Our paddock was completely wooded 11 years ago.
On Homesteading Today, my favorite homesteading forum, one of the threads today was about making a list of things you want to learn how to do. I made my list and realized some of the items I listed are not that I don't know how to do them, it is that I just haven't made the effort to do them. I am going to start cutting down on my computer time so that I can do my homesteading chores. They should be my top priority.
I want to learn to:
- grow an asparagus bed
- grow fruits - apple trees, pear trees, plum trees, various berries
- to build a hen house that will be VERY safe from critters
- to make one of my raised beds into a cold frame bed for winter greens
- to make soap
- to increase my preps - double our supplies
- to make more of my own tinctures, extracts, lotions and salves.
- make fermented foods
- make hard cheeses
- improve my picklemaking skills
- make my own dairy products from local raw milk
- identify wild mushrooms
- be more experienced with guns and get a pistol permit - needed where I live
This book is essential for homesteaders!
Some of these skills I need a refrigerator for, and as my regular readers know, I am living without that luxury for the time being. That is one convenience I don't recommend going without........it is hard! I have made cheese before, but the softer varieties, and that was back when I had the gas refrigerator. I have canned cheese from the store and sometimes it came out and sometimes it did not. Truthfully, I would much rather buy my cheese from local cheese makers and not the store, but sometimes I have not had much choice, money wise you know. So making my own is something I definitely want to do.
Carla Emery's book, The Encyclopedia of Country Living 
is filled with the instructions on so many homesteading skills that I don't know how anyone can live without it. I use it constantly, as you can see my copy is duct taped together! I belong to another homesteading forum that is only for NY homesteaders and recently our administrator had posted the directions for making the soap. I might try that in the near future. His directions were pretty good. By the way, anyone from NY state who wants to join it, contact me and I can arrange it. It is a private forum and you can only become a member if you know someone. Newbies are VERY welcome! We love to help them. But you have to be from NY.
is filled with the instructions on so many homesteading skills that I don't know how anyone can live without it. I use it constantly, as you can see my copy is duct taped together! I belong to another homesteading forum that is only for NY homesteaders and recently our administrator had posted the directions for making the soap. I might try that in the near future. His directions were pretty good. By the way, anyone from NY state who wants to join it, contact me and I can arrange it. It is a private forum and you can only become a member if you know someone. Newbies are VERY welcome! We love to help them. But you have to be from NY.As I work on these skills I will write a post detailing what I am doing, how I am doing it and take photos in the process. Hopefully, I can accomplish these skills and as I work on them more, will gain the experience to be able to share them with my readers here. What skills are you wanting to learn? Is there a skill that you have recently learned? If so, and you have written on your blog about it, post it in my comment section and I will write about it in future posts about homesteading skills.
Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
6 comments:
...looking forward to learning about the processes as you actually learn to do them! :)
Great minds think alike ;-))) Just today I strated thinking that I finally will strat producing my own champignons, and will use the balcony at the flat to its best use, from herbs to tomatoes. Katlupe, I am composing my own list in this very moment! Yeah.
I've been planning to make a similar list. Maybe I'll get to that today. One skill I'm working on right now is using a drop spindle to spin wool.
Wow, that is a pretty long list. Having lived in a city all my life I'd be really proud to be able to get even one of those done. All the best to you though.
My list is about ten feet long. I would love to get that book. Would it be helpful to someone like me, an apartment dweller in Suburbia?
I want to raise chickens (my mom currently does and her hubby built a racoon and bear safe henhouse), learn how to make cheese, can (mom is giving me her pressure cooker), learn other ways of preserving food, and try to grow something or anything either in my apartment or on the little patio we have.
I think that's a great list Katlupe! I cannot wait to hear about your progress and learn through your experiences. :)
We tried to grow asparagus one year. In fact, we did grown it but never got to harvest it. Our rottie, Bear, would always eat it before we got to it. He would also take a bite out of the ripe tomatoes. Bless his heart, he loved his veggies. We had to fence the garden in order to have any.
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