When you walk through the gates of my little urban homestead, there is a sense of serenity within its walls. The trees grow abundantly and circles and rectangles and wild tufts of herbs and flowers and vegetables grow everywhere. Climbing grapes and flourishing raspberries, rows of corn. The chicks chirp madly for more food and…
Category: So You Want to Be a Homesteader Series
Homemade Gifts, Cards, and Letter Writing (Homesteading #23)
Homesteading is about living on less so that you can work less, do what you love more, and attain financial security. Homesteading is about doing more yourself because the pride that comes from the work of your own hands is unprecedented and you can control your own environment. What you put on your skin, in…
Make Your Own Body Products
On “So You Want to Be a Homesteader” Day 22, let’s look at another way to DIY and save money! Get super clean, chemical free, fragrant, lovely, moisturizing beauty and body products by making your own for your homestead. That was the first thing that actually got us hooked on this lifestyle. In my early…
An Interview with a Hunter
Hunting is something that has pretty well horrified me since childhood. Throughout history the entire world has subsisted on wild foods and hunting, and then agriculture. I understand this, and I know that the taking of one life to feed a family for most of a year compared to the life of a factory farmed…
Gone Fishing (Homesteading #20)
I flew out to visit my grandparents by myself for three weeks during the summer that I was eight years old. They took my cousin and I to the mountains for a leisure weekend. Stars glittered through cracks of the log ceiling of the cabin. Helen and I giggled and talked but fell asleep soon…
Simplifying Meals and the Budget (So You Want to Be a Homesteader #19)
I am learning a lot this summer. I am learning to simplify my meal plan, my shopping list, and my budget in order to save time, energy, and a whole lot of money that will be used for other things. My meals are usually pretty elaborate affairs. I would always have a long menu plan…
The Simply Clean Home
Listen, if the baby gets under the cupboard and there is something in there that will kill her, I don’t want it in my house. What that also means is that anything I use to clean is non-toxic, safe to breathe in, easy on the environment, inexpensive, and effective. Are you sure it works? Of…
Fiber Arts, Animals, and Projects
These desert mornings are cool. I put a cardigan on before I poured my coffee. I put the chicks outside yesterday but I may need to run the heat lamp out there for mornings. It’s going to get warm though. It was ninety degrees yesterday and it will be again today (wasn’t I just wearing…
The Homegrown, Healthy Life (So You Want to Be a Homesteader #16)
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, somewhere during women’s liberation we got led astray. The frozen dinner folks were ready to pounce. “Yes, women, go get a job! We’ll take care of dinner.” Every convenience began to show up, pushing women into the work force in droves. Children left raising themselves and…
Saving Money with Free Activities
Maybe you would like a cheese press, or a new hoe. Maybe a few goats or maybe you realize that every hour of your life is valuable and perhaps you would like a few of them to not be working a job, but rather enjoying your homestead. In everything, we save money so we can…
Farmgirl School 