Hey. I’m Jill.
I’ve never been very good at following prescribed paths.
For the last 15 years, that instinct has led me through homesteading, bestselling books, entrepreneurship, restaurant ownership, and a building a life my younger self couldn’t have imagined was possible.
I spent a long time building the ultimate homestead dream: gardens, livestock, food from scratch, useful skills, and a life rooted in doing more for ourselves.
And I still believe in a lot of it.
But these days, I’m less interested in doing everything the old-fashioned way just because I can and more interested in asking:
What’s actually worth keeping?
I’ve learned a meaningful life doesn’t have to be complicated or fit a certain mold.
It can look like knowing how to make supper without a recipe. Growing some food without making it your whole personality. Learning how to do things so you’re less dependent on someone else. And maybe most importantly—trusting yourself to figure out what comes next.
In 2026, my own life changed in ways I didn’t expect, and I found myself rebuilding on different ground, literally and figuratively.
The first half of my story was about building the perfect homestead.
This next part is about building a life that actually fits.
So that’s what you’ll find here: old-fashioned skills, real-life self-reliance, from-scratch food, useful systems, and honest conversations about what still belongs and what doesn’t.
I’m keeping the skills but losing the fantasy.
If you can relate, you’re definitely in the right place. Thanks for following along.
Peace, Love, and Mason Jars,
The Prairie Homestead Team
Jill Winger, Founder & CEO
Jill is the founder of The Prairie Homestead, an online space with over one million monthly visits dedicated to helping people learn how to grow their own food and opt-out of the rat race, regardless of where they live. In 2019, she published her best-selling cookbook The Prairie Homestead Cookbook which was an Amazon Editor’s pick and won Best Cookbook in the 30th Annual Reading the West Book Awards given by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association. In 2023, she published Old-Fashioned on Purpose which was an instant Amazon best seller. Her next cookbook, The Old-Fashioned on Purpose Cookbook hits shelves October 6, 2026.
Her practical and authentic style of teaching and storytelling has won the hearts of hundreds of thousands of homesteaders across social media and through the Old Fashioned on Purpose podcast, which has amassed over 10 million downloads since its inception.
Jill also runs the Chugwater Soda Fountain and has been featured in COWGIRL magazine, Woman’s Day, HuffPost, Wall Street Journal, Wyoming PBS, NBC News, and People Magazine. She resides on the windswept Wyoming prairie with her family.
Cris Daining, Executive Assistant
Cris is Jill’s “right hand gal” who is responsible for managing the day-to-day functions of The Prairie Homestead business. She handles a variety of activities here, including email communications, social media activity, organizing and updating the online courses, researching and managing new projects, coordinating meetings, editing, and more.
In her spare time, Cris is happily obsessed with year-round gardening in her mild South Carolina climate and manages her own website (www.thehomesteadgarden.com), where she writes about: gardening tips, her philosophical musings about finding joy in nature, herbal remedies, and she also shares her favorite food recipes that use bold flavors and fresh garden produce (as well as sharing her newest passion for creating tasty hot sauce recipes).
