Homesteading Authors Who Inspired Our Life

Today I would like to share some of my favorite homestead authors. If they weren't out there writing, I'd have never found out about this awesome lifestyle. There is more information out there than from these authors but these are my favorites.

Jackie Clay is a well known author and writes for Backwoods Home Magazine and her blog which is on the magazine's website. She lives the life and knows very well what she is talking about. I have learned so much from her! She will answer your questions quite honestly. One thing I love about her is that she will tell you, "This is how I do it. I am not telling you to do it this way." Especially when someone asks about something that is not quite up to the people in power's recommendations!

Carla Emery's book, The Encyclopedia of Country Living has been indispensable to me since I first bought it in 1998. I rely on that book constantly, and it looks like it, with the pages falling out in places. Be it gardening, canning, baking bread, raising chickens or having babies at home, Carla has the answer somewhere in that big book. Since her death in 2005, her book is all that is left. Her website is still live but has not been updated, it is kept as a tribute to her.

Sue Robishaw & Steve Schmeck have a website called Many Tracks. Sue Robishaw has written for many years for Countryside & Small Stock Journal.  Her and Steve live in the north pennisula of Michigan, where it is really cold in their off-the-grid underground home. She has inspired me in many ways. For one thing, she too, lives without refrigeration and I once contacted her to find out how she did it. I find many answers to my questions on her site and in the magazine in her many articles.

Scott and Helen Nearings are in some ways, our inspiration for homesteading. We like the idea that they were living off the land and were not raising livestock for food. Most people just assume that you are raising livestock for food in some way if you are a homesteader. Not necessarily. They were considered the founders of the back to the land movement. Moving from their small apartment in New York City to Vermont to live off the land set a whole movement in motion. We have reread their books over and over. They have both passed away and their homestead is still maintained by teaching sustainability and self-reliance to future generations at The Good Life Center.

I learned how to live this lifestyle mostly just by doing it. The others who have done it before me have paved the way for me to learn new methods. If one thing doesn't work for me, I can try another way. One thing I have learned is that nothing is set in stone. You can find ways to make it easier for yourself. Just by doing!

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole