Dear Pioneer Sisters,
Here are some ideas to start out with, when or if you were to move to a cabin in the woods. This is what I would do if I knew I had to eventually be totally self sufficient and I had a family to care for.
Ok. It's spring, as it is now May 13th. And say I was to move in about a month. I would begin digging up some of my perennials in my yard here and bring them to my cabin to plant. I would make a small homestead garden there, too. Since it is my first year, I would plant just tomatoes and green peppers, cucumbers, some lettuce, and radishes, and a good crop of onions. For the first year, I wouldn't plant a lot, as I would want to get chickens and a chicken house made before winter.
Around here, it is fairly easy to get potatoes cheap, and carrots. And you can buy fresh corn on the cob practically for a song. So I wouldn't worry, my first spring, about plowing up a corn field or a potato field. Carrots are another fresh vegetable that I can buy cheap. Carrots will last practically forever in the fridge and they don't need to be canned or frozen. Just keep a close eye on them and, if one gets rotten, throw it out before it rots them all. I would buy a few bushels of apples for the first year and store them in a cool place for the winter. But the first spring I would plant apple trees and other fruit trees on my land.
That first year, I wouldn't worry over potatoes and carrots or corn, as they are easy around here to come by, and would be too much work for that first year. Also I wouldn't plant a lot of beans to mess with the first year. I mean, enough beans to have for summer meals and peas, too. But going to the Homestead the first year, I would just buy the dried beans and split peas and lentils, etc. They are easily stored in jars and nothing to worry about. I mean, if one of the Sisters shares her garden beans, then Praise God and can them up for winter. But the first year is gonna be hard, and dried beans will get ya through.
I couldn't live without my herbs and I would be haulin' all of those to my cabin.
What I am tryin' to say is that first year of planting will be a lot of work without overdoing it. Then, as you are established, then begin planting more in your garden the next spring.
Then I would get a goat and learn to milk her and care for her in the spring. Even if the family don't drink it straight up, you can cook with it and make cheese and soap, maybe next year. But the main thing is knowledge and learning to care for a goat and milk her. I wouldn't force the goat milk on my children if they didn't like it. I would mix it half and half with store bought until they got used to it. If they are young, they will adapt pretty fast, but older children wouldn't. Papa ain't gonna drink no goat milk. I mean maybe in 20 years but I ain't gonna hold my breath at that.
So in the spring and summer, the goat and the chickens will provide a lot of food. But when the cold weather comes, the chickens won't lay eggs as much. But eggs are easily stored, too, in the fridge. I have seen directions for storing eggs and it all sounds very complicated to me. But eggs will last in the fridge for months on end. If an egg is good you will know it and if it ain't, you will know that, too. Just break the egg open in a bowl before you cook it and you will know if it is good or not. My brother had chickens and kept eggs in the fridge for over 6 months and used them to feed his pregnant cats. And when he broke the eggs open, they were as good and fresh as ever. Cats won't eat rotten eggs, believe me. You can get real complicated recipes for storing eggs in lime water or a bucket of lard ... whatever. But to me they stay just as fresh in the fridge. I mean, providing you have electricity. And that first year, I would for sure have electricity until I got the hang of the other stuff.
Also, I would make certain I had a good mother cat about the farmstead. A female cat is a good mouser and I would have a lot of 'em about the farm. Keep her away from the baby chicks and the chickens until they are grown up and can fend for themselves. And I would also have a good Lassie dog to chase wild animals away from my garden, at night especially. You may need two dogs. Well, they will surely earn their keep if they aren't lazy. But most Lassie dogs are good with the children and will protect the garden, hopefully. I would have a house cat, too, as to keep the mice and other critters out of the house.
And, ya know, a homestead is a real woman killer? You take a wife and mother who homeschools and wants to do a good job of it and then she tries to live without electricity and all that first year? She will be dead as a door nail in the first 6 months. And long before your first year of homesteading, you need to get a lot of back to the land books and gather knowledge and wisdom first.
For some of you ... you may not get to a homestead for a few years. Practice now for the time to come. Learn to plant herbs and use them for medicine and cooking. Start now and see what you can do this spring. Use the land you have now and see how many things you can grow and preserve for the winter. I mean, women think all this knowledge will come to them once they get to the homestead ... and it won't. The greatest preparation for the homestead life is knowledge.
For me, I have some land here and we own this house. This is my little homestead for now. I know how to make goat milk soap and cheese, as my milk man used to give me fresh goat milk when the children were young. He used to give me goose eggs, too, and I cooked with them. So I know all about goat milk but I have never raised a goat. In the old books, they call goats a poor man's cow. I would rather have a cow, but I would start out with a goat.
And as you get into another year of homesteading, you could add more of a garden and learn to can and preserve all of your food. And then maybe, as the years go on, you may get off the grid altogether and learn to get along without electricity. You will have to dig a root cellar to keep things cool in the spring and summer. Or if you have a nearby cave, you can put food in there. I have read about using a window box for a fridge in the winter. Just open the kitchen window halfway and put a box in there with a door on the front. It would look like an air conditioner with a door on the front? Anyway, you could keep milk and butter and eggs in there if you were without a fridge. I mean, you could store it all outside in the winter in a small shed, but it would be easier or handier to have a window box in the kitchen.
I used to write to Wanda who was homesteading in Alaska. She would keep her gallons of milk in a cold stream by her cabin. A bear ate some of the milk, plastic gallon jug and all. Some of my letters fell in the river out of a plane one time. I lost track of Wanda years ago, as I started my email writing. I am gonna pray her back, though. God only knows I couldn't find her, otherwise. She wouldn't know which end of a computer to plug in, even if she had electricity. She could barely get her battery operated radio to work. She had seven children and worked like a dog. But she was my age and just had one child left at home. So she had a lot of knowledge and this kept her goin'. She couldn't tie her dogs outside, as a wolf would eat them. Dang, if I didn't lose track of Wanda. She could have told us some things, for sure. Please pray that I will find her again.
Ya know, as I write today, I feel the presence of angels. I feel that this writing may help someone along the way ... maybe even many years from today.
I wonder often, when I see street people, "Could they have made it with knowledge?" My older children tell me they see whole families living on the streets of NYC.
HOMESTEAD MOTHERS
Ya know, a few days ago we were out garage saling. And we came to an area of huge new houses. Two income families with maybe one child. Then we passed new apartment buildings. No place for a garden or clothesline ... no place to live or have a dog. I said, "Oh, Papa, these poor families are just existing and have so little. They aren't learning anything." These poor folks are paying for a lifestyle and not a life. They have run with the herd and bought the lie and will run off the cliff with the rest of the herd. And it's got to be ok, as all of their friends are doing it.
How off the wall do you have to be to think our country is doing good, and all we need is better schools and education and the right president to put us back on target? I mean, I am no rocket scientist ... just a poor housewife, really ... but I can tell things ain't goin' all that good in my country. I don't get this opinion just from watching Fox News (which ain't all that good.) But I have folks in dire straits around me. Oh, I wish I didn't.
And, ya know, Christian Joy has told me that, as she sees street kids, she tells them of her Dad and Mom who have made it on practically nothing and they can, too. It takes a pioneer spirit and, boy, we need to develop this in our souls. We need to grow some spines of steel and teach ourselves to just flat out make it, one way or the other.
Our nation's homes were formed from the prayers and the tears of the Pioneer Mothers who came here with nothing. And if they made it, so can I. By golly ... so can I. And you can too, dear Mothers.
I need to write more about buying things for your Homestead Pantry for that first year. But I will have to get to that maybe tomorrow.
