In the heart of Texas, 1200 members of the Homestead Heritage community have spent the past 5 decades working the land for their food, energy, water and livelihoods, both for their own health as well as that of the land.
On about 500-acres of community-owned land, about 350 families are planting crops like wheat that they then grind for flour in their water-powered grist mill and then bake into bread that they sell at their restaurant. They grow the basics, but also crops like sorghum (“a sweetener of the south that was locally available before the sugar trade) that they turn into syrup with their horse-powered press and sell as sorghum pecan ice cream at their cafe.
They aim to be as self-sufficient as possible in as many ways as possible. They have dozens of hand looms for weaving their own clothing (jackets included). There’s a blacksmith, leather workers, basket weavers, and furniture makers.
There are a lot of people that feel the shaking, there are a lot of people that recognize that things aren’t going to be able to go the way that they have and that changes are coming, explains Greg Godsey who co-owns the Heritage Coffee Shop and Heritage Architecture, “You might hear the term prepper, and a lot of times that is stockpiling lots of things, stockpiling food or ammo. That’s not really our approach. The idea of stockpiling and the nature of it is not sustainable. That’s what the stockpile is that it’s going to have an end and we’re trying to think about it from an approach of, how can we recognize that their are changes coming, things are failing, things are not going to always go as they have and can we be doing something to prepare for that that has a look ahead in a positive way that can maybe teach people to sustain themselves or bring people together.”
https://www.homesteadheritage.com/
* Farm footage and community life footage courtsey of Ben Owen: circlebphoto.com
