MEN Fair 2012 - A Homesteaders Hindsight

A Homesteader's Hindsight: 20 Great Ideas and 20 Not So Great Ideas - Philip Ackerman-Leist

When I chose this workshop I had not realized it was being presented by the same person who did the Retooling for Tomorrow workshop I had taken the previous day. I enjoyed the previous presentation, however, so was glad to attend another one by him. The room was packed for the workshop. I don't know how many seats there were, but I counted at least 100 people standing, not to mention those sitting in the floor.

One practical suggestion that was made was to look into taking a logging safety class, such as Game of Logging, to learn how to safely and accurately use a chainsaw and fell a tree. Another good suggestion was to visit several other homesteads, to get ideas and learn from what others are doing. He did stress, however, the importance of remembering that when visiting another homestead you are seeing it at a single point in time, and may not realize that you're visiting during their worst (or best) period ever.

A couple books were suggested during the presentation. The first was New Pioneers: The Back-To-The-Land Movement and the Search for a Sustainable Future by Jeffrey Jacob. The other book he suggested was At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America by Rebecca Gould.

The presentation was closed with a quote, which I thought was very insightful. "You can judge the character of a person by the integrity of their compromises."