Look, I know this is going to sound absolutely insane, but for a hot minute there, I completely forgot that normal people don’t spend their weekends debating the merits of different chicken breeds or getting genuinely excited about the quality of their compost pile.
So when this person asked me what homesteading was all about, I basically turned into a malfunctioning robot. “Uh, well, we grow some food… and have chickens… and stuff…” Real compelling, Nichole. Way to sell the lifestyle that’s consumed the last decade of your life.
But that awkward conversation got me thinking about something I don’t often question: Is this homesteading thing actually important, or am I just obsessed with an elaborate hobby that makes me feel superior to people who buy their eggs at Costco?
Because let’s be real for a second. We don’t have to grow our own food. Grocery stores exist. Farmer’s markets exist. You can literally have organic vegetables delivered to your door while you sit in your pajamas watching Netflix.
We don’t have to raise chickens or milk cows or can tomatoes until our kitchen looks like a crime scene. There are plenty of people making these products professionally, probably more efficiently than we ever could.
So why are we all so obsessed with making our lives infinitely more complicated?
So, then WHY. Why, my friends? Why are so many of us obsessed with chasing this homesteading life?
After some serious soul-searching (and maybe a little bit of mild existential crisis), I’ve come to the conclusion that homesteading matters way more than I initially gave it credit for.
See, when people first get into this lifestyle, it’s usually for pretty practical reasons. Better food quality. Cost savings. Learning new skills. Environmental concerns. All valid, all important.
But here’s what I’ve realized after a decade of this madness: homesteading isn’t really about the chickens and tomatoes at all.
It’s about living your life on purpose instead of just letting it happen to you. It’s about creating meaning in a world that seems designed to make everything feel shallow and disposable. It’s about developing the kind of hands-rough-from-manual-labor satisfaction that our screen-obsessed culture has almost completely forgotten.
In a world where most people spend their days pushing buttons and moving money around computer systems, there’s something deeply grounding about work that produces actual, tangible results. When you collect eggs from chickens you raised, that’s real. When you eat vegetables you grew from seed, that’s real. When you make bread from grain you understand, that’s real.
And we desperately, desperately need more real things in our lives.
This isn’t some romantic fantasy about going back to simpler times. I’m not suggesting we all abandon modern medicine and indoor plumbing. But I am saying that modern life has stripped away so many of the activities that used to help humans feel grounded and purposeful.
We’ve traded homemade meals for fast food. We’ve traded community for social media. We’ve traded creating things with our hands for consuming things made by machines. We’ve traded understanding natural cycles for living under artificial lighting 24/7.
And then we wonder why depression and anxiety rates are through the roof. Why people feel disconnected and purposeless. Why kids can’t focus and adults can’t sleep.
What I’ll Always Come Back To
My life has taken some pretty wild turns lately. I’ve gotten to travel, speak to thousands of people, build businesses I never imagined possible. I’m incredibly grateful for all of it.
But no matter what opportunities come my way, no matter how exciting things get, I always come back to this: the homestead grounds me.
This lifestyle centres me in a way nothing else does. It connects me to natural rhythms and seasonal cycles that most people have completely lost touch with. It gives me work that feels meaningful, food that tastes incredible, and a sense of security that doesn’t depend on systems I can’t control.
What started as a simple desire to eat better food has turned into an insatiable craving for a life full of purpose, intentional choices, and memories that matter. I’ve found all of that in morning chores, afternoon garden walks, and evening barn conversations with animals who couldn’t care less about my online business or social media presence.
So yes, I’m completely convinced that homesteading matters. Not because it’s going to solve all the world’s problems, but because it’s one of the most effective ways I know to create a meaningful, grounded, intentional life in a world that seems determined to make everything fast, cheap, and forgettable.
It’s counter-cultural, unorthodox, and sometimes ridiculously inconvenient. And that’s exactly why we need it now more than ever.
The world doesn’t need more people who know how to order groceries with an app. It needs more people who know how to grow food, solve problems, work with their hands, and create communities. It needs people who understand that the best things in life require patience, effort, and getting your fingernails dirty.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on some sourdough starter and plan next year’s garden. Because that’s apparently what passes for excitement in my life these days, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
