5 simple steps to master homesteading- What level are you?

Step 1- Cooking REAL FOOD.  Homesteaders do NOT pour chemical tainted junk out of boxes and serve to their families. Whether it is whole food purchased at a grocery store, food you have picked up at the farmers market,  or if you are on a whole different level and taking your own stock to be butchered (or self butchering) and using garden fresh veggies you grew, the key is getting rid of the boxed and/or bagged fake food. Once you learn how to cook food without having to open a box, the sky is the limit!  Once you get the hang of it it really gets easier to cook real food than it is to prep those nasty processed boxed foods. You will eventually be able to cook from scratch foods from memory which is sooo much easier than reading directions, throwing box away, forgetting directions, digging box out of trash, re reading directions, and being left with junk meals with zero nutrition and tons of salt and other preservatives.

Level 2- Grow a garden.  It does not have to be a 20x20 plot of land that a tractor has to till up.  It can be a window box or a single raised bed.  It can be in an old plastic swimming pool your kids outgrew last year (just make sure to poke lots of big holes in the bottom and sides so the rain water can get out so the roots won't rot) or an old tractor tire your neighbor doesn't want anymore.  It doesn't matter what it looks like or how big it is, it just has to produce a vegetable. It does't even have to grow a lot of vegetables.  It can just grow one tomato plant- you can make a whole lot with tomatoes such as pasta or pizza sauces, gravy, stews, and the list goes on and on.  If growing tomatoes goes well, the following year try another veggie to go along with the tomatoes. Before you know it you will be growing all of your own vegetables and NEVER buying those gross waxed veggies at the store again!

Level 3- Preserve your own veggies.  By now you should be used to cooking with the veggies you grown from your garden, but maybe don't know what to do with the excess you don't have time to cook.  Easiest thing in the world to do is freeze them! If you have extra bell peppers, slice them up and put them in freezer bags for omelettes or fajitas later on in the year. Maybe you got a bumper crop of tomatoes in.  Prepare a really big pot of spaghetti sauce (whole tomatoes- skinned, chopped onion, basil, oregano, sugar if desired, salt, pepper, and garlic- just cooked on low until it actually looks like spaghetti sauce) then cool the sauce, pour it into freezer containers/bags, and freeze for a quick home made meal later on!  You can freeze any veggie. Some people swear you have to blanch veggies before freezing- I don’t. With my daily schedule I have absolutely NO time for any extra steps that I don’t feel need to be taken…so… I never blanch mine. They taste just fine and we have never had any adverse side effects due to not blanching lol! Want to step it up a notch?  Start canning your own food!  There are lots of books and videos to help you along this process.  It is a bit scary at first (I recommend starting with water bath canning), but it gets to be incredibly easy with just a tiny bit of practice.

Step 4- Get a few chickens.  Chickens are the best beginner homesteader animal to get.  Most subdivisions allow hens only, which is good b/c you don't have to worry about the eggs turning into baby chickens.  Hens don't need a rooster to lay an egg. They should lay one egg every day after they turn six months old for one year, then one egg every second day on the second year, every third day on the third year, and so on so fourth (just so long as you feed them the laying pellets).  Every year they will lay less and less until they only lay about once per week or two…if you are lucky. For us, when they are old and quit laying we get a new batch of chicks and butcher the old ones to make room for the new and to provide farm fresh meat for our family’s meals. BUT that being said I know many people who keep them as pets after they quit laying which is perfectly fine too :) When you own chickens you will gain fresh eggs, the chicken manure makes wonderful garden fertilizer, the girls will keep mosquitoes away by eating them, and you actually get a feeling of accomplishment because the work you put in actually gets rewarded daily- fresh eggs! 

Step 5-  If you have the land, start raising your own meat/milk. 

You need one full acre designated to one cow, so for two cows you will need two acres. So, if your house sets on a two acre lot in the country where cows are allowed, you can only get one cow because your house and drive way take up part of that second acre.  Pigs and goats only require a small pen- but I must warn you pigs smell. 

For milk I recommend getting a milking goat or a Jersey cow. They put out just enough milk for a family…well…the Jersey puts out quite a bit more milk than the goat but it gives you enough for milk, cream, butter, cheese, and soaps so it is worth it to me :) The black and white Holstein cows will put out enough milk for two or three families- maybe even more. They are mass milk producers and I wouldn’t recommend that breed unless you want to be ear-deep in milk each day lol. The only thing about animals that produce milk is that the only way to get milk each year is to make sure they have a baby each year. You will share her milk with their baby (which is fine b/c they adjust their milk production to increase the yield when you are actively milking her). This means you need a plan for getting her bread when the time comes and a plan for all of the babies she has. For us (we have two Jerseys) if it is a little girl we keep her to build the herd, if it is a boy we feed them out and eventually butcher them. If our freezers or fields are too full we take them to the livestock market and sell them.

For meat- raising a couple of beef cattle is actually quite easy.  They are like big dogs- they need food, water, shelter, (occasional vet visits) and that is all!  If you get them as babies make sure that they are castrated because the last thing you need is a big bull ruining over the top of you or your kids.  Steers are very gentle and if you interact with them every day from the time they are babies they will even start to follow you around.  Super gentle giants if you raise them right. Once they are about a year and a half (this is a full grown cow- cows are big enough to have babies at this age) just take him to the local butcher or call for a pick up if you don't have a trailer.  I like the pick up option better because he goes out on a trailer and comes back in bags so your brain can't link it to your animal.  It doesn't look like him, it doesn't feel like him, once its processed it just looks like the meat you have bought at the store for years so it doesn't feel like you are eating your pet. It just seems like they went out on a trailer to a new home to live out the rest of their days happy.

We haven’t raised rabbits, hogs, goats, turkeys, or any other kind of meat animal other than cows and chickens yet so I don’t have much advise on those BUT there are lots of articles available out there.

Oh, and for all of those out there who think that is barbaric and inhumane- anything that you eat in the store or at a restaurant, their life and death are WAY WAY worse than any farm raised animal that homesteaders have butchered.  We give them a good life, love on them every day from the time they are born to the day they die, give them good food and shelter, grow them up strong, and when its their time (everything in this world has a time- trees, flies, people....cows and chickens) we load them in the trailer and take them to a place that will put them down in a MUCH better way than anything at the store had to go through.  They are not scared, they are not confused or panicked, they go out with their face in a feed bucket with a mouth full of feed and a happy heart knowing that they were loved for every second they were on this earth.  Its the circle of life people.  Your circle will end too one day, I just hope when that day comes its with the sun on your back, a full belly, and a full happy heart just like our steers.

If you do all five of these steps congratulations! You are a pro!  If you NEVER want to get to the point of butchering your own meat- that is perfectly fine!  It is not for everyone.  You can just do the first three and still be a pretty darn good homesteader!    You can even expand on your practice and start a herb garden and start making your own seasonings (or add them to your soaps) and with some lessons you can even begin using your herbs for medicinal properties such as making your own salves, tinctures, or poultices.  The sky is the limit! Happy homesteading!