“Johnny Cash is in with the ducks again,” Rachel Stephens says—to the confusion of a visitor, looking around for the Man in Black. Instead, she spies a gregarious black rooster making his way from the chicken pen into the duck pen, which he does whenever the opportunity arises.
Ms. Stephens is a self-described homesteader, part of a growing movement of people declaring independence from corporate providers of everything from food to electricity. As a rule, we’re not talking about survivalists stocking underground bunkers with shelves full of canned goods and generators. The homestead movement, particularly on the East End, is focused more on seeking a healthier, more connected way to live.
Rachel Maris, whose Long Island Homesteading Forum on Facebook boasts nearly 1,400 members, says homesteading can cover everything from growing your own vegetables to converting your house to solar power. “It’s really about learning how to be as self-reliant as possible. It’s a huge, broad topic.
“It’s not about being separate from the community,” she continues. “I’ve found people in the homesteading community really support each other, and are happy to teach other people.
“You can’t be entirely self-reliant. You need a community. We share ideas, some people know more than others. I make soap from scratch, and I post ideas and instructions for that.
On 2 acres adjacent to a nature preserve in Hampton Bays, the Stephens family’s Sweet Woodland Farm covers a lot of homesteading ground. Two ewes and three Angora rabbits provide wool for hats and scarves, a flock of guinea hens controls ticks, ducks and chickens share their eggs, and beehives supply honey as well as pollination services for the expansive vegetable garden. It didn’t start out this way.
“A friend of mine gave me a book called ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,’” says Ms. Stephens. “She warned me that it would change my life, and it did. It’s the story of a family who sells their home and travels out into rural America and learns how to live off the land.
“We have 50 now,” she admits sheepishly.
“It’s chicken math,” explains Tracy McLaren of Southampton, who also has a growing flock. “Once you have more than four, you just keep getting chickens.
In what turns out to be an excellent symbiotic relationship, guinea hens also act as an alarm system, shrieking when a hawk appears. “They sound the alarm and everyone runs for cover,” says Ms. McLaren.
Edging sideways into homesteading seems to be the normal route. Ms. Maris, who lives in East Moriches, said the back-to-nature urge came to her when she was pregnant with her first child, Sude, and has only grown stronger since. She lives with her husband, Ulas, and in-laws, and credits her Turkish mother-in-law, Yildiz, with teaching her many homesteading skills.
“I learned how to make yogurt from her, and cheese. And she’s an exquisite knitter. Getting to know her made me want my children to learn from her. I never had those skills; I’ve been learning as I go,” Ms. Maris says.
While homesteading generally brings a low-tech lifestyle to mind, some East Enders are taking a distinctly modern route. Dr. Stephen Braun of Southampton installed solar panels on his home two years ago, and he and his wife, Jane, drive electric cars.
“We’re not off the grid, but we’re able to produce most of the electricity we use—around a megawatt per month right now,” he says. “On days when we make more than we use, the surplus gets fed into the electric grid, and we get a credit for that. At the end of the month, you either get charged if you used more power than you produce, or you get a credit if you use less.
The Brauns also grow a lot of their own produce, with fruit trees, kale, tomatoes and corn thriving in the backyard.
If you’re tempted by the idea of homesteading but not sure where to begin, chickens are a good starting point. In addition to providing eggs, they provide manure, which is wonderful garden fertilizer. Once the coop is built, Ms. Stephens says, caring for chickens takes about 10 minutes a day.
She’ll be holding her Backyard Chickens Fair this Saturday, March 19, from noon to 3. The fair is an opportunity to meet the animals, shop for handcrafted items, and watch a presentation on raising chickens at 1 p.m. There’s a $10 admission charge, and children under 12 can attend for free.