Good Morning.
Yesterday I was writing about homesteading and going back to the land. One thing I was trying to caution my readers about is not biting off more than they can chew.
I know one time, I read an article in Crowned with Silver about a dear Mother who nearly died from overwork. She had these dreams of moving to a farm with her large homeschooling family. Cooking from scratch and having goats and chickens. Well, she wasn't prepared for any of this and way overdid it. She and her children got the flu and, because of being so stressed, it took a long time for them to all get well again. Her garden was way too large and she couldn't care for it. So, of course, the city women mocked her and told her that she could never make a go of it on the land.
Well, ya know, slow and steady wins the race. If you have a small garden in town and can't keep up with it, then don't try to go to the country and plow up a big garden and add animals to care for to the work. Judge yourselves by what you have done with your small garden in the city. If you have outgrown your city garden, then you are ready to get a bigger garden.
I say all of this to say again, "Make hay while the sun shines." Prepare yourselves now for the coming harder times ahead. Do what you can to learn survival skills. At different times in my marriage over the past 40 years, I have had to do many things to survive and to keep my family from going under. I was prepared with knowledge and I was glad I was.
Ok, now let's say I have my Homestead and I am preparing to move in about a month. Again, it is the spring, like now. I would want to stock my pantry so that I would only have to go to town once a month. I will be busy with gardening and children and won't have time to leave the Homestead more than once a month. So this is basically what I would buy.
I would buy a lot of canned vegetables, fruits, and meats. I am shooting for total self sufficiency but I am not there yet. I will be canning tomatoes out of my garden in the fall. Until then, I will need some canned items. So I will buy as many canned items as I can until I learn, gradually, to replace them all with homemade. So I will buy the canned items that I think I could grow in my garden. Such as canned green beans, peas, and corn, etc.
Ok, Papa's coffee ... a big can! I am imagining that I have big shelves in my Homestead Pantry. I would use large glass jars to store macaroni, rice, dried beans, oatmeal, cornmeal, and bread flour. This way, you always know at a glance if you need more beans or whatever. You just can't beat the big tight lidded glass jars for storage.
Then, of course, you need other baking supplies like shortening, yeast, baking powder and soda for biscuits. And if ya can't make biscuits, learn now as they come in mighty handy for a big family supper of gravy and biscuits. Now, for me, I use the gravy mixes from Aldies. We don't eat a lot of meat and so I need these mixes to put in soups, etc. for flavor. I can make my own soup stock and can it, too. And eventually, if I needed to, I could again.
I will bring a bottle of ketchup to my homestead but will make many jars of it the coming fall with my homegrown tomatoes. Then, of course, you will need big bins in your pantry to store potatoes. I would also buy a lot of canned milk and instant milk. I would buy maybe 6 gallons of fresh milk for the month and can some of this to last the month. I have canned milk before and I know how.
So this is basically it. Jim is up and I need to go fix breakfast.
I would have a freezer and extra fridge my first year of homesteading if I could swing it. As ya need eggs and meat before you get your flock of chickens established. But eventually, I would want to can the meat and have a dugout for cold things.
