Homestead or smallholding?
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As we are launching ourselves into a new way of life, we have been using google a lot to gather information that will help us along our journey. Although we are not ones for nestling into labels, knowing the keywords to enter into a search engine to gain the information is pretty important.
There are two terms that I feel are relevant to us, one term is British and the other is American. Normally, I would always use the British version (It’s a tap, what the heck is a faucet?) Homestead or Smallholding - which is most accurate? |
A little wooden hut
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The homestead
A homestead is the American version of a smallholding, but to me, a homestead embraces much more than using land to grow your own produce. A homestead is more about the home, the old crafts that are carried out within.
With American homesteading, there seems to be a large amount of time and effort dedicated to making, cooking, preserving, canning, sewing and self sufficiency based around all of the homely skills. By definition, the term homestead is “A home, especially a farmhouse.”
With American homesteading, there seems to be a large amount of time and effort dedicated to making, cooking, preserving, canning, sewing and self sufficiency based around all of the homely skills. By definition, the term homestead is “A home, especially a farmhouse.”
The smallholding
A smallholding in Britain seems to have quite an ambiguous meaning, and is defined as “an agricultural holding smaller than a farm”. How big is a small farm, and where do we draw the line between a vegetable garden and a small holding.
The feel I have towards a smallholding is that of the land and not the home, it is about the range of goats, pigs and sheep that you rear and not about the meals you cook from them nor the wool you spin and the hides you tan from the animals.
The feel I have towards a smallholding is that of the land and not the home, it is about the range of goats, pigs and sheep that you rear and not about the meals you cook from them nor the wool you spin and the hides you tan from the animals.
Our conclusion
A little mushroom house
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My view is we are better looking, searching for smallholdings for the things we do with our crops, garden, fur and feather, simply because our breeds of animal; and our climate is far different from our friends across the pond.
Yet, for all things internal I have found that searching for homestead gives us far better results for the information that we want. My overall view is that we are a homestead with a smallholding! |
