H. Skip Thomsen

Author Bio

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and from a very early age found that I loved to write. The writing didn't really go anywhere until the late '80s, when I wrote and published my first book, a how-to manual on building an a wilderness-home electrical system. There have been several more, and the newest one is “Affordable Paradise,” now already in its Fourth Edition.

Over the decades before and during my "writing years," my mission, after spending my first two decades in the city, was to permanently get out of that environment. Ever since I was very little, our family went on an annual vacation up to the Sierra where my Dad loved to be. I did too. I cried when we had to leave each year. I would ask Dad why, since we loved being there, did we not simply move there. His reply was that it was impossible to find work there. I didn't get that, since obviously there were people living there who did manage to find work, but that would have to remain a mystery until I was old enough to leave home.

Fast forward a few years: In 1974, my new Bride and I packed up everything we owned and moved to a funky owner-built A-frame on four acres in the woods of northwestern Oregon. That was to be our introduction into our goal of homesteading. We stayed there for four years. During that time we built a beautiful workshop and studio building and a poultry house from salvaged materials, and we raised chickens and planted a vegetable garden.

We were growing restless and unchallenged in our quest, so after a lot of looking, we finally put a down payment on a 108 acres of pines and oaks on the northeast slope of Mt. Hood. It was 16 miles from the nearest town and 8 miles from the nearest paved road and powerline. There was not so much as a shed on the land, and those last eight miles of road were like driving along a washed out riverbed. It was heaven!

Over the next ten years, we built a 1600-square-foot house, a 2000-square-foot shop in which I earned most of our keep, a poultry house, a two-car garage, and various other outbuildings. We designed and built the terrific electrical system that powered it all with never a glitch, and built and installed our own water system. A lot of other things happened over those ten years, too, including the unfortunate death of my wife and mother of my son, Jacob, only seven years old at the time.

Too keep this from turning into another book, let me condense the story a bit here. I got remarried a few years later, and over the next few years, we kept making more and more trips out to the ocean, where all three of us loved to be. After ten years on the homestead, we again felt unchallenged, and along with a desire to live by the ocean we sold the homestead and started over in a tiny beach community on Oregon’s North Coast. When we arrived there, as usual with no idea of how we were going to support ourselves, I looked and asked around and discovered a need for nicely designed and built two-bedroom homes. I got my General Contractor's license and went to work. During our four years there, with another master carpenter-turned-friend who I met because he was renting the little house we bought there, I built four houses and remodeled another two.

It was in that house at the beach that we started our little publishing company, “Oregon Wordworks.” The first book as “More Power to You!,” a manual on how to duplicate the power system that gave us our electricity for our ten years on the homestead. Then came the First Edition of “The Modern Homestead Manual.”

Again we were growing restless. Our dream of starting another homestead after paying off everything was falling apart because our lovely coastal area was becoming a playground for the rich. The picturesque and tiny homes of the village were being demolished and replaced by fancy second homes for the well-to-do, and the relentless clear-cutting of the Coast Range forest was now becoming visible from the ocean side. It was time to move on again.

We loved the ocean. We loved low population densities. We loved affordable properties. We started looking, of all places, to the Big Island of Hawaii, where all three of these conditions beckoned. Hawaii became my home in 1993 and I was going to stay forever. We found a great owner-built house in a very rural area near Pahoa, the town known as the “Wild West of Hawaii.” Of course, we immediately did an extensive remodel, including the addition of another bedroom and a nice office for the now displaced Oregon Wordworks. It was in this office where we did the Second Edition of “The Modern Homestead Manual.”

Our next book, “Affordable Paradise” came about because of the endless questions we were getting from our vacation rental guests (oh yeah, another avocation) about Hawaii, how can we afford to live here, cultural issues, what about the schools, and so on. It occurred to my writer's mind one day that hey, here is a highly focused audience eager for information, and information was my thing.

Now in its Fourth Edition, this title is still selling and the Fourth Edition is the best yet. The changes come largely from the highly-appreciated feedback of readers and the need to update to reflect changing economic and social conditions.

I have always believed that success in any business is a direct result of the passion one has for that enterprise. My father used to criticize me endlessly for my wandering passions, and I used to take his words to heart. But I've come to know the secret of passion, and that has been the driving force in every venture I've undertaken in my life so far. Yes, I get tired of some things after a while and move onto something new, and I've also come to take peace in the OK-ness of that.

Since two of my passions have for many years been fine woodworking and stained glass design and construction, a few years ago I decided to combine my wood art and glass art, the result being pieces that were well received in several Big Island galleries and shows. My Hawaii studio and woodworking shop were at our home.

Why all the past tense?

For our last two or three years in Hawaii, our too-quickly-growing-up grandkids were becoming more and more a long-distance part of our lives, and it became essential that we all be closer together. The several flights over the ocean each year had become more expensive and less fun with each passing year. After much soul-searching, in late 2011 we relocated to the beautiful California Sonoma County Redwoods, along the Russian River, where we are a comfortable drive's distance from all our kids and grandkids. It is now November, 2013, and I've been working in my new shop and studio here for two years now.

Has our move back to the Mainland compromised what we've said about life in Hawaii? Not at all! We still feel strongly about what we learned in our 19 years on the awesome and wonderful Big Island. We miss the ocean, the people, our home, our friends, and of course the year 'round near-perfect weather. In “Affordable Paradise” and in “The Modern Homestead Manual” we did cover the issue of moving far away from one's growing grandkids and now we had our own growing older and we were missing them terribly. In the end, we had to make a painful choice. That choice was made over a period of several years, and the grandkids just happened to win.

And have all of these moves, some of them not having much to do with homesteading, compromised what I've said about what a rewarding and fulfilling lifestyle comes with it? Again, not at all. What we've learned in those days are still with us in the way we live today, but at 76 years young, I'm not inclined to start from scratch again. We're living in a conventional house in a tiny community here in the forest, and are looking for an even smaller place, preferably one of the 1930's cabins around here, to make our “permanent home.” Of course, we'll have to do some remodeling . . .

Along with working on another book, I'm designing and creating works to honor my gorgeous new environs: redwoods, rivers, golden hills, Sonoma County's incredible Pacific Coast, the abundant wildflowers, and more! My work is shown at sonomastainedglass.com.

I miss Hawaii every day, but life is good here in the Redwoods, and we get to spend lots of time with our families. Life is full of trade-offs, and some work out very well. My newest project here has been the rewrite and updating of “The Modern Homestead Manual.”

“The Modern Homestead Manual, Revisited” in its eBook Edition was written and produced in response to requests from readers of the first four editions of the original book. Seems folks wanted this same realistic viewpoint of what it really takes to make it beyond the sidewalks, only rewritten to speak to a contemporary audience. It felt a bit alien to me at first, to produce an eBook for something as basic as homesteading, but then, we're talking “modern” homesteading, right? I do avail myself of new technology, like computers, tablets, smart phones, social media, and the like. It just seemed at odds with something as old-fashioned in its concept as going back to the land.

I also felt a need to do this project because after perusing so many other homesteading publications and finding almost all of them focused on the agricultural side of country living, I felt many would-be homesteaders were being left out. I'm a guy who has a number of marketable skills, all of which I enjoy doing. Gardening is clearly not one of them, nor is raising critters for food and profit. So did that disqualify me from being a “real homesteader?”

To me, the modern homesteader is someone who strives for autonomy; to become as self-sufficient and self-confident as possible.

To some, self-sufficiency is nothing less than the ability to raise all of one's food, create buildings, clothes and furniture from salvaged materials, and to live with no electricity. To others, the meaning is far less strict, but no less meaningful. To me, "homesteader" might be the antithesis to "consumer." Even the term "consumer" implies that one only consumes: continually buys, uses up, discards and buys more. A true consumer gives nothing back to the planet in return. I've always disliked that word.. . .

A homesteader, on the other hand, creates, nourishes, and nurtures. A homesteader is a worthy steward to the Earth. A modern homesteader does all of these things, and more. A person need not consider herself less than a homesteader because she chooses to make use of some of the better technology available to us all. One can operate in a world of high-tech and still be as conscious of environmental concerns as someone living in a tent. That's my vision of a homesteader.

Aloha from the Redwoods!

Skip Thomsen