Good tools make jobs faster, homesteading more enjoyable, and tasks easier. Sure, good homesteading tools cost more money, but they are usually well worth the investment, as a quality tool will last for years. We started collecting tools when we first moved onto a rental homestead in 1999, and still use many of those same tools today. I asked some homesteading friends which tools they considered indispensable on their farm or homestead. Here are 17 essential tools for homesteading and gardening that we wouldn't want to live without. Essential Tools for the Garden and Barn Favorite Garden Tools I bet if you surveyed 100 gardeners, each one would love a different garden tool. And … [Read more...]
Train Travel with Kids (on a Homesteader’s Budget)
Because we love to travel, and because our family and dear friends live in opposite corners of the United States, we spend a fair amount of time traversing the country. Our preferred method of transportation is by train, on the Amtrak. I tend to get a lot of questions about train travel, especially how to make it work when you're traveling with kids, and how to make train travel affordable, so I wanted to share our experiences. (And yes, I am writing this on the train!) Although commuter train travel does not seem to be economical for larger families, our family of four is usually traveling long distances, such as this Missouri to Arizona trip. The train makes it possible for us to … [Read more...]
Out the Front Door
{Out the Front Door: An occasional series featuring snapshots and snippets of homestead life, right out our front door.} This spring has felt particularly full, as we've finally hit our stride as small business owners, while simultaneously increasing the food growing, making, and storing capacity on our homestead. Blogging has fallen a bit to the wayside, and micro-blogging has taken its place, primarily on Instagram. (If you're on Instagram, I'd love to connect! I'm @homestead_honey). But there are SO many projects happening that I've wanted to share! Such as this project: Fencing and mulching our fruit trees. We love free ranging our chickens, but hate that they kick up the mulch around … [Read more...]
Building a Strong Homesteading Community
When we began homesteading 16 years ago, our loosely articulated goal was “self-sufficiency.” We aimed to grow as much of our own food as possible, with our own hands, our own tools, and our own time. However, when we had children, and subsequently moved onto our own 10 acres of raw land, we re-evaluated this goal. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but rather one born out of necessity – we landed in a new place, with only a few friends, and a daunting task of creating shelter, water, and food infrastructure. We were in an incredibly vulnerable position that forced us to ask for help (something we are very, very bad at!), and receive it gracefully. We moved to what I … [Read more...]
Five Uses for Tallow
As a family who loves meat but seeks to raise animals in a way that honors their life, we try to use as much of the animal as possible. For instance, when we butcher our chickens, the cleaned feet go in the stock pot, and the feathers go into our compost pile. From our pig, we use every possible cut of meat, and render the fat into snow-white lard that we use for cooking and frying. In commercial meat processing situations, fat is usually collected and rendered for animal feed. Even a small-scale pasture-raised beef farming friend of mine recently lamented the fact that his animals' gorgeous fat was largely considered waste product. If you raise your own cattle, or if you purchase a … [Read more...]
Homestead Meat Curing
This summer we raised a pig for meat. Actually, we co-raised three pigs with our neighbors, housing the pigs at their farm, and sharing in the cost and labor. Raised on pasture in the sunshine and fed with 100% non-GMO feed and lots of organic food scraps and whey from Creme Brûlée, they became the most amazingly delicious pork chops and sausages. But the real excitement of raising pigs has been homestead meat curing: Making our own bacon, jowls, salami, lardo, and prosciutto with traditional meat preservation methods. When we lived in Oregon we raised pigs two years in a row, keeping one pig for ourselves, and selling the others to friends. With our share of the meat, we … [Read more...]
Top Off-Grid Homesteading Posts of 2015
In anticipation of New Year's Eve, I thought I'd do a little count down of my top off-grid homesteading posts of 2015. These are the posts that have gotten the most views and comments; in other words, they have been the most useful to my readers! I hope you enjoy re-visiting these favorites! 10. Remodeling our Outdoor Kitchen I love our outdoor kitchen even more after its remodel. We moved all of the food prep to the lower level of the outdoor kitchen, and made space for our picnic table in the shade of the upper terrace. Check out the photos in this post to see how it's laid out. 9. A Day on Acorn Hill Homestead My favorite homestead bloggers joined together to each share a "day … [Read more...]
A Year with our Family Milk Cow
A few weekends ago we quietly celebrated a year with our sweet Jersey cow, Creme Brûlée. Becoming a new cow owner is like having a baby in that it really does take several months to get your bearing! And caring for a cow after many years of caring for goats was very much like having my second child; in some ways everything was same-old, same-old, but in other ways, it was completely brand new! For months prior to Creme's arrival, I had been reading about cows, dreaming about cows, talking to cow owners, and preparing for her arrival. Creme Brûlée is one of the sweetest, most wonderful cows imaginable, thanks to excellent training from her previous owner. But when she arrived at our … [Read more...]
Creating Your Off-Grid Homestead
When we moved to Missouri, three years ago, we had a lot of homesteading experience, but absolutely no experience living off-grid. Sure, we loved to backpack and camp and knew we could "rough it" for a while, but the experience of living for years with no running water, no electricity, and no refrigeration while we built one piece of infrastructure at a time. Yeah, that was new. As I shared our experiences on this blog, it became clear that others were looking for more information about this kind of off-grid homestead-building experience: the kind that starts with a modest budget and a DIY approach, and adds elements as time and money become available. The outline of a book took shape, … [Read more...]
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