Listen, I didn’t move out to the middle of nowhere to deal with HOA regulations, TikTok garden tours, or nosy neighbors with opinions about my chicken coop. I came out here to build a life—one rooted in dirt, sweat, and the kind of hard work that most people wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

But you know what’s worse than a Kansas tornado ripping through your property in April? People with zero skills and shiny boots acting like homesteading is some Instagram aesthetic. This ain’t a curated lifestyle—it’s war, and the enemy is everything from drought to raccoons to tractor maintenance.

Now don’t get me wrong—I’m not mad at the land. I love this land. I wake up every morning with the prairie wind slapping me in the face like a cold coffee and I thank it for reminding me I’m alive. But if you’re thinking about starting a homestead here in Kansas, let me give you a cold, hard, mud-caked dose of reality—and maybe you’ll walk away a little wiser (and a little more respectful of people who actually live this life).

15 Skills Every Kansas Homesteader Needs (Or You’ll Fail Faster Than a Solar Panel in a Dust Storm):

1. Seed Starting – Learn it. Master it. If you can’t sprout a tomato, go back to the city.
2. Composting – Turn that kitchen slop into black gold. We don’t throw away nutrients out here.
3. Animal Husbandry – Chickens, goats, pigs, and cows don’t raise themselves. If you don’t know what a broody hen is, you’re already behind.
4. Canning & Food Preservation – If you don’t want your harvest rotting in a week, get friendly with a pressure canner.
5. Basic Carpentry – Because hiring someone to fix your barn roof is for millionaires.
6. Fence Building & Repair – Kansas winds will humble your fence real fast. Build it strong or build it twice.
7. Rainwater Collection – When July hits and the sky forgets how to cry, you’ll wish you had barrels.
8. First Aid – For animals and humans. Because the nearest vet or clinic might be 40 minutes away.
9. Wildlife Identification – Know the difference between a coyote and your neighbor’s mangy dog.
10. Butchering – If you’re not ready to process your meat, then don’t raise animals.
11. Mechanical Repair – Tractors, chainsaws, and generators break down. Constantly. Learn to fix them or bleed money.
12. Foraging – Kansas has wild edibles galore. If you don’t know what lamb’s quarters are, you should.
13. Beekeeping – You want pollination? You want honey? Time to make friends with bees.
14. Bread Making – Because there’s something deeply wrong about store-bought bread in a homemade kitchen.
15. Firewood Splitting – Winters can be brutal. If you think electric heat is reliable, wait for your first ice storm blackout.

3 Homestead Hacks They Won’t Teach You on YouTube:

Hack #1: The “Solar-Shed Hybrid”
Build a small outbuilding that serves both as a tool shed and a solar battery house. Insulate it well, mount solar panels on top, and use it to store backup batteries, hand tools, seeds, and a deep freezer. Why waste space when everything can serve a dual purpose? Kansas gets a ton of sun—harness it.

Hack #2: The Chicken Coop Water Heater (No Electricity)
Use an old black-painted metal barrel filled with water and set it inside your chicken run—covered during summer, uncovered in winter. The sun heats it up during the day, and it radiates warmth at night, keeping your coop from freezing just enough. Kansas winters are no joke, and this passive heat source can mean the difference between frozen eggs and laying hens.

Hack #3: Firewood Seasoning Rack Made from Old Pallets
Kansas wind is hellish—but you can use it. Stack firewood on a base of pallets and build an angled windbreak using more pallets on the west side. The airflow will dry your wood faster than a kiln if you angle it right. Free pallets + Kansas wind = seasoned wood in half the time.

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Now let’s talk about the romanticized crap people believe about homesteading.

People think living on a Kansas homestead means sipping sweet tea on a wraparound porch while chickens peck playfully at your feet. Let me tell you what those chickens actually do: they escape, crap on your porch, and eat your freshly planted lettuce the second you turn your back. But you know what? I still love the little monsters.

You think crops don’t fail? Kansas gets 100-degree heat in summer and freak snow in April. You’ll spend weeks babying your seedlings only for a late frost to punch you in the face like a drunk uncle at a family reunion.

You better learn to love failure, because it’s coming. Your first garden will be trash. Your first goat will outsmart you. And you’ll wonder—more than once—why the hell you didn’t just stay in town and pay $6 for organic lettuce like a sucker.

But then—then—something magical happens. You get better.

The kale grows. The hens lay like clockwork. Your compost pile smells like success. You find yourself butchering a chicken with precision, baking sourdough from your own starter, and fixing a busted well pump in 20 minutes with duct tape and willpower.

And that’s when you realize: this life isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to make you tough.

Homesteading in Kansas will either break you or build you into the kind of person who can dig a trench in a hailstorm while laughing maniacally and quoting Joel Salatin.

It teaches you everything school forgot—self-reliance, grit, adaptability, and how to deal with death, birth, and weather like a stoic philosopher with a side of rage.

So if you’re thinking of becoming a Kansas homesteader, here’s my advice: Don’t do it for likes. Don’t do it for the vibe. Do it because you want freedom—real freedom—the kind that comes with blistered hands, overflowing pantries, and the ability to look a winter storm in the eye and say, “Bring it.”

If that sounds like your kind of life, then welcome. Otherwise, keep your shiny boots on the porch and your opinions in the city.

We’ve got work to do.