Why this surge of interest? Anxiety certainly plays a role, here in our foxholes in the Great Recession. “People want to be more self-sufficient,” Halyna Shepko says. “Homesteading provides some security.”
Fear isn’t the only driver, though. “People lived off the land for thousands of years,” says Linda-Brook Guenther. “In the marrow of our bones, we still possess that wisdom. People are looking to reconnect with what, at a certain level, they already know.”
The time is ripe for homesteading: It’s plainly a meme that wants to propagate. Local practitioners are helping the process along by sharing their expertise with the community, both as volunteers and for pay. Levy and Serrano helped build gardens at the Marbletown Elementary School and the Rondout Valley Middle School. They also run a garden business called Hortus Conclusus, which means “Enclosed Garden” in Latin. Linda-Brook Guenther and her husband have also launched a garden business: Theirs is called Back to Basics (and, true to their values, it doesn’t have a website).
Indeed, an entire cottage industry for aspiring homesteaders is emerging—think of it as “Homesteader Helper.” Over in Red Hook, for instance, longtime gardener Jay Levine has launched the Hudson Valley Backyard Farm company, which helps people build and maintain gardens in their, you guessed it, backyards.
If you’re tempted to get into homesteading, here’s some free advice: Start small. There are plenty of ways to get involved without going the whole hog (or chickens, or whatever). You can plant tomatoes or herbs or a fruit tree. You can keep bees. And then, if you want, you can expand out from there, knowing that each new activity brings its own challenges and rewards and then do more and more and more, until, who knows, someday you too may be walking the fine line between passion and compulsion, out there with Levy and Serrano.
It’s a sweet thing to imagine: property owners throughout the Hudson Valley growing or raising their own food. It’s a vision that returns us to the past, when people had no choice but to be self-reliant, and it also takes us into the future, when we can expect more and more people to grow their own, whether out of economic necessity, green values, or simple pleasure.
“Going forward, I expect people to stay plugged into their communities and the grid,” says Linda-Brook Guenther. “But there will be many more homes with gardens, chickens, and bees.”
For Guenther, there’s a certain inevitability to this. “The ‘Eat Local’ movement encourages people to buy locally grown food. Homesteading is the next stage in the evolution of that concept.”
Then the articulate Guenther delivers a line that lands with a small explosion, coming across as both insight and challenge: “If it’s not in your backyard, it’s not local enough. Homesteading is the new local.”
Carl Frankel writes regularly about sustainability for Chronogram. He is the author of Out of the Labyrinth: Who We Are, How We Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It.
RESOURCES
Back to Basics 845-626-2317
Hortus Conclusus www.hortus.biz
Hudson Valley Backyard Farm Company www.hudsonvalleybackyardfarm.com
