Thread: Homesteading / Sustainable Living

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

Something I saw on social media paralleled a theme I have been reviewing recently: how can I reduce consumerism in my life and become a producer, becoming more self-reliant? The first thing that comes to mind is practicing or doing better at the three "R"s-Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I already do well okay some of these. For example, we have a recycling bin and have the city just added glass recycling, so we bought the special bin for that. We also compost kitchen scraps that eventually are used in the garden or flower beds. I also walk to work 90% of the time and eat lunch at home.

One thing I have been working on is buying less coffee at work three times a week at $3 a cup and consuming less soda. New endeavors are to produce enough food in the garden to have enough surplus to preserve and to actually teach myself some woodworking and actually make something.

Does anybody else have any desire or plans to become more self-sufficient in the coming year?

Here is the social media post I referenced at the start.

That's a great list. Funny thing is, today people who advocate sustainable living, etc are generally thought to be the "tree huggers", "hippies", "liberals", etc. I wouldn't consider myself falling under any of those categories but I have done many of the things on that list for a very long time.

I've mentioned on SRP before that I've made my own homemade toothpaste for close to fifteen years now. Baking soda, water, Dr. Bronner's liquid peppermint soap and peppermint essential oil. Approved by more than one dentist of mine through the years and only one cavity in 15 years so...it works.

When our wood stove is burning I dry a lot of my clothes from the heat of the stove.

Baking bread. Yes.

Compost. yes

Home cooked meals. Oh yes.

Hunt and fish. Definitely.

Canning food. Canned venison...mmmmm.....

Garden. yes.

We do most all of our cleaning using vinegar or baking soda.

Things on my list to do or start:

Plant more fruit trees and berry bushes. A bit harder for us to do since we're realistically in a zone 2-3 but there are a lot of cold hardy things we can pick from.

Chickens, Guineas are on my list. Just need to build the coop first.

Expand the garden since I got a good deal on a used hoop tunnel greenhouse

Root cellar would be nice.

Bear in mind: I do NONE of the above things to please Gaia, atone for my sin of being human (generating CO2 and methane) or from any sort of ecological ideal.

ChrisL, would you mind doing a short writeup, tutorial, or photo essay on canning venison? I have heard of home canning meat but never seen it done.

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

ChrisL, would you mind doing a short writeup, tutorial, or photo essay on canning venison? I have heard of home canning meat but never seen it done.

I could do that but it would be best served after next year's season. There are some great venison canning tutorials out there though.

Here's one I've looked at for pointers, etc:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/117537/...anned-venison/

Today was my first use of the meat grinding attachment for the Kitchn Aide I received for Christmas. The meat is venison I butchered in December. I'm making chili this afternoon.

I've heard those are very good for small batches of meat
How do you rate it's performance?

Dieseld, the jury is out on performance. The KA attachment worked better than the hand-cranked grinder I have used in the past but didn't even approach what I've seen a Weston meat grinder do.

I've got a good hand crank grinder with a couple different plates for different grinds.
Was just wondering if this was worth getting for small batches like you did.