One of the greatest parts of our adventures here has been learning so many new skills. Some I grew up learning from my family, and some are completely new to me and will be trial and error. I am ok with failure as long as I learn something from it. Now, I have seen multiple lists of the skills you must have or skills that are essential to homesteading. I don’t believe it! While each list has a never ending supply of things you could learn on a homestead, You DO NOT need them to get started. These skills are part of our journey, we are learning and growing and developing. That is the whole point to homesteading isn’t it – working towards better self sufficiency. If you are already 100% self sufficient, congratulations – for the rest of the world, lets enjoy this journey! Here is a list of skills I will be working on this season. Hopefully, I will get a chance to try each of them, and can link back to this post as I share this crazy adventure with you.

  1. Make the perfect pie crust.
  2. Learn how to cook a whole chicken.
  3. Make Salsa.
  4. Know how to dehydrate foods to preserve for later use.
  5. Make Pumpkin Pie from scratch.
  6. Make perfect sausage gravy from scratch.
  7. Know how to drive a manual transmission and/or tractor.
  8. Master basic mechanic skills ie: Change a tire and change oil.
  9. Learn how to hunt wild game–both large and small.
  10. Learn the laws and regulations regarding hunting wild game in your area through a Hunter’s Safety course.
  11. Learn how to humanely kill, gut, and clean an animal.
  12. Know how to butcher an animal and the proper cuts of meat.
  13. Know how to build a fire.
  14. Cook over an open fire or on a wood cookstove.
  15. Learn how to save seeds.
  16. Use a water bath canner to preserve foods.
  17. Learn how to use a pressure canner and/or cooker.
  18. Learn how to sharpen a knife or ax.
  19. Learn how to harvest, split, and stack firewood.
  20. Store food in a root cellar or in a cool basement.
  21. Learn how to render lard or tallow.
  22. Learn how to back up a trailer.
  23. Know how to purify water.
  24. Learn how to make bone broth.
  25. Know how to use non-electric lighting.

 

Published by Lilith

About me? Well, I am just me. I was born and raised on the outskirts of a small town to a lower income family. My parents taught me the value of hard work as we all contributed to the household in some way or another. No matter our incomes today, I am raising my children with the same way of thinking. We are all in this together, and I hold tight the values and work ethics that I learned as a child. There is a middle part of my life that I often refer to on my blog as life 1.0 - this is the part of my life where I learned most of life's hard lessons about how to treat others and how the world today will treat me. I can't say it was exactly happy, but I sure learned a lot, and it guided me to finding my true happiness in life 2.0. Life 2.0 has taken me back to a simpler way of living, and provided me with an amazing opportunity to connect with my heritage as a homesteader on the family farm. I have a huge task ahead of me to return this long neglected property back to prosperity with my future Husband and two amazing children, but everyday I get to see the rewards as we get a little closer to having the family farm back up and providing more every day.