The Self-Sufficient Skills thread (new name, old thread!)

[Homesteadmom]

Expanding our garden, planting more fruit trees & plants(fist time growing rhubarb & strawberries). Teaching myself more lessons in sewing, learning to cross stitch & hopefully crochet, along with spinning our rams wool. Finding new ways to cut down our elec bill too. Also want to get a low line & learn to milk & make our own cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream & yogurt. Anything else I think of I will add & update as appropriate.

 

[sylvie]

What skills to add. How do you improve on perfection, hmm, hmm, hmm. . . OK, honeybees which I read about on here.

Kefir and ACV and sauerkraut for fermented foods.

I want to make a manual dumbwaiter that will transport books to my loft library. I bought antique elevator lights, up/down buttons and floor indicator. I want it exposed and ornate metalwork. I'm already a woodcarver and will carve the doors and gild the whole thing. I don't know if it will be finished by years end but will photo what is done.

 

[OkieJonesClan]

I love this thread! Great idea!
I am very new to all of this . . so we have 14 baby chicks arriving in 2 weeks our garden plot is nearly ready and I starting my first seeds . . hopefully they will grow.. I hope to have loads to post this year

 

[Henrietta23]

I just ordered a book from Amazon on root cellars. I have done a liitle research just have to figure out my needs and how to get the job done. We have a neighbor with a bobcat and when I clear and till for the garden I might as well dig for the root cellar while its here.

edited again for spelling darn this sausage fingers

I was just going through my copy of Putting Food By. There's a section in there too about root cellaring.

 

[me&thegals]

Sylvie--I didn't think I was an envious person, but I want your library!!!

Not taking on much this year, but here goes:
1. Continue to study up on bees. Possibly get them before spring.
2. Continue learning more about root veggies, how to store them. Greatly increase number in fall garden for all-winter storage.
3. Vastly increase fruits planted this year--lots of rhubarb, 4 apple trees, a couple kiwi vines, couple paw-paws.
4. Build and put up bat houses for pest control.

Great ideas, folks! You are all amazing!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I just want to learn how to can my own food this year.

Also, teach DD how to sew.

 

[Henrietta23]

I just bought used maple taps on Ebay. Once I get them and a couple of buckets I'm going to tap my big maple out front and make syrup!!!

 

[hobobrando]

Here are the steps I'm taking.
1. Starting my first vegetable garden
2. Making a compost pile
3. Hopefully learning to can
4. Planning for some meat chickens this spring

 

[Beekissed]

Here are the steps I'm taking.
1. Starting my first vegetable garden
2. Making a compost pile
3. Hopefully learning to can
4. Planning for some meat chickens this spring

You are quite a kid, you know that? My kids have been brought up to that life and they have no intention of continuing it when they leave here.

I would be willing to bet they will see the sense of it before long, but I wish they were as eager as you to see that what we are doing now is the real thing.....all the easy living the world has to offer is a fallacy....it seems easier until you have to pay the bill for it!

I hope your folks come around after they see what a difference you can make to their food bills!

 

[freemotion]

OK, my very first batch of soft cheese is curdling as we speak....er...as I type. Tomorrow I put it in the colander to strain and tomorrow night I will know if I succeeded.

Little Liam's appetite is skyrocketing and I think he is nursing both sides now, so I have cut my milking in half, taking only one quart a day. So I may not get to try cheese again until he is weaned.....gave some yogurt samples out, and may have some buyers. Supporting Mya's habit (eating) is more important right now than supporting my habit (eating!)