Homesteading

For the Love of Books – Building a Homesteading Library

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”
– Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Living in a foreign country, although usually fun and exciting, has its challenges. Among them is finding daily “necessities” that we take for granted in the United States…like cinnamon Trident. Something seemingly small and ridiculous, but it’s the only kind of gum I like. As a result, I’ve turned to Amazon to order gum, the toothpaste and soap we like, Thor wigs, etc. And because of the company’s genius marketing strategy and perhaps a little peer pressure (“customers who bought this item also bought…”), before I know it I’ve often clicked through enough pages to make Kevin Bacon envious. So, when I started researching educational homesteading books, that peer pressure led to a million choices for books that we MUST have.

The first book I purchased, even before we started looking at land, was Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producers by Gianaclis Caldwell. The original goal was to begin making our own mozzarella for our Friday homemade pizza & movie nights, but as I peruse the pages of this gorgeous book, I envision aged cheddars and silky bries becoming staples in our home. After all, who doesn’t like cheese? As a result, I’ve added “how to create a cheese cave” to our ever-growing list of tasks to learn.

The next three books I purchased after playing “Six Degrees of Amazon”. The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery is a wealth of information, and I look forward to using it as a reference book throughout the years. Little House Living by Merissa A. Alink features beautiful pictures from her homestead and is already one of my favorites. In it the author has recipes for DIY beauty products, pet care, cleaning products, fun things for kids and and delicious food. Stay tuned for posts about what we’ve made so far. Lastly, The Homesteading Handbook by Abigail R. Gehring looks to be very informative, and I’m excited to start reading it.

The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book by Ruth Stout and Richard Clemence (copyright 1971) is part educational book, part autobiography. Mrs. Stout is smart, inspiring and sassy, and I want to be just like her. She was ahead of her time with her “radical” gardening method. Check out this short video for a glimpse into her method and life. The book can be difficult to find, but I highly recommend making the effort to locate it if you’re at all interested in making your gardening easier. We’ll definitely be implementing her deep mulch method on the farm.

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery is reputed to be the chicken Bible, and once I’ve cleared out every other book that’s in-progress, I’ll be sure to post a review of it.

Ebooks like Homesteading for Beginners by Imogen Alix, Homesteading for Beginners by Micheal Cook, Backyard Farming by Sanford Evans and Year of Plenty by Craig L. Goodwin (thank you for the recommendation Steve!) are also gracing my Kindle. The first two are proving difficult to get into, Year of Plenty is entertaining so far, and I’m looking forward to starting Backyard Farming.

Luckily, our local library on post also has several books that I’m gradually adding to the list to read, and the inter-library loan program offers many more throughout South Korea. If you’re a budding homesteader or just like to keep your mind sharp and educate yourself, what would you recommend reading? You never know when a friend might advocate a particular work that becomes a new personal favorite, so let’s hear those suggestions!

I ♥ Lists

Have you ever had to organize an enormous or extravagant event or, perhaps, plan to move your family across the country? Have you ever written list after list, then made lists of those lists? Or lay in bed at 2 am, obsessing over said lists and willing your brain to shut off? Yeah, neither have I. But if I were that type of person, my current to-do list might look something like this.

1. Decide what type of land we want/need, then research what’s available in the area where we’d like to live.
2. Buy land.

3. Research permaculture, best types of milk and beef cows for small farms, how to milk said cows and what to then do with all the milk, wraparound porches, alternative energy sources, hardneck vs. softneck garlic, how to incubate and candle chicken eggs, geothermal greenhouses, basic animal husbandry, canning recipes and methods, living off the grid, maple trees and sugaring, prefab barn companies, goat playgrounds, growing and drying lavender, local farmers’ markets, Varroa mites, foulbrood, wax moths and Colony Collapse Disorder, best types of apple, cherry, pear (and maybe peach?) trees for central Illinois and how to plant them, cheesemaking, double envelope homes, deep mulch gardening, pasturing hogs, root cellar plans, companion planting, removing spurs from roosters, treehouse plans, small farm and veterans’ grants, architectural salvage stores, cottage laws, soap making, alternate income sources and “off-season” jobs, DIY chicken pluckers, wild food foraging, Flow vs Langstroth vs Warre hives, “natural” pest and weed prevention using essential oils and herbs, classes through the Extension service, grape vines, berry bushes and strawberries, fencing techniques, homemade kombucha, apple cider vinegar and fermented foods, organic certification, aquaponics, growing mushrooms, composting, raw milk laws, heirloom fruits and veggies, curing meat, growing cereal grains, etc., etc., etc……

4. Sit back, drink some more coffee and wonder what we’re getting ourselves into, because, naturally, we must do ALL the things.
5. Make another list of realistic goals.
6. Realize what a blessing this journey already is and embrace it entirely.

Maybe I just need a spreadsheet for my lists….

Post-It-To-Do-List

Ch, ch, ch, changes….

Change is inevitable “they” say, and as an Army family, we’re experts at dealing with change. We pack up our entire lives; people, pets, belongings, careers, at a moment’s notice and move across the country or to the other side of the world, often without knowing where we’ll live when we get there, if we’ll make new friends and sometimes even the native language. There’s a popular meme that says military children will say goodbye to more significant people by the time they’re 18 than the average person will in his or her entire lifetime. Whether or not these experiences make us better people, I don’t know, but I do know that we roll with the punches better than most, and we learn to adapt to whatever the Army throws at us.

Now, as the government draws down the Army, more changes are on the horizon for many Army families. There comes a time when you start to question whether or not your family will be able to rely on the promises made to your Soldier, almost two decades ago, at the end of his or her service. You explore your options and start to dream and plan for the future. You think about your childhood, the life you want for your children and how to set everyone up for success. And sometimes, those dreams become reality.

When my father-in-law passed away in January and we returned to the States for the services, I suppose we were looking for a sliver. A sliver of hope that would prevent us from being apart from our families any longer, especially during times as trying as the ones with which we were then presented. We had discussed what we might do “after the Army,” but it seemed so far away that it was more of a dream than a reality. However, circumstances such as those make you question your own mortality and future. So we began researching and considering. And we found a solution that was part timber, part tillable property. It had been in CRP for five years already, so it was ideal for establishing an organic farm. We toured it…twice within two weeks. We headed back to Korea, made an offer and we were outbid. And although we were disappointed, we weren’t discouraged. We simply took a break from researching. Then we found it. THE. PERFECT. PROPERTY. The first place had set the bar pretty high, but this one more than met it. However, since we were back in Korea, we couldn’t see it firsthand. Naturally, we did the next rational thing. We sent my mom and dad to check it out. They provided feedback, and we ran with it.

It’s been six months since we started looking and only two since we started considering this property, but these 43 acres are officially our blank canvas for painting our next chapter. We have a million ideas of what we’ll do with the property, at least 14 months before we leave Korea and only God knows how long before we truly go from boots to barns.

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