Hey Reader

Last week I came across a post on X that stopped me mid-scroll. A homesteader admitted they deeply regret buying their homestead property.

The conversation around it racked up over 40,000 views, and the replies rolled in. Reading through them, I noticed something. The regrets people were complaining about weren't really about the land or a lack of knowledge. They all came from the same mistake, one I see constantly in my consulting work: building the dream before you have one working system.

I know this trap personally, because a few years ago I paid for it with a chainsaw crew, and lots of my labor.

The acre I should never have cleared

One day, I was walking through a forested area of my farm, far from where the actual daily work was happening, imagining how it would look in 20 years: a garden here, a shed there, infrastructure everywhere. I got so eager to live in that future that I made a few calls to see who could clear the trees for me.

Everyone was booked for months, so I put it out of my mind. But surprisingly, the next day, the phone rang: there was a sudden opening; the clear-cut crew could come tomorrow. I remember hanging up and thinking, did I actually think this through enough? Still, I gave it the green light anyway, because I wanted it.

The next day they arrived with their chainsaws and cleared an acre of forest. The deal was simple: they cut down the trees, and I do the rest.

A few days later, it dawned on me what "the rest" actually meant. I had to clear access ways, pick up all the firewood, pile the branches, and then figure out what to do with the area itself. The thing is, because I had opened the ground to the sun, grasses and shrubs came roaring in, along with regrowth from every single stump. It turns out shade had been maintaining that area for me, for free, the whole time.

Here's the part that stung: I already had more work than I could handle in my zones 1, 2, and 3. That acre added a pile of new to-dos, spread me too thin, and pulled my attention away from the systems that already required my full attention and maintenance work.

I had cleared land I had no capacity to use.

The one idea: close the loop first

After that half-cleared mess, I came to a realization that has shaped how I've run my farm ever since, and it's the first thing I check on any property I consult/work on today: don't scale or extend before you've closed one complete loop.

A complete loop means production, processing, and use, running as one small circuit. Grow the food, get it into jars, eat it through the winter. Only when that circuit runs without drama do you make the circle bigger, or add a new one: a bigger garden, an orchard, high-attention animals, or in my case, a whole new area of the farm.

Scrolling through that thread, I could instantly tell who understood this. One person started on one acre with a 24x24 ft garden bed and a few chickens, and learned canning before ever scaling up the garden. That person will still be homesteading in ten years.

Most people do the opposite because production is the fun part. But here's what I tell my clients: a new enterprise isn't one job; it's six, and the hidden five (the processing, storing, maintaining, repairing, and using) are the ones that bury you.

The 4-line readiness test

So here is what I suggest you do.

Before you clear, build, or buy anything new this season, run it through this:

Observe before you build → a season of watching costs nothing; a premature acre costs years.

Pick ONE loop → the one that matches the time and energy you honestly have, not the person you plan to become.

Run it through a full cycle → all the way to the end, whatever that might be - kitchen, farmer’s stand, compost pile.

Make it boring and reliable → then, add the next one.

Heck, if I had run my chainsaw decision through even the first line, that acre would still be a forest today, quietly waiting until I was ready for it.

All right, hopefully this was insightful!

So tell me: what's the ONE loop you're making reliable this season? Hit reply and let me know. I read every reply.

Talk soon,

-William