How to Balance Between Technology and Homesteading Without Going Crazy

Homesteading can take on different faces. I’m finding it’s more of a process that I realized it would be. We’re not totally off grid, and we’re not completely on, either. 

Striking a balance between technology and offline fun can seem a bit complicated for many of us. I homeschool a Kindergartener who loves her screen time more than I want her to. 

We managed to pry her fingers loose from the iPad and video games, but television is another story. The balancing act comes in with more quality and family-oriented movies. 

Photo Credit: Bluesnap, Pixabay

We live in a strange mix of small-towness that’s not completely rural. Our homesteading is a weird caught-in-the-middle of being bombarded with wireless gadgets on the edge of town. We go from inside techno-bliss to outside neighborhood chickens running around our yard. We use solar lights outdoors, but still plug in our window AC unit to the grid when it’s hot. 

We don’t drink the local water because the water department puts out an annual “check out our list of all the bacterial in your water" report. So I and my daughter go the watering hole where, for about a buck, we can get five gallons of water.  

There’s some city life about an hour away, but the really big cities are at least 2 or 3 hours away. I find it strange that food and entertainment is way cheaper there than in the small surrounding towns. My husband says it's all because of competition. I told him that “up north” it seems quite the opposite. 

We sweat through nine months of the year in the south. The best part is I get to hang my clothes outside and it rarely, if ever, freezes in winter. I wash and ring our clothes and towels by hand for the joy of it (after my washer broke). 

Yesterday we drove down the street and found a pony tied up in somebody’s yard. It seems the ordinances in this town are pretty relaxed and I like that. It’s definitely not uptight. We don’t feel strangled here even though it’s a small town. 

I’d like to go completely off grid, but my husband works online and his appreciation of nature is that I feed the stray cats and not him. He prefers to stare at wood paneling rather than planted trees, and I’m learning to live with that. 

Photo Credit: klimkin, Pixabay

Somehow we’re striking a middle ground of a pepper, survivalist, all-for-off-grid-living wife (wouldn’t a yurt be nice?), and a husband who sleeps with his computer on and facing him at all times. (I don’t know when the annoyance of the computer light actually left me. I guess I just learned to cover my head.) 

Sometimes we’re all in different worlds while in the same room. Do you know what I mean? In the evenings when we settle down, I’m dreaming of going off on archaeological digs in the Far East where I used to live; my husband is gleefully watching his forex screen light up red and green; and my daughter is rehearsing the last episodes of Rusty Rivets and Paw Patrol. 

We all see through very different lenses and want very different things. But, hey, we’re always together and somehow everybody seems to get what they truly want. We’re joyfully settled in the middle and trying to always strike that balance. 

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