Insteading helps people on their journey to live a more positive life—positive for themselves, for their neighbors, and for the world around them.
As the world awakens to the need to transition away from fossil fuels, people are making alternative choices with the clothes they wear, the products they buy, and the transportation choices they make.
At Insteading, we promote choices that are:
- Meaningful, not disposable
- Nourishing, not neglectful
- Sustainable, not harmful
- Community-driven, not selfish
We give a voice to the people making those choices, and promote the resilient communities and lifestyles that are growing around them.
Founding Homesteader
Kane’s Bio: Kane is the Chief Homesteader at Insteading. When he’s not harvesting, he spends his time sketching possible garden layouts, taking care of miscellaneous home improvements, and planning our upcoming homestead projects.
You can contact Kane directly by emailing [Kane at Insteading.com].
Our Mission
A message from Kane:
My wife and I moved onto our first home in March 2011. It was a 1/7th acre craftsman in Seattle and we spent over 10 years remodeling the home, tearing out thousands of square feet of grass, building a 120-foot-long earthbag wall, adding a chicken coop, and hundreds of other urban homesteading projects both big and small.
We’ve since moved on from that first homestead and our lives have changed as our family has grown. While our new home is a bit more normie, we’ve kept many of the urban homestead lessons from our first home and left many homesteading projects behind if they didn’t fit what our family needed.
But, we still love eating eggs from the neighbors and fruit from our own trees, building homestead projects, and knowing that we’ve managed to reduce our family’s environmental footprint through the choices we make regarding food, energy, transportation, and more.
What I like even more is teaching others how to bring the same meaning to their lives. That’s why I started Insteading.
Right now, sustainable living is a choice we can make. In a few generations as humans face challenges like rising sea levels, over-production of oil, and skyrocketing populations, it’s how we’ll all have to live. While I think technology and renewable energy can fix many of the problems we face, I still think that simplification and reducing our footprints is key to building a sustainable future and making the transition to a post-oil society.
Since you’re reading this, you’ve already figured that out. The guides and articles on this site are meant to help you be successful at this new way of life, but also feel fulfilled. The ideas behind sustainable living are as important as the skills needed to do it.
Ready to explore? Scan through our menu to learn more about what Insteading has to offer.
Want to contribute your story? We’d love to hear more about your own homesteading journey – learn how to contribute here.
-Kane Jamison
Meet The Insteading Authors:
Leigha Staffenhagen: Leigha is our managing editor. When she isn’t writing and editing for Insteading, she’s reading, going to Mariners games, practicing yoga, tap dancing, and attempting to grow an apartment garden.
Seth Kolloen: Seth is our contributing editor. When he’s not watching the Mariners, he and his wife tend to their urban patio garden in Seattle, wishing it was possible to grow bell peppers in Seattle.
Wren Everett: Wren and her husband recently quit their jobs as teachers, moved their family to 12 acres in the Ozarks, and are in the middle of establishing their dream of a self-sufficient, off-grid homestead.
Steph Coelho: Steph Coelho has been digging in the dirt for over a decade. She is a Certified Square Foot Gardening Instructor and has taught gardening classes in her local community. As a freelance writer, she seeks to educate others about the wonders of this rewarding hobby by providing honest information based on real-life experiences. She also knows that a gardener never stops learning.
Lucia Wyss: Lucia splits her life between town and country. When she’s not in Olympia with her garden, she is helping her partner at Hidden River Farms raising pastured pigs and growing organic grain and veggies.
Marlene Affeld: When not working in her garden in Northwestern Montana, Marlene Affeld writes of her love of nature and all things natural. Specializing in Eco-Travel, Science, Environmental Health, Conservation, The Beauty of Nature, Sustainability, Green Issues and Wildlife, Affeld’s passion for the environment inspires her to write informative articles to assist others in living a green lifestyle.
Keiren: Keiren founded the website InspirationGreen.com in 2008, to cover her interests in art, building, developing countries, love of animals, healthy living, and the environment. Inspiration Green merged with Insteading in 2016.
Andrea Bertoli: Andrea is a marketing and media professional focused on mission-driven businesses. She currently manages sales at CleanTechnica, the world’s largest cleantech news website. She has worked at startups, in small businesses, and as a freelancer, and brings years of marketing, event management, and community outreach skills to our team. She’s also a plant-based chef, author, and educator, and teaches monthly cooking classes, manages a wellness website, and is always in the kitchen making delicious foods – which you can peek on.
Elaina Garcia: Elaina has been practicing natural healing for almost 15 years and in particular helps us cover wildcrafting medicine and similar relevant topics for the homestead.
Alyssa Ennis: Alyssa grew up on a 500-acre cattle ranch in Idaho before heading to the city in 2005. Since then, she has been urban gardening on her rooftop deck and tending to much smaller animals.
Emily-Jane Hills Orford: Emily-Jane Hills Orford is an award-winning author of several books, including Gerlinda (CFA 2016) which received an Honorable Mention in the 2016 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards, To Be a Duke (CFA 2014) which was named Finalist and Silver Medalist in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards. She writes about the extraordinary in life and her books, short stories, and articles are receiving considerable attention. For more information on the author, check out her website.
Jennifer Kaplan: Jennifer Kaplan is a former marketing consultant who decided, at the age of fifty, to turn her hand to creative non-fiction. Jennifer continues to write about sustainable food and wine, the intersection of food and marketing and food politics for Insteading (and EatDrinkBetter.com before the two sites merged) and is the author of Greening Your Small Business. She was also named one of The 16 Women You Must Follow on Twitter for Green Business. She has four kids, a dog, a hamster, and an MBA – follow her on Twitter.
Jessica Barrett Halcom: Jessica is an outdoor enthusiast who can be found dreaming up any excuse to make her way to the woods, the mountains, or the beach. Growing up in the country in a small town in Wisconsin, she had aspirations of one day moving to a big city to make her living as a writer. Her love of the country won out over the city, and though she makes her living writing, she has chosen the hills of Tennessee as her home where she lives with her family.
