog, hosted by EWG president Ken Cook. Plus, learn how you might enroll your land in the CRP program.

Most urban and suburban homesteaders have yet to abandon their lush green lawns in favor of native plantings or veggie patches. In fact the National Geographic Green Guide tip of the week reports that "lawns are the single largest irrigated crop in America, covering 128,000 square kilometers--three times the surface area the U.S. corn crop covers."

Read the Green Guide tip, "Be a Stickler with your Sprinkler" to learn how you can conserve water while maintaining your lawn.

Attention rural lifestyle enthusiasts: If you like to read about modern homesteading and sustainable farming, we’ve got just the thing for you. Sign up for our Simple Living & Country Skills e-newsletter, and every two weeks we’ll deliver a compilation of our best content directly to your inbox. Click here to get started.

Our national anthem says that we are the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” But some Amish folks in Pennsylvania are having a battle over their use of outhouses that threatens their religious FREEdom.

In the June/July 2008 issue of the magazine, we printed a letter from a brave reader, Denise Smith, regarding the plight of this group of 50 Amish families. In her letter, Denise asked for any help that readers might be able to offer. And as would be expected of Mother's readers, the response was terrific. Here is a note of thanks from Denise:

“Mother Earth News, I want to thank you for publishing my letter regarding the Amish Outhouse battle here in Pennsylvania. I have received hundreds of e-mails from your readers sharing wonderful ideas and some just offering encouragement. We are still attempting to work out a solution so the Amish school can open in the fall. Thanks to your readers we are armed with much knowledge and have several ideas on how to solve this dilemma. I have been very busy assisting my husband on this endeavor; however, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for your part in helping us help the Amish. You and your readers are great! With much appreciation, Denise Smith.”