The First-Time Homesteader: A Complete Beginner's Guide to Starting and Loving Your New Homestead

Are you striving for improved self-reliance and self-sufficiency for yourself and your family? Author Jessica Sowards of YouTube's Roots & Refuge Farm is the warm and welcoming guide you've been waiting for.

Homesteading is a mindset and a lifestyle aimed at living lightly on the land, being more resourceful, appreciating the value of hard work, and understanding the diverse and amazing connections between humans and the planet we live on. Homesteaders constantly strive for a more sustainable life and a greater connection to the cycles of nature and the foods and goods we consume. Starting your very first homestead is a journey of discovery and passion that's also likely filled with questions and what-ifs. In The First-Time Homesteader, Jessica fills in all the blanks with honesty, humor, and charm.

Now you can take those first and most valuable steps toward establishing your own homestead with a seasoned homesteader at your side. Jessica warmly guides you through the process of setting up your property (no matter how small or large), establishing a garden, welcoming animals into the fold, living more resourcefully, and expanding your homestead kitchen tools and skills with grace and confidence.

Start your first homestead with lessons on:

• Raising chickens for meat and eggs
• Starting and operating a home dairy
• Housing, fencing, and processing advice for meat animals
• Planning and planting your homestead vegetable garden
• Keeping bees for honey, pollination, and beeswax
• Stocking your medicine cabinet with useful herbs and home remedies
• Living a resourceful existence by reusing and repurposing
• Stocking the kitchen with all the tools and techniques you need for success

Jessica Sowards is a native Arkansan who is homesteading, gardening, and sharing her journey through social media. She and her husband, Jeremiah, are raising their six children on a small hobby farm in the Central Arkansas region. They share their lives on their YouTube channel, Roots and Refuge Farm. She offers the insights they have gathered along the way in her books, The First-time Gardener: Growing Vegetables (March 2021) and The First-Time Homesteader (February 2022). Jessica is passionate about gardening, growing food, and equipping others to do the same.