Homesteading, here we go!

Many of you have seen my thinking around consuming animal products evolve since we moved to Maine in 2019. In 2020 I gave veganism my best try yet, and I didn’t eat meat for almost two years. In 2021 we turned a three-car garage and wooded lot into a barn with a large, safe paddock for rescued miniature horses. I was opposed to raising livestock for food or for “work,” and we welcomed people to visit Mane Haven Farm to learn about horses as the individuals they are.

A combination of events this year pushed me to a realization and decision to start caring for animals who can in turn care for us by providing sustenance, whether in the form of milk, eggs or fleece. After raising our surprise miniature horse foal, Roxie, I experienced the disapproval of multiple horse people when she was still nursing until a year old (a year is the natural age in the wild for mares to wean foals, and studies have shown this yields better health and behavioral outcomes for the foal). A few months later, I asked representatives from a local creamery at the Bar Harbor Farmer’s Market at what age their (goat) kids are weaned. I’d felt better about consuming dairy from small operations where the animals clearly had excellent care and room to roam. I’d just assumed they allowed babies to nurse from their mothers—after all, we’ve selected dairy breeds of multiple species to produce far more milk than they would otherwise, right? What I learned is that they separate babies shortly after birth and bottle feed them to maximize milk collection. Even on this small scale, the financial pressure of raising animals commercially dictates stressful management practices. This is how I started to make a mental switch: if I’m going to consume dairy as a staple part of a locally sourced, vegetarian diet in a Northern climate, then I might need to get comfortable with the idea of dairying myself.

On the subject of selective breeding, does it bother me that chickens as we know them have been bred by humans to produce an unnatural quantity of eggs, which as I understand it is hard on hens’ bodies? Yes…but learning how we can minimize this stress by not forcing year-round egg laying with artificial light, and feeding to meet their nutritional needs, gives me hope that we can give our chickens a comfortable life. When Ember, our heifer, is old enough to breed and calve, we will practice milk sharing—where her calf drinks its fill of milk until Ember naturally weans it, with us taking just what we need for our personal consumption. After all, since we are alive, we have to eat—and we’d like to live with less impact on the environment. (Gone are the days of me ignoring the environmental costs of relying on imported vegan staples like quinoa and avocado.) To us, that looks like raising our own animals right here on our property and giving them the most natural, comfortable life that we can.

I still feel strongly that we will never breed our horses or cats as long as there are individuals in shelters needing homes. The animals we do purchase to provide eggs and milk come from other local homesteaders. When the time comes to find homes for Ember’s grown calves, we’ll look forward to sharing our experience with others seeking to add a milk cow to their family. In this way, we can support the movement towards responsible, small-scale sustenance.

Toffee, one of our fall foster kittens, grew up with our first pumpkin crop.

This winter we’re eating through the 33 large pumpkins that proliferated from three untended vines in a former manure pile. Several seasoned gardeners visited over the summer and looked rather awed by the massive leafspan—all thanks to our little horses! This gives us confidence that with the help of our animals, we’ll be able to replenish fertile soil and enjoy produce all winter. As we enter a year of unknowns, growing our own food gives us a rare sense of stability and the ability to make the world just a bit healthier. These first steps are small, but with each foothold, we find a new way forward. And we become more resilient in the face of uncertainty.

We reject the mandate to maximize output, as well as its twin ideal of scaling up to maximize impact—which a decade of working for Bay Area nonprofits had all but ingrained in me. Perhaps we will break even in this endeavor, perhaps not. I vaccinate our animals though it’s an added expense. Profit and loss calculations do not motivate this decision, though—I do it for their health. At some point, we’ll be capable of producing more than we can consume and share—but we’ll stop there. Maria and I challenge ourselves to be creative, and learn from others how we can reduce waste and source what we have to meet our needs. With me only working part-time so that I can focus on our homestead, resourcefulness is necessary. However, it’s the principle that guides me—how can we find home-grown solutions instead of participating in a profit-driven economy? It’s not always possible, but we are training ourselves to look here first.