By Melanie Stegner

Reporter

A group popped up in Pope County recently that is directed toward modern homesteading. 

The Minnewaska Modern Homesteader group’s mission is a community of women who support and encourage each other to learn and grow in traditional skills and apply them to modern day living. Through shared wisdom and knowledge, group members are empowered to be healthier, happier and more self-sufficient. 

The MMH group meets on the second and fourth Monday of each month at Restoration Church in Glenwood at 6:30 p.m. Meetings will change to once a month from May through September to accommodate for the busy time working on homesteading things, it was stated.  They discuss topics and have hands-on experiences relevant to modern homesteading such as gardening, food preservation and caring for animals. 

The month of March topics have included “Emergency and Catastrophe planning for the family” and “How to Build a Root Cellar.” Other topics that have been discussed are Long-Term Food Storage, Composting, Flour Milling and Bread Baking, and Raising Chickens. More of the upcoming topics include Fermenting Foods, Canning Foods, Gardening, Farm Tours, Garden Tours, How to Make Bread, Pasta and Tortillas, and How to Sell Your Homemade Goods. Melissa Haeckel and leads the group. 

So what is modern homesteading? 

It refers to a self-sufficient lifestyle, living autonomously with minimum help from others. It includes subsistence agriculture, renewable energy sources, home preservation of food, zero-waste living and depending on individual skills. 

In a recent article posted on Mother Earth News, modern homesteading was described as using modern conveniences and technology to augment your homesteading style, like using tractors, incubators, augers, etc. to make everything work. 

A quote Haeckel shared by Toni Smith, English professor at Vancouver Island University and veteran agrarian lifestyle guru, sums up what the group’s purpose is. “The entire history of America is that in times of political and economic insecurity, people revert to a very visceral sense that taking control of their food and of their homes is where security lies.”

Modern homesteading can work for anyone whether they live on a 10-acre farm, city lot or in an apartment, it was stated.

“We started meeting in June of 2023 with around three to five people and the meetings have grown to 12-20 people at each meeting,” Haeckel said recently.  A “swap” table is set up at each meeting for those in attendance to share items they no longer use or surplus items. 

If anyone is interested in learning more about the group, they can contact Melissa Haeckel at (320)424-0673 or joining the Minnewaska Modern Homesteader Facebook group.