Homesteading: reconnecting with a local, abundant life
Six years ago, Nivek Anderson-Brown and her husband made the leap from the urban “rat race” to a rural homestead. More than a dream, for the Anderson-Browns, the realization of a homestead—a return to home and hearth—was a calling. There was even a moment of spiritual blessing when, says Anderson-Brown, “literally the sun came out and was like, ‘this is where you need to put your greenhouse.’” They started small, just planting tomatoes in containers. And from there, everything just grew. In just a few years, they produced enough food to feed themselves, family, and neighbors. Then they added chickens and goats, learned foraging in the woods, and took notes on preservation, medicinals, recipes, and everything necessary for an abundant life.
Anderson-Brown made her way to social media to share their journey. Social media hadn’t been in the initial plan, but as they worked on their farm, they realized that what they were doing really needed to be shared and visible. It is not hard to see how they made that leap, as Anderson-Brown is a born educator: engaging, fun, encouraging, and honest. As she goes about her day, she pauses to offer photos, videos, and notes about the process, sharing, for example, that it can be cold, that there are frogs, and that sometimes you just get really tired. She posts her joys and frustrations authentically and equally, with tips, how-tos, and videos all offering the inviting message that ‘if we can do it, so can you.’
So far, her message is resonating. Currently she has almost 180k followers on TikTok alone, with some of her videos gathering over a million views. And, full disclosure here, I am one of those followers. When I reached out to her to ask if she would lead a conversation at the Climate Cafe Multifaith, I was already a fangirl. Her willingness to share her story made me even more so.
In this video, Nivek Anderson-Brown tells the story of Leaf and Bean Farm, how they got started, how it’s going, and why they believe it is important to share.
“We felt we could do this… and it was a success. We produced enough food to store for an entire winter. We were able to give food to our family members and some of our neighbors. So that was it for us, we were hooked.”
—Nivek Anderson-Brown, Leaf and Bean Farm
#fromscratch
Anderson-Brown often posts under the hashtag #fromscratch. For most videos, this refers to whatever it is she is cooking, preserving or preparing at that moment. But the hashtag could just as easily refer to her entire enterprise. She and her husband, quite literally, built their farm ‘from scratch,’ home, coop, kitchen, greenhouse, garden beds, and all. Says Anderson-Brown, “I am very fortunate that I grew up with both sets of grandparents and a set of great grandparents. So I had always had this influence in my life of doing these things from scratch, because that's what they did.”
Anderson-Brown took that ancestral knowledge, enriched it with book-study, and even attended a little “youtube university.” They built a from-scratch farm to fit the realities of 2022, staying away from debt, and divvying up the shared tasks between them with an emphasis on partnership rather than gender roles. “We decided then that we were going to take on roles, not necessarily gender roles, but the things that we were strong in.” As she was “strong inside” she says “I focused on canning and preserving, seeds starting, breadmaking, that type of thing.” For her husband, “he focused on building, rain catchment, chicken coop, goat pens, all of those things.”
They were also patient, starting slowly, learning to master tasks one at a time. Starting with tomatoes in containers boosted their confidence when those tomatoes grew well. And a managed, from scratch start enabled them to eschew debt. She explains, “we decided that we didn't want to go into debt, so we didn't take out any loans.” Instead, Anderson-Brown explains it was all a matter of juggling. They were “juggling budget. We're juggling how we were going to fix the home. We were juggling how we were going to get the land together.” Little by little, it just worked. Says Anderson-Brown, “when you start one project in homesteading, it leads to another thing.” It’s just a matter of mixing it up and trusting the process.
“I made cheese that was not really cheese. We were burning bread. Our first greenhouse had blown over and been put up several times as we were trying to figure this out. It was a lot of growing and learning. And it just felt amazing.”
—Nivek Anderson-Brown
Photo by Fernando Andrade
#blackhomesteaders
As things came together, another part of their effort took root. As they learned more about the homesteading community, they realized that, says Anderson-Brown, “in the homesteading family, you don't see a lot of people of color.” She puzzled over this at first, explaining “I wanted to know why that was, because a lot of the traditions of the things I was doing I learned from my grandmother, and her from her mother…. so why weren't there more people being represented that looked like us?”
Anderson-Brown learned that there were a number of reasons for this, including lasting trauma in the black community associated with rural farm work and the land. But perhaps especially, there are real obstacles to equity and success for black enterprise in farming—today, only 1.5% of US farmers are black. She responded to this reality with the determination to be all the more generous, all the more engaging, and all the more visible with her own effort. She incorporated new hashtags, #POChomesteading and #blackhomesteaders. She says, “we made up in our mind that we were going to show people what we are doing. Rain or shine, fail or success—this is what it looks like.”
Her contribution, then, to the homesteading family enriches everyone. Leaf and Bean Farm became a place for learning and representation, and all-are-welcome-here. The center of her passion is to encourage everyone to discover the abundance she has found. “I feel like it's my calling. It is my purpose to share it with whomever will listen and to encourage them …that's what I do,” she explains. But she also recognizes the need to be visible as a black homesteader. “I definitely try to push for people of color, for all BIPOC people, to be part of this… there's still a way to do it. And there's still people out there that offer support and encouragement. I'm going to be one of those. I'm going to be an advocate.”
In this video, Nivek Anderson-Brown speaks to the spiritual and personal calling she and her husband felt in making the transition to the homesteading life.
“We found a spot in the woods and…literally the sun came out and was like, ‘this is where you need to put your greenhouse.’ … This is so much bigger than us. This is so much bigger than all of the things that we think are important.”
—Nivek Anderson-Brown
#sustainability
Anderson-Brown also posts with the hashtag #sustainability. A couple of things inspire this part of her effort. One is thinking of her grandchildren, the other is her growing appreciation for the land she works. The two, in fact, go together. Explains Anderson-Brown, “I want my grandbabies to be able to enjoy a planet. So, what can we do here on the homestead that helps that?”
Her sustainability concerns started with paper towels and paper plates. Living on a homestead, she had come to be much more aware of cycles of waste and reuse, where was no handy garbage bin, and every bit of trash was reconsidered for a new purpose. Items like paper towels and paper plates were suddenly not only wasteful, but entirely unnecessary. “I've never understood the use of paper towels,” she explains. First you have to pay for the towels, then you have to pay to dispose of them as trash. “We're going to cut out these paper towels. We're going to use reusable towels,” she decided. “And then it just snowballed.”
It was more than the decision that “We're not buying any more plastic water bottles.” It was about stewarding and respecting the land itself. Explains Anderson-Brown, “We made the decision that we were not going to impose our will on our land, that we were just here to steward it. We don't use electrical fencing, and that type of thing. We don't use chemicals. We plant in what we call threes, so we plant for us, we plant for the insects and we plant for the animals.” It’s about more than stewardship, it’s about understanding how deeply all things are connected. “We didn't want to disrupt the system, because we were in it. They were here before we were. We're just trying to fit into their life, and make the best life that we can.”
“Like, who needs a lawn? A lawn is for those who don't need to eat and, as far as I know, we all need to eat. We should not be growing lawns; we should be growing food.”
—Nivek Anderson-Brown
Photo by David Lang.
#homemade
Even as she continues to build the presence of Leaf and Bean Farm on social media, she also recognizes social media itself is a double-edge sword. Social media now is a common, and arguably necessary, tool for interacting, building community, teaching, and the business end of keeping a farm running. Yet, if you look at the carefully photographed and curated content that dominates those spaces, you will perhaps get the wrong idea about things. After all, homesteading is hard work—rewarding, but hard. With all the lovely pastures and beautiful gardens on social media, it might seem like only those with a lot of means can have a hope of achieving it.
Anderson-Brown seeks to push back on all of that with boisterous interjections of honesty and truth. Her hashtag #homemade speaks volumes to how making something with love isn’t necessarily about making it perfect. “We get this thing in our mind about homesteading….The TV shows you homesteaders that have acres and acres and pastures of cows and horses and they have these fabulous farm homes,” she says. Yet, “if you've ever been to a working homestead, they all look like junk yards.”
Aesthetics are not a requirement of homesteading, but in interacting online and building a community, she does recognize a need to curate the mess a little. “I love it,” she says, “but a working homestead is not something that you want to see. It doesn't draw people in.” As she grows her farm and her business, then, she has an additional goal for her real-life homestead, and that is “making it aesthetically pleasing, as well.” For example, a real homestead has real piles of everything and anything stored for use and reuse. For Leaf and Bean Farm, “our piles are very neat piles,” she says. “They're very neat piles, very organized piles of things.…because everything has a job here.”
In this video, Nivek Anderson-Brown shares her joy from the leaves, blossoms, fruits and roots in her garden. She also shares what she hopes for.
“I'm so hopeful that, just in living by this example, that more people would be interested in doing it. …I'm just very hopeful that my little example will make a difference for more people.”
—Nivek Anderson Brown
#abundance
For Anderson-Brown homesteading is a way of life, a way of heart, a way of home, and a life of abundance. It is something absolutely everybody can share in and do. And it isn’t about acreage, says Anderson-Brown, “you can start this if you're living in a car. If you get a cup and a seed, you can start homesteading.” That’s because homesteading isn’t a stopping place, it’s a starting place. Any endeavor you begin is all about what grows, what you learn, and what you share.
Homesteading also builds resilience, confidence, self-sufficiency, and accomplishment. Even in the small things, such as learning to grow sweet potatoes, overwinter pineapple, or bake bread. She explains, “It's more rewarding when it is you, when you can say, ‘I baked that loaf of bread. Do you see how good that loaf of bread is?’ And you really appreciate those things more. I wish more people would do it.”
It might take a little bit for your loved ones to get used to, says Anderson-Brown, “a lot of our friends and family were like, we had lost our minds coming out here.” But their appreciation grew, “now when they come, they just cannot believe what it actually is.” Their response helped convince her that to really reach and encourage people the key was to offer the real experience. “And that's our new project now,” she says, “offering the homestead for people to come out and to actually see what it is.” Adding, “I believe in my heart that we live more abundantly than a lot of people.”
And the capper? The view, of course. The growing gardens. The goats. The surrounding woods. The chickens, including Queenie, her favorite. “We get to get up and look out of our window at a picturesque scene every morning.”
Nivek Anderson-Brown:
Forever Learning, Patient Teacher Wife, Mother, Homesteader Sharing the journey of city transplant gone rural homesteader from the ground up! At Leaf and Bean we sow, we grow, we preserve and reuse! Hey y'all.
Follow her efforts on instagram and TikTok. Nivek Anderson-Brown shares her content under the hashtags #thelabfarm #blackhomesteaders #countryliving #homesteading #POChomesteading #homemade #pantry #growyourownfood #goodeats #fromscratch #sustainability
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.