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| My apartment size kitchen (photo: Alvin D. Barrett) |
I have been watching
the Living Big In A Tiny House series on YouTube every night. Since I
live in a very small apartment, I find some of the ways they organize
these homes useful. Another aspect of it is what the people do in
designing a home that eliminates all the useless clutter and objects
that they do not or will not use. If they cook meals, maybe their
kitchen has full sized appliances, sinks and food preparation areas.
Some do most of their cooking outside on a grill or fire pit,
depending on where they live. So they do not have a full sized stove
or maybe just a microwave. Instead of buying a house that has rooms
or items that do not pertain to them, the house is built based on
their own needs or wants. Some of the older couples did not do this
until their children left home. It was a dream they couldn’t wait
for. One couple still had their 19 year old son living with them and
he had one of the lofts and loved it. In fact, he was planning on
building his own someday. One that I really liked was a single mom
who actually built the house herself and lived with her fifteen year
old daughter. Her daughter was interviewed and she told about her
friends envying her because she lived in a tiny house. Now as I watch
these videos I wonder why I did not know about this way of life
before? Instead of buying a house to homestead with, building a tiny
house on wheels would have been a better alternative. But alas, that
time is gone. Now on to new ideas.
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| Living downtown, I am just around the corner! |
My first idea is
that you can really homestead wherever you live. Country, small towns
or the biggest urban centers. It is totally up to you. You only have
to do what you want to do or can do. Gardening is not something I can
do living where I live. So except for a few small pots of plants
here, I will be purchasing my fresh produce. I have said for years
that there are no rules. It is your homestead and you develop it
however you choose. No rules! Due to my circumstances, I am living in
a very small apartment and I thought I was done with the homesteading
life. That does not have to be. I remembered how I encouraged people
who wrote to me about wanting to homestead but not being able to move
to the country. I would tell them they can do it right where they
are. Time to listen to my own advice!
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| katlupe's kitchen has much more workable space than my last one! |
As I write this post
and others, I want you to understand, this is how I do it or how I plan
on doing it. Not that you have to do it my way. Choose what works for
you! Even though this is not the same type of homesteading I did in
my past, gardening, cooking on a wood cook stove (which I loved!),
heating with a wood stove, foraging for wild medicinal and edible
plants in the forest and living off-the grid, etc. I can do it, but
differently. Apartment homesteading for one? Homesteading for an over
sixty woman......living alone? However you phrase it, you describe what
you are or want to be doing. Have fun with it! If you have a
disability, do not overwhelm yourself by making it too hard or too
time consuming. Make it yours!
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| kat in 2018 Photo Credit: Alvin D. Barrett |
Being a homesteader
basically means that you are preparing for life. You are making sure
you have food to eat. The best quality food you can procure. Instead
of growing it now, I have to exchange my time in the garden to money
being used to buy that food. I buy as much organic NON-GMO food as I
can. There have always been people who want to live this way or do
live this way but don’t put a name on it. Sometimes it just hits
them that they are already doing what others call homesteading. I see
it all the time on my Tightwad Gazette Fan Club group I belong to on
Facebook. Instead of doing my laundry by hand outside (which I hated as I got
older and could barely walk) I do it downstairs in the
laundry room of my apartment building. I love it! It does not take up
my whole day so I can do other things. I do not make my own laundry
detergent now either. To be honest, I had stopped doing that long
before I moved here. I have always been very frugal with the
detergent anyway, so a bottle lasts me a long time. To make your own,
you still had to buy the ingredients. It wasn’t something you could
grow in your garden, though there are some plants you can use for
soap.
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| I use an induction cook top almost daily for cooking! |
I like to cook but
not large meals. Instead of wood stove cooking, I have gotten into
cooking with various small appliances. An Instant Pot is sitting
right on my counter so I can use it whenever I decide to make a meal
in it. I find that putting the appliances in a cupboard means I don’t
use it as much as I would. The same with the Nuwave convection oven.
I use the electric range as a cupboard for all my pots and pans. I did not like using the electric stove the first few times I used it when I first
moved here. I used to cook on electric stoves before I got my first
gas one and I can’t remember not liking it. Now though, I do not
use it. It is useful as a cupboard and I took out the burner coils
and have an induction cook top burner on top of it along with the toaster
oven. Works great for that and I have the clock and timer that is
convenient when I need it. I have a small Dash hot pot for heating
water fast (and I mean fast!). It can be used for cooking food too. I
think it was marketed for college kids cooking in their dorms. I do
not cook in it because I do not want it to take on any smell that
would transfer to my hot water. I suppose if I wanted to do that, I
would purchase a second one. It would be good for cooking rice or
pasta but I don’t need that.
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| My father taught me to can and I love doing it! |
My favorite
homesteading activity, as all of my regular readers probably remember, was always canning. Preserving your food does
not mean you have to grow it. I loved to garden, but it is not
possible for me to do it here. I can still do canning. I can
dehydrate with my Nuwave oven too. I can buy local produce and bring
it home to can. I can buy meat on sale or at local farms or butcher
shops and can that also. Since I live alone, I do not need large
amounts and the work will be much less than I was used to. I can also
cook from scratch, which is what I do most of the time anyway. I can
make a variety of dairy products just by purchasing organic (or raw
if available, but I’d have to drive somewhere for that) milk. I
know how to make a number of those. For now, I find I need such
small amounts that I don’t want to do the work. Life here in my studio apartment with Rabbit is pretty good!
Copyright © 2019 Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2019 Kathleen G. Lupole
Unless otherwise stated on photo
