I have been working toward the perfect subsistence homestead for more than 17 years. There is an art to homesteading that in all this time, working towards self sufficiency, I have only scratched the surface of mastering! This is an art that some modern homesteaders would insist is impossible. However, if indeed it was impossible our ancestors would have starved, and froze to death!

  What people mean when they proclaim impossibility is that they are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve the ideal homestead! Often they have started out, and were faced by God, and the nature He created with crop losses, animal feed illness and death, and the inevitable cost of inexperience!

  I intend to spend my time here at Steemit discussing  principles targeted at the meat of homesteading, rather than the milk! I won't be covering the basics of how to grow a garden or keep a small urban flock of chickens. Now this doesn't mean there is nothing a beginner can learn here. However, it does mean that beginners must seek to move beyond their inexperience.

  So much of Homesteading/Permaculture writing is designed to attract people to our way of life, and to share the dream with beginners, but that has left a huge hole into which all of those who are trying to move beyond the basics fall. So we have vast numbers of experienced homesteaders who still are looking for information that fits their needs, other than trial and error. This is where I am going to attempt to meet some of those needs, as well as, hopefully meet others who are excited about living the homesteading dream!

  Now, I cannot claim that I am coming at this from a position of perfection. Especially right now, my homesteading experience currently leaves a whole lot to be desired. This is partly because of major changes that are currently occurring in our lives. We are fixing to pay off our new bare land homestead, where we are planning to build a tiny cottage. In addition, our children, which I homeschooled, have all gotten married, and started their own independent families, and lives.

   So life is changing for us. Currently, I have no goats, or large livestock, because we are going to change locations. My last herd was killed by a stray dog, while I was on vacation. They were Nubians, and the dog thought chewing their ears off would be fun! Six animals dead. In addition for awhile I have had a dog that was not animal friendly.

  So no matter how experienced a person is, life happens. These are the things that have an effect on a true homesteader. However, the experienced homesteader does not allow these things to defeat their dreams. The true homesteader continues to pursue!

  As evidence of my experience, I present this board that I ran in the 90's, while I was homesteading rented land. So take a walk through my past here: 



http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=ACountryPlace

    
  So all of that is a lead in to a deep discussion on what I call the Syncronistic Subsistence Homestead. This means a homestead in which all systems support, and feed one another, as well as the smallholder, and family! However, it moves beyond simple production, because production is only half the equation. 

  What is produced must be processed, and stored. Just today, I read a post on Facewhatever, where a couple of new homesteaders planted a bunch of potatoes, and then didn't know what to do with them. However, this often also happens to experienced farmers, and ranchers as well.

  When we first moved to this state, we were looking for land to buy, and I met a man, a cattle rancher, who saw that Apple trees grow well here, and put in 40 acres of them. The problem was he did not plan for who was going to pick the 10+ bushels of apples per tree, nor did he plan for how they would be packed, and moved to market, nor did he seek out a market for them. I guess he thought that all those things would magically happen themselves. When I met him, he had just ripped out forty acres of beautiful apple trees in full production!

  Every system of a working homestead is interdependent upon all the other systems in that homestead, and also must either move it's production from one system to another, or be processed, and stored for future use! A simple example of this is chickens. The beginner would think that chickens produce one product, but actually, they produce many more products than that!

   A chicken produces at least 5, and perhaps more products! They produce, meat, eggs, feathers, bones, and manure. Chickens also produce free labor! In order to get the most from a flock of chickens, all of these products must be processed, stored, and used! This is not a simplistic process.

  In addition, the chicken is dependent on other systems for it's survival on the ideal homestead. It can eat milk produced by dairy animals, produce from the garden, and field crops, hay from the mown grass. Even weeds, and bugs, can lend to a flock of chickens health!

   As we continue in this series, I will continue to try and provide information, which will truly share my ideas of the Synchronistic Subsistence Homestead! I hope many of you will come along with me on my journey to a better Homestead that is effectively managed. 

  In future article's we will take on the homestead system by system. Join me!!!