Ambitious late start!

My husband and I are retiring this year to a family property in rural southern Indiana. It’s 12 mostly wooded acres with a 2-acre spring-fed lake, house, garage with carpentry shop, and two sheds. I’ve got two .25-acre areas that get at least decent sun. I’ve already papered, composted and chipped two permaculture guilds last fall and have a third half done. One tall 4x8 raised bed, and 20 straw bales for an organic straw bale garden yield for the first year. I’ve started winter sowing like mad, and my first batch of trees and shrubs were ordered last fall. So I’ve really been going at it rather ambitiously for a 60-year-old’s first garden!

My question is, at what point does my home become a homestead? When I plant my first plant s in the ground? When we eat our first produce? When we achieve some percentage of self-sufficiency? Or is livestock a prerequisite? Do chickens count towards homesteading if I don’t eat the chickens, just use them for eggs, fertilizer and land prep?

Jack Spirko likes to say something to the effect that a house costs money and a homestead makes money (or the equivalent in not having to buy other stuff).

Personally I think a homestead becomes a homestead when someone moves in and begins the process of being more self sufficient.

To me, a homestead is a homestead when the individual or family feels that they have achieved that status.

Why does it matter?

We had a homestead with a garden, then added chickens, later added a cow or two, a horse or two, then goats, rabbits, etc.

The county never felt we qualified for agricultural status since we did not sell what we raised. Though they gave us a homestead exemption.

We now have a ranch, we have some garden beds and we raise deer.

And I have agricultural status in the way of a wildlife exemption. And a homestead exemption.

I don't feel this is a homestead.

If you ask Mr. Google he will say there are many meanings to homestead.

Anne Logston wrote:My husband and I are retiring this year to a family property in rural southern Indiana.

It's so beautiful up there--I've got family in the Santa Claus area--and the weather is surprisingly like what it is down here in Tennessee, although they do get a little more snow than I do. I envy you those woods. This seems silly to say, but I always think of it when I go to that area: I've never smelled any forest with as beautiful a scent as the one in Lincoln State Park. (Not even the ones in Maine smell that good!)

Pawpaws do well up there, I know. You might cultivate some of those as a cash crop, or something like that!

IMHO, the second you even thought about being more self-sufficient, you crossed over into homesteading; the fact that you've already done so much towards that goal, means you're there! According to the fine folks over here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homesteading

"Homesteading is a vernacular term for a lifestyle of self-sufficiency." and a bunch of other stuff ...

If you had just moved onto the property and into the existing home, and didn't do much else, that might be country-living; plenty of folks do that. You've both gone beyond *and* mixed in Permaculture ...

Now, at least on the homestead side of things, start thinking about all the "systems" on your property. For example, the house generates waste (food, garbage, etc.) ... where is this going, and what is it costing you? Would chickens help? Would a compost system reduce some of the waste, and at the same time, benefit other systems (gardening) on the property?

In my mind, it all starts with planning, both on the homesteading side, and the permaculture side ... develop a site plan, start putting things on it, and start seeing how it all ties together (or could). No matter where you are in the planning stage, it's not too late to do it.

And, of course, spend a gazillion hours reading this site and others. I'm only up to a bazillion, so still a ways to go ...