In my last post I harped about the monetary and mental health costs of having too much stuff. However, not all stuff is bad. Especially in a homestead setting, some stuff is necessary and even desirable. Here’s a counterpoint to the clutter conundrum.
Let’s do a little thought experiment. I’m picturing my house with all it’s stuff. Now, let’s subtract out all the stuff we own because we homestead. There goes the closet of tools; the coat-closet-turned-pantry full of preserves, cider, beer, and wine; the brewing equipment in our storage unit; the kegerator in the dining room; the brewing grain stashed upstairs; the grain mill attached to the kitchen table; the dehydrator and canning supplies stashed away in closets; the fabric and sewing supplies in our bedroom; the yarn, knitting needles, and crochet hooks tucked away here and there; the loom in Julie’s room; there go the gardening tools and compost tumbler littering up the back porch; out with the soil amendments, seeds, and plant-starting lights filling up our storage unit; goodbye to the books that tell us how to use all these things.
What’s left? Two adults; one toddler; a big, yellow dog; and not much else. Yes there would still be clutter but not as much as you might think. Assuming that we still cooked mostly from raw ingredients, our kitchen would still be pretty packed with pans, knives, and various instruments of vegetative destruction and there would still be a small deep freeze in the toddler’s room. Three of the six closets in this house would be completely empty, though, and we’d have a lot more room without the loom. We could easily get rid of half the bookshelves. The storage unit wouldn’t be necessary either.
We would also have to buy a lot more things – more food, more beer, more clothing, and more entertainment, just to name a few. (Homesteading is our primary source of entertainment, after all.)
So when I talk about reducing clutter, I don’t mean getting rid of the homestead. I mean culling the items that aren’t earning their keep. Our dehydrator earns it keep – it gave us two bushels of dehydrated apples chips, peach chips, and fruit leather this year. Healthy snacks made from local foods. My knitting needles earn their keep – three hats and two pairs of socks since October. You get the idea.
Do we need a water filtration pitcher that we haven’t used in 5 years? How about a coat that’s been sitting in the closet for 7 years? Do we really need 5 spatulas? I’m pretty sure 2 will suffice.
That’s what I’ve been working on – culling out the stuff that’s unused, unnecessary, or unwanted. When we arrive at our new home we will be a leaner, meaner, (greener) homestead. Then it will just be a matter of managing the homestead clutter…