Let me tell you something right now: if you think homesteading in South Dakota is all sourdough starters, chickens in cute aprons, and sun-dappled Instagram reels, you’re dead wrong. This ain’t some aesthetic lifestyle trend. This is hard, raw, gut-punching work. It’s frostbitten fingers, mud-caked boots, and waking up at 4:30 a.m. to milk goats in a -20°F blizzard while the wind rips through your soul like a rusty saw.

I’m not here to coddle you. I’m here to warn you — and, yeah, maybe light a fire under your backside. Because if you’re dreaming about “going off-grid” without knowing how to keep your pipes from freezing solid or your chickens from keeling over in the heat, you’ll get chewed up and spit out by South Dakota faster than you can say “sourdough discard.”

Let’s start with the weather, because Mother Nature out here doesn’t give a damn about your plans. Winter will try to kill you. Summer will try to dehydrate you. Spring is a cruel joke, and fall lasts about 12 minutes before winter kicks the door down again.

If you’re gonna survive here, you better get serious.

Here are 15 homesteading skills you’d damn well better know if you want to keep your sanity and your livestock alive in this state:

1. Basic Carpentry – You’ll be fixing fences, building coops, and patching barns. No time for YouTube tutorials when your roof’s blown off in a storm.
2. Animal Husbandry – Not just cuddling goats. I’m talking birthing, deworming, castrating, and dealing with an unexpected chicken massacre at 2 a.m.
3. Seed Saving – Because next year’s food depends on this year’s seeds. Don’t trust Big Ag to bail you out.
4. Composting – You’re gonna generate waste. Learn to turn it into black gold or you’ll drown in chicken crap.
5. Butchering – If you can’t kill and process what you raise, you’ve got no business raising it.
6. Water Management – Wells freeze. Hoses crack. You better know how to move, store, and thaw water without burning your house down.
7. Soap Making – You will get filthy. Might as well smell like goat milk and lye while you do it.
8. Canning & Preserving – Freezers aren’t dependable when the power cuts out for three days in a whiteout.
9. Firewood Chopping – Forget electric heat. You’ll need cords of wood and the strength of a bear to stay warm out here.
10. First Aid – The ER isn’t next door. You better know how to stitch, splint, and stop bleeding on your own.
11. Foraging – Not every meal will come from your garden. Learn your wild edibles — chokecherries, morels, lamb’s quarters.
12. Solar/Energy Know-How – Grid down? Windstorm take out the lines? Your backup better work, or you’re toast.
13. Fencing – Livestock can’t stay in a dreamcatcher circle. Barbed wire, electric — learn it, use it, respect it.
14. Mechanical Repair – Tractors, tillers, and generators break down. You need to be able to tear ‘em apart and put ‘em back together.
15. Weather Forecasting (Old School) – If you wait for the weatherman, you’re already three days behind. Watch the sky. Smell the wind.

And don’t get me started on the DIY hacks — because out here, there’s no running to Lowe’s every time a hinge snaps. You rig it, you fix it, you improvise like your great-grandpa did. Here are three of my favorites that have saved my bacon more than once:

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DIY Homestead Hack #1: The Heated Water Bucket on a Budget

Forget paying $50 a pop for fancy heated buckets. Take an old cooler, run a heated stock tank de-icer through the lid, seal it with silicone caulk, and boom — insulated, heated water bucket that keeps your animals hydrated even when it’s colder than a banker’s heart.

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DIY Homestead Hack #2: Windbreak Wall from Pallets

South Dakota wind will drive you to madness if you let it. Stack free pallets, bolt them together, anchor them with t-posts, and fill the gaps with straw bales or snow. You’ll cut the wind chill for your animals and keep your coop from becoming a popsicle overnight.

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DIY Homestead Hack #3: Egg Carton Fire Starters

Take your leftover egg cartons, fill the cups with dryer lint or sawdust, then pour melted candle wax or bacon grease over the top. Let ’em cool, then break off one or two when you need to light a fire fast — even in howling prairie wind.

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And now, a word about expectations. Homesteading in South Dakota isn’t a weekend hobby. It’s not a way to “unplug” or “reconnect with nature.” It’s a full-blown life commitment, and it will test every part of your body and brain.

You will cry over dead piglets. You will rage at frozen pipes. You will feel like a failure at least once a week. But if you stick it out, there’s something deeper here. Something solid. Something that doesn’t blow away with the next windstorm.

Because when you finally harvest that first meal — every bite grown, raised, or foraged by you — it’ll taste better than anything you ever bought at a store.

When your kids learn to fix a fence before they learn to text, or when your partner brags about their pickled beets like they just won a blue ribbon at the state fair — you’ll know you’re doing something that matters.

We aren’t living in the past — we’re reclaiming the skills the world forgot. The ability to be independent. The courage to be prepared. The guts to face a world that thinks we’re crazy for wanting to work this damn hard.

So yeah, maybe I’m angry. I’m angry at a society that thinks we’re backward for wanting to know where our food comes from. I’m angry at every influencer who romanticizes this life but never shows the blood, frostbite, or exhaustion.

But most of all, I’m angry that more people don’t realize they can do this. You don’t need 100 acres. You don’t need a trust fund. You need grit, knowledge, and the humility to learn.

So get out there. Chop wood. Raise pigs. Plant seeds. Fail, learn, and keep going.

Because the wind may blow, the frost may bite, and the state may try to bury you — but out here, we endure.