Cris
Top 15 Homestead Skills to Learn
Gone are the days when everyone was raised to live on their own. I don’t mean getting a job and paying your own rent, I mean living off the land to provide for yourself. On your own, on your own land, using your own resources to survive. We all have a lot of homestead skills to learn to go back to those days. These are my top 15 homestead skills to learn today.
All of us have been living in this throwaway, hustle, and bustle society for long enough that the essential skills have largely been lost. We hardly know anymore what life was like a hundred or two hundred years ago. We have books, and movies and old pictures to show us, but they don’t actually teach us.
There are literally hundreds of homestead skills that were the way of life back then. Being an urban homesteader right now, I have identified just a few of the essential skills to learn now to prepare for starting that homestead. Some of them are obvious, others not so much.
Homestead Skills to Lean Now
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There are definitely some skills to learn that will make your life easier on that homestead. If you can master them before you buy that land and make a go of it, you will have a much easier time making that jump. My essential list is here:
Gardening
This one is obvious, and easy to get started. You can grow bucket of food even in an apartment, and you don’t need a ton of skill to grow food. Being able to garden will feed you and get you learning how you can do it better.
Gardening brings a feeling of accomplishment when you get to fill your plate with the fruits of your labor. Once you master a few crops you will know that you will always be able to eat, even in the worst of times. Plus, it saves money each month because you can get seeds and plants for free.
Food Preservation
Food preservation comes in many different types. You can pressure can meats, veggies, broths, and fruits. Dehydrating fruits, veggies and meats is a great way to keep food from spoiling and provides snacks for the family. There is also curing, root cellar storage, and freezing.
When you fish, hunt and grow your own food, you must be able to store goods so that they will last through the winter. You can’t always get fresh veggies in December from the farm, but you can open a can of beans or corn to make that dinner complete. When it’s not hunting season, you can’t get fresh venison, so you go to the freezer.
I absolutely love making fresh homemade jerky from beef, turkey, trout, and venison. Just wait for the next jerky season for some great recipes and pictures for jerky. The kids love fruit chips, and fruit leathers and I love giving them fresh organic snacks. Drying out foods for long term storage is a great skill to learn, and I started doing it for fun!
DIY Household Goods
I admit that this is something I got into for ulterior motives. See, teaching ecology and conservation made me step back and look at how we as humans live in this world. We have such a reliance on plastic that we cannot get away from it entirely. We can take small steps easily in our own lives to lessen individual reliance.
My solution was to start making homemade shampoo, soap, laundry, and dish soap. The irony is that the important ingredients come in plastic containers! I failed trying to make my own Lye to get passed this, but I shall try again.
Making your own hygiene and cleaning products will help the budget, help the planet, and keep your home and self clean. This to me is the best feeling knowing that it is all organic and safe for my children.
Raising Animals
Yes, in addition to having a garden for fresh vegetables, you will need some protein in there somewhere. Chickens are an easy way to start raising animals. You can get eggs in a few months, or you can learn how to clean and pluck them to eat the meat of the bird.
There is more to livestock than just bird though, go ahead and get a cow or a goat. This way you can have fresh milk to drink and process. Raise a pig and learn to cure your own bacon. I think this skill will become more critical as time goes on because of the raising prices we are seeing these days.
Frugal Living
Cut corners anywhere you can, save money and pinch pennies. Many of the skills on this list directly play a role in this from growing and raising your own food to making your own products. There are and always have been homesteaders who make it work without that 9-5 job.
If you make great soap, or grow fantastic tomatoes, try joining a group where you can barter for other goods. Use planers to save for goals and keep bills paid. Recycle everything you can, reuse everything possible. Take advantage of rebates and shop sales and secondhand stores.
Making Cheese and Butter
Remember that goat you bought to eat the weeds? Yeah, get her bred and start milking her. Goat milk cheese is surprisingly easy to make. Butter can be churned and used for that barter system or frozen to last till you need it.
You can also dehydrate the extra milk after it is pasteurized for long term storage. How about selling that dried milk at the farmers market as a homemade soap ingredient?
Composting
Those plants from the garden will have to go somewhere when you pull them so make a compost bin and get started. You can start by simply using an old can or jar under the kitchen sink to put vegetable scraps in. It may take a bit of retraining your mind to reach for the can, and not the disposal switch at first. There are definitely a few things you never want to compost, so make sure you learn how to compost properly.
Off Grid Living
Depending on where you are going to homestead, you may not have the conveniences of the city. There may not be running water, power, or sewer supply. We here actually have quite a bit of practice of living with no power as we have frequent and long-lasting outages.
You will need to learn how to cook on an open fire, how to wash clothes by hand, how to build a composting toilet and how to get water from natural sources. Even if you have property that has all the modern perks, there will be times when you will need these skills under your belt.
Bank your Own Seeds
This is yet another skill I started doing as a hobby. It’s really easy to collect seeds from the foods you grow and save them for next season. This saves money in the long run, and you are sure to have access to the seeds of your favorite vegetables every year.
You simply scoop the seeds out of your squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons then rinse them clean and let them dry in a cool place. You simply store them in envelops till next season, when you are ready to get your garden started. For flowers, tie a mesh bag around the flower and let the seeds develop, then snip the stem and save the seeds.
Foraging
There are so many things you can find growing out in the wild. Plantain, wild roses for rose hips, fiddle heads and mushrooms all come in handy for different uses. You can supplement your garden and build your home medicine cabinet every season of the year.
During the spring and summer, you can fill buckets of berries to make jams and jellies. Go ahead and pick the elderberries to freeze to make cough syrup during flu season. Do be sure you are identifying the right items you are foraging, some things out there are toxic, and you need to be absolutely certain what you are picking.
Learn Herbal Medicines
Elderberry cough syrup and cough drops? My favorite because it’s all natural and it works. Herbal teas, herbal ointments, and tinctures. I grow my own flowers for tea and hygiene ingredients, but many do have medicinal qualities as well. Check out the list of essential healing herbs for the homestead. When you can’t run to the local pharmacy, it’s nice to be able to sooth minor illnesses at home with what you have on hand.
Hunting and Fishing
If you just don’t have enough space to raise a cow or a pig, then hunting and fishing is a must. Many areas actually have problems with wild pigs and hunting is encouraged. Look into the hunting regulations in your state and take advantage of this great resource that will feed your family.
Fishing is a great way to get outdoors and bond with the kids. Little ones love seeing that fish come out of the water, it’s just so exciting for them. Older kids love being able to hone their fishing skills and soak in all the advice you can give them. It fills the plate for the day, and the freezer for later. Plus, what you don’t use can be used for bait next time, especially for crayfish.
These are ways to fill your freezer with protein that will last for months. Not just the freezer either, you can preserve the meat by canning it so it will keep even longer. I make bone broth out of the bones that are left over and use it for soups all year long.
Water Purification
If you are drawing from a stream, river, or spring you will need to purify the water before you can drink it. Learning how to distill water or how to build a filter that will remove harmful pathogens is a must. There are some great store bought filters that people swear by, but they are very expensive. A home distillation system does not have to be super complicated, but it will take some dedication to use every day to provide drinking water for the family.
Become a Handyman
When you are practicing frugal living, you need to be able to not call that repair man when something breaks. Learn appliance repair, fence repair, roof repair, all these skills will save you money and make you more self-sufficient in the long run.
Go beyond just repairing things when they break, learn how to build too. You never know when you might want a larger chicken coop or need a new tool shed. Being able to not only build a structure but maintain all of your infrastructure is a homesteading skill that you really need.
Learn Basic First Aid
Accidents happen, and when you are living any distance from the nearest medical facility, first aid is a definite must. There are classes you can sign up for to learn basic first aid and CPR just about anywhere. Know the signs of major medical conditions such as a heart attack or stroke and what to do immediately if it happens. Learn how to slow bleeding and splint a broken bone for transport to the nearest hospital for proper care. Basic first aid will help with treating mild illnesses at home a well.
Building the Skills to Homestead
These do not need to be lost skills, they are actually really basic things we can all do to some extent in our everyday lives. I already fix my own appliances and built my own greenhouse and raised garden beds. I am CPR and first aid certified and forage and grow my own herbal remedies. Fresh garden veggies go great with fresh fish on a summer evening and venison jerky never quite lasts through the winter. Saving those bone broths and making my own shampoo are just fun things to do.
If you can master these basic skills, you will be on your way to having a successful homestead in no time. These skills will make your life easier right from the start because you will have the confidence you need to step out there and actually do it. Get to practicing some of these skills so you can set off on the right foot.