Turning land into a lifestyle: Homesteading journey blossoms for Bossier City family
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Writer: Tobie Blanchard at [email protected]
On a pastoral plot of land more than 8,000 miles from their native South Africa, Junette and Marcus Van Der Merwe have carved out a life that shares similarities with how they grew up.
Chicken and sheep roam the large backyard and various fruit trees, and vegetable plots dot the landscape of the couple’s Bossier City property.
“It was just the most wonderful life you can have, to be a little girl on a farm and have the freedom just to roam for acres and acres and to be outside and to be in nature,” Junette Van Der Merwe said. “It was just ingrained — the peace on the farm and living off the land.”
The couple came to the U.S. in the 1990s and initially settled in Austin, Texas, but felt a sense of home when they crossed the Texas border into Louisiana and first visited the Bossier area.
The Van Der Merwes started with a few fruit trees, but their farm grew.
The couple are modern-day homesteaders. While they are a world away from their homeland, they are only a five-minute drive to the LSU AgCenter Red River Research Station, which has been offering programming on homesteading for the past few years.
“There’s a lot of interest in becoming more self-sufficient, and especially after COVID, a lot more interest in that area of growing your own food, of processing your own food,” said Ron Stahan, AgCenter Northwest Region director. “So, to address these needs, we came up with an idea where we could bring people together to have expert speakers to provide them research-based information on homesteading.”
Van Der Merwe said she learned about the AgCenter’s homesteading programs when looking into perfecting her preserves. She had learned to make preserves back in South Africa.
“It’s a wonderful hobby to have,” she said. “You always have something good to give to somebody as a gift.”
She said she liked experimenting with recipes but realized by altering ingredients and proportions, she was introducing food safety issues. The AgCenter’s food preservation class changed our outlook.
“One little class cost me $10, and I walked out feeling like as if my whole world changed, and it’s something edible and something valuable to me, my preserves.”
AgCenter nutrition and community health agent Erin Stockton presented the preservation class with AgCenter consumer food safety expert Shannon Coleman. Stockton said the AgCenter’s food preservation program has had a positive impact by teaching individuals and families how to safely preserve food.
“These classes help reduce food waste, stretch food dollars and increase access to nutritious foods throughout the year. Through hands-on instruction in canning, freezing and drying, participants build confidence in safe food preservation practices while learning to make the most of locally grown and seasonal produce,” Stockton said.
For Van Der Merwe, homesteading isn’t just a hobby. It’s about health, sustainability and resilience. Her desire to eat unprocessed food intensified after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, leading her to focus on growing, preserving and cooking food straight from the land.
Fresh eggs from the farm, lamb and poultry raised in their back yard and preserves made from the fruit she grows make up a lot of her diet.
She credits the AgCenter for helping her homestead thrive in their adopted homeland.
“To have an organization close by that teaches you how to grow your own produce and how to have your animals, that’s amazing. It’s an amazing resource,” she said.
