Homesteading is a Lifestyle Choice for Robert and his Family

Homesteading is the act (and often, art) of creating a productive and self-sufficient home, and it has made Robert Wells a free and happy man.

Robert and his family have been full-time homesteaders since 2018 when they moved to a rural area in North Carolina. They love living on their remote farm rearing chickens and pigs, growing their own vegetables and hunting deer and squirrels. The Wells family have also constructed barns and other structures with lumber sourced from their woodlot.

Many homesteaders express deep satisfaction with their standard of living and feel that their lifestyle is healthier and more rewarding than more conventional patterns of living. Robert’s family is no exception. Reminisces Robert: “I’ve always looked up to my Great Grandfather Graham. He always seemed like a man’s man and I remember seeing films and pictures of him winter logging with horses. I was amazed every time I got to hear the tales.”

Robert has enjoyed an interesting career. He joined the American Army in 1992 and a few years later started working as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician as part of the Bomb Squad and presidential protection detail.

Robert served on missions abroad to North Korea, China, Iraq, the UK, and India, plus a few other United States Secret Service missions he isn’t at liberty to talk about. After nearly 24 years serving in the army, Robert retired and started thinking about creating a simpler, more fulfilling life in the woods for his family.

“As a child, I loved being in the forest where it was quiet and I was away from everything,” Robert remembered. “I guess I chose to become a homesteader because of what I experienced doing military service. I was traveling the world and living in developing nations, where I encountered more happiness than I do with my former suburban American neighbours. I felt I needed to get away from what the first-world “normal” is.”

In preparation for their move to the countryside and new life, the family started learning skills in becoming self-sufficient, such as bread baking and soap making. “My four children go to school but I consider state education to be very basic. Here at home, we teach them all manner of truly important skills: budgeting, cooking, sewing, canning, growing vegetables, hunting, teamwork, logging, home maintenance. The list goes on.”

As a true homesteader, Robert wanted to be able to produce lumber from the trees on his property, for building structures and other projects. So Robert began to research the purchase of a portable sawmill.

Robert explains how he arrived at the Junior Peterson “Larger is always nicer but we strive hard to conserve resources and “right-size” everything we own. We are just as careful not to underbuy as we are to overbuy equipment and I expect it to last a very long time so we buy quality. I was convinced the Peterson was the right mill style for us and the JP is the perfect size for our needs. Looking back after a year and a half of operating our JP, I know we absolutely made the right choice. We can harvest very small trees, something that would not be possible with a bandmill.”