Historically the farming season was complimented by hand crafted work. I know this because my background is rooted in that culture and small enterprise. My dad grew up on a farm in the days when corporate farming was taking over. That- and the fact that he didn't like killing animals, led him to create another sort of a farm, the ceramic slip-casting studio as a business in a home- which is the industry that traditionally complimented the farm during the off season.

The designer craftsmen movement has always been an alternate movement, especially during the Industrial Revolution since cottage industries were the pre-existing form of manufacturing and especially during the Industrial Revolution when as Lewis Mumford writes in the Culture of the Cities "One might almost measure the “prosperity” of the paleotechnic community by the size of its scrapheaps and junkpiles ". It was the worst of the worst of times for human living conditions.

But home businesses, or cottage industries existed before the Industrial Revolution and now that we are moving out of that era into the age of automation and at the same time into the age of remote work, there is no reason why the work-life balance that the cottage industries, or whatever will be the new term of the day, should not make a comeback.

There was a time when the source of wealth creation was considered to be production of a product or a service but now we live in a time when the producers of society cannot even afford a place to live. Since I grew in that lifestyle, I can say the thing I love about it is the meaningful engagement of the work process. I am even older than social security and have no desire to retire.