For me, this title goes hand-in-hand with the old saying, "There's no wrong way to do the right thing." For me, homesteading is the right thing. That doesn't mean that it is the right thing or the right terminology that describes the ideas and values of everyone in the world, but it's right for me. There are people who would say that I'm doing it wrong. Even if I winnow down and call my journey "urbansteading" there are people who want to say that I'm just playing around. Those people are clearly missing the point.

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The story hasn't changed since the founding of our country. The pilgrims who first came here had no clue what they were doing. (Seriously, have you ever researched what a complete and total circus the colony at Jamestown was?) It was a similar story for the pioneers who settled the American West. Some of these people might have had minimal experience with gardening and livestock, but many people who chose to go west were several generations removed from rural farm living and the inherent skills that would have come with that kind of upbringing. There was a steep learning curve for these greenhorns and there was certainly no such thing as a "typical homestead."

We are now experiencing a kind of resurgence of the pioneer mentality. More and more people are becoming aware of the world that has been created for them and they want out. There is a wave of people who feel like homesteading, permaculture, or subsistence farming could be the right answer for them and they are packing up everything they thought they knew and moving forward with little more than inexperience and gumption to guide them - and that's okay. The thought that there are people in the world there who think that the only right way to do things is exactly how they've been doing them is ridiculous. Now, like then, there is no such thing as a typical homestead.

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In its very essence, homesteading is about doing the best you can for yourself and your family with what you have on hand and/or what you can get easily in your area. It doesn't matter if your spouse works full time at a corporate job while you stay home and help with a kidding. It doesn't matter if your garden doesn't actually go in the ground. It doesn't matter if you don't home-school your kids and, in my case, it doesn't matter if I'm in a 600sqft apartment in the middle of downtown. The only thing that matters is that you're doing it.

Everybody is just doing the best they can and instead of telling someone - or telling yourself - about what is and isn't homesteading, perhaps we could do better. Perhaps we could remember that homesteaders have relied for centuries on a strong sense of community and togetherness. We could remember that the things that our neighbors did differently from us used to be considered a benefit to the community. Learn what your neighbors are good at and allow them to learn the same about you and.

Allow yourselves to make a better, weirder-looking, homemade homestead community that is stronger together than apart.