Practical Homesteading

Tag: modern homesteading

  • The Smartphone That Keeps My Homestead and Working Mom Life Together

    The Smartphone That Keeps My Homestead and Working Mom Life Together

    The most important invention in your lifetime is…

    The most important invention of my lifetime? The smartphone—my love-hate lifeline that keeps my homestead, work, and kids from spinning apart.

    Some mornings, I gather eggs between work calls just to catch my breath. By bedtime, the glow of a screen competes with story time and the sound of rain outside our farmhouse window. Some days, the constant ping of notifications makes me want to toss the thing straight into the compost pile.

    But here’s the truth: that little screen helps me grow food, raise kids, and build community in ways younger me couldn’t have imagined. That connection keeps the loneliness of rural life at bay.

    I hunt for fresh ways to use up garden produce, share turkey videos with faraway friends, and text neighbors to swap garden tips or photos of the first spring seedlings. After sharing my post on how to plant onion seeds, it’s been fun seeing those early sprouts push through the soil. It’s the perfect reminder that growth takes time. When our chicks struggled to hatch last year, a quick YouTube search saved both the day—and the chicks.

    Digital tools blur the line between work and home—but that overlap keeps me grounded. In this modern era of homesteading and family life, connection is survival—it’s how we share ideas, find support, and remind each other that the mess and magic of everyday life are worth it.

    Feature Photo by Adrien on Unsplash

    What invention helps you juggle the chaos of working motherhood and homesteading life? Share your must-have tool or favorite homestead app in the comments below!

    If this resonated with your own mix of work calls, garden chores, and bedtime stories, please like this post. Share it with another mom trying to balance homesteading and real life.

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    Next Read: How Teams + Chickens Power My Work-from-Home Mom Life

  • What 1990 Taught Me About Hard Work, Family, and Homesteading

    What 1990 Taught Me About Hard Work, Family, and Homesteading

    Share what you know about the year you were born.

    1990: The year history was made.

    I’m not being boastful — that really was a commercial I remember from childhood, announcing The Simpsons as “the show that defined a decade” and giving my actual birthdate. Maybe that’s why the phrase stuck with me. It felt like the world and I arrived on the same wave of something new — a time buzzing with energy and change.

    The world in 1990 was shifting fast. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, Nelson Mandela walked free after 27 years in prison, and for a while, it felt like anything was possible. At home in the U.S., George H. W. Bush was president, grunge was brewing in Seattle, and the first home computers were finding their way into family living rooms. Back then, families were swapping cassette tapes for computer disks, unaware of how much life was about to speed up.

    I don’t remember those big events firsthand — my world then was much smaller. My earliest memories are of the dairy barn, helping with chores before sunrise. I’d carry buckets and gently clean udders before it was time to milk. The smell of hay, cows, and the cool morning air still lingers in my memory.

    We also had a big garden that helped feed our family all year long. My parents even kept a separate garden just for potatoes — and we worked hard to fill the cellar every fall. Summer days were spent picking beans, baling hay, and gathering whatever the earth offered. My parents may not have been the most patient, but they taught me what perseverance looks like. If something needed doing, you didn’t wait around — you did the work. That mindset has never left me.

    Now, decades later, those lessons have come full circle. These days, we can vegetables and fruits, raise our own pork, and tend our garden much like my family always did. Only now, I understand the meaning behind the work. Homesteading isn’t just about self-reliance. It’s about finding peace in the effort, purpose in the blisters, and gratitude in what each season provides.

    So maybe 1990 really was the year history was made. It was also the year one farm kid began learning what it means to build a life from the ground up — shaped by family, faith, and the steady rhythm of work that still anchors me today.

    Now it’s your turn. What year shaped you, and what lessons from your childhood still guide you today?

    If you’ve ever looked back and seen the roots of who you are, you’ll fit right in here. Like this post and share with your friends. Subscribe for more stories about homesteading, family life, and finding meaning in the work that sustains us.

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    Suggested Image Ideas:
    A sunrise over a dairy barn or pasture.

    A basket of freshly dug potatoes or preserved vegetables.

    Vintage farm tools or a child helping with chores.



    #Homesteading #FamilyFarm #RuralLife #SimpleLiving #1990sNostalgia #FarmStories #BackToBasics #CountryLife #MindfulLiving #SelfSufficiency