Homesteading vs. Farming

So why do I call our place a homestead, and not a farm? That is a question I've asked myself many times. I started at the dictionary to see if that offered any guidance on what to call this place:

homestead: 1 a: the home and adjoining land occupied by a family

Sure, we have that, but doesn't that pretty much describe everyone who owns a home?

farm: 5 a: a plot of land devoted to the raising of animals and especially domestic livestock

Well, that one actually gets closer. Promised Land Homestead is a plot of land devoted to raising animals. We have a pig, a dairy cow, 20+ laying hens, 2 roosters, 18 meat chickens, 6 ducks (Thanksgiving dinner), and a VERY large garden. So why am I still so reluctant to call this place a farm? Maybe because I don't feel like it's big enough: we only have 7.5 acres. While this is ideal for our purposes, its tiny compared to my grandfather's land. He had 450 acres in East Texas. I loved going there as a kid and I always called it a farm, but was it?

Another criteria I've always thought made a farm a farm was what it was used for. If you try to derive a decent income from the use of your land, and especially if you work it full time, it qualifies as a farm, in my mind. My grandfather didn't farm full time. He was a school teacher, and farmed on the side. He did raise feeder pigs for some side money, but I have no idea how much income it brought. Since his place fit 75% of the criteria, I guess it makes it to farm status.

The real reason I call this place a homestead is because I consider our family to be part of the "homestead movement". Webster's Dictionary hasn't gotten the word on this yet, but Wikipedia has, and gives a good basic description of what we do here:

"Currently the term homesteading applies to anyone who is a part of the "back to the land" movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle...a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage."

That's pretty much us in a nut shell. All of the food we produce here is for us, and us only. We don't derive any profit, nor has that ever been the goal. It started out as an attempt to move towards a simpler lifestyle, and maybe saving some money by raising our own food. It has moved so far beyond that, which is a subject for another post. For now though, I think we'll just stick with the "homestead" designation. It suggests a more quant and small operation, which is exactly what we hope to remain.