Live the Homesteading Dream

Reader Contribution by John Ivanko
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Henry David Thoreau once wrote: “If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”

One could say that Thoreau was as an effective homesteader as Helen and Scott Nearing. My wife (Lisa Kivirist), son (Liam) and I share this homesteading quest. (And it’s a quest, for sure, for there’s always something new to learn or challenge to overcome.)

Like Thoreau and the Nearings, we feel more alive and participative in the natural world around us on our 5.5 acre homestead and organic farmstead than Lisa and I ever did walking through a corporate cubicle maze in the city. We call our Wisconsin homestead, where we operate our farm and bed and breakfast, Inn Serendipity to remind us to embrace new friends, new ideas and new foods. In many ways, that’s what the Mother Earth News Fair is all about and why we love participating in it.

Today, we manage to grow 70 percent of our food in our kitchen gardens and produce 110-percent of our energy (no typo, we get paid by our utility company!) with a 10kW Bergey wind turbine and .7kW photovoltaic system.

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