Your Practical Guide To Self Reliant Living
Some days I wonder what it must be like to live off the grid in a truly warm climate, like California. Sunshine year round, no snow covering your solar panels and I bet their generators never get jammed up with ice. While living off the grid in a cold climate has its challenges, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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Blackberry wine is the perfect way to make use of a huge crop of summer blackberries. This one-gallon blackberry wine recipe can easily be increased to make a full 5-gallon batch if you have plenty on hand.
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Persimmon jam is an easy jam to make at home and captures the warm fresh flavor of persimmons for year-round eating. Persimmons contain pectin naturally, so this jam comes together easily with just three ingredients.
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When you’re homesteading, no matter the size, being aware of how to save money is one of the key principles for success. Living frugally seems to come naturally to some people, but take heart – you can learn! See new favorite resources for being a frugal homesteader, and raising your own meat rabbits – an excellent budget-friendly source of food.
I’ll be covering our experiences with raising meat rabbits here on our land in articles over the next few months, but in the meantime, I have a giveaway for you!
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A while back I took a winter foraging course at our local herbal school, and I was truly amazed at how many ways you can eat a pine tree. Most conifers are not only edible, they’re also medicinal. Every part is useful including the bark, needles, resin, nuts, and cones.
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Traditional Brunswick stew is made with small game, namely squirrel or opossum. Since they don’t generally sell squirrel meat at the grocery store, these days most recipes substitute dark meat chicken instead. In truth, most people do have access to squirrel. The hitch comes in turning a squirrel into squirrel meat.
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Eat what you kill, kill what you eat is great hunters motto…but what about mice? Living in the country, mice are everywhere and our record is over a dozen trapped in a single day. A little research and I’ve learned that mice have been eaten as a delicacy throughout history, and are still eaten in many parts of the world today.
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Orange jam has a warm and sunny flavor, and the addition of winter spices makes it the perfect wintertime jam.
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If you’ve ever tried to catch wild game with your bare hands you already know that the ability to hunt at a distance can mean the difference between a meal and disappointment. Most the time anyway. I have an old Vermonter neighbor that routinely brags that he hunts deer with a knife. He has a lot of stories, and this one seemed about as believable as any of them when he told it.
I’ve tried to approach the deer on our land, and I was amazed that moving slowly, most of the year I can get within 20-30 feet before they skitter off. They usually only bound a dozen yards before looking back to see if I’m chasing and then resuming their meal. We have some very trusting deer, and clearly, there are not enough hunters in our neck of the woods to put the fear of the freezer into their minds.
Even at 20-30 feet away, with our very trusting deer, I’m not fast enough to hunt one with a knife. At that range, even the most primitive bow and arrow would be mighty handy. Fortunately, homemade arrows can be made surprisingly quickly with very few tools.
Two homemade Bone primitive arrowheads attached with pine pitch and sinew.
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Those cute little-canned mandarin oranges were a staple in my grandmothers holiday cooking. She’d use them pretty up a fruit salad or decorate the edge of a platter. I’d spend my time trying to sneak in under her and steal a tiny slice for myself. Now that I have my own little orange thieves underfoot, I’m canning oranges of my own.
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