How To Get Back To Basics And Start Homesteading

Homesteading - it's not really a word you hear often. So what is it? Homesteading is a range of things based around... you guessed it ... the home! It can be; cooking from scratch, preserving, gardening, raising chickens or other livestock, sewing, craft - anything that leads you to a more self sufficient and simpler lifestyle - getting back to basics!

Here at Four Chooks Farm we are homesteaders! We cook from scratch, we grow as much food as we can, we preserve what food we can, we have 7 hens for their beautiful eggs, we mend our clothes, we make things that make our home beautiful - we use our hands to live our lives!

If you too would like to join us in living a simpler life - then here are some tips on how to start -

LEARN TO COOK FROM SCRATCH
Cooking for me is a way of showing love to those around me. So many happy memories are made by the way a house smells while something is baking, or the love you feel when someone makes you your favourite dish. The kitchen really is the heart of the home. We have to eat to live, so the coming together to share a meal is one of life's greatest pleasures!
To help you get started click here to find some of our families favourite recipes.

PLANT A KITCHEN GARDEN
Remember the days when everyone had at least one fruit tree in their backyard! And as kids the summers were spent running under the sprinkler with a juicy piece of stone fruit in one hand, the juice running down your chin as you chomped away! And didn't everyone have a lemon tree! There is nothing quite like fresh lemon cordial! Mmm.
But gardening is so much more than the produce that you get from it. It's more than the money you'll save. It's more than the chemical free food that you will eat from it. It's getting outside, getting some sun, rain, and wind on your face. It's getting dirt under your finger nails. It's the smell of earth after its just rained. It's truely thereputic watching your little seeds grow into plants. The satisfaction you get from gardening cannot be bought!
If you would like to start your own garden then click here for some help.

LEARN TO SEW
Sewing is becoming a lost art. I will confess I am no seamstress. But I can find my way around a sewing machine and hem up a skirt or a pair of trousers. I mend holes in the kids trousers. Sew on lost buttons - I even have a button jar! Don't all our grandmothers have one of those - a jar full of a colourful array of buttons - that comes to the rescue at just the right moment! You can pick up basic sewing kits from your local supermarket and I can assure you sewing on a button is easy - and also just the beginning!!!

PRESERVING
This for me is when I felt like I had 'made it' as a homesteader! Preserving! Another sadly lost art! Have you ever had a peach that was preserved in summer - in the dead cold of winter! It is a little taste of warm summer days in a jar, and will bring a smile to your face! Or a homemade jam, or relish or sauce. The taste of this food is incredible, partly because you know that love went into preserving it. Also that you saved the glut of food from your garden so it didn't go to waste! Preserving not only saves the taste of different seasons for later in the year. But it saves you money. The summer stone fruits become desserts in winter. The array of green leafy veg from winter is put into summer soups and pastas! There are so many ways to preserve food - bottle it, dry it, turn it into a jam, sauce or chutney, blanch and freeze it! I can assure you my house is full of preserved food! Our preserved food! For tips on preserving food click here.

HAVE FUN
This is the most important thing. There is no point doing this if you find it tedious or not to your liking. You don't have to do all of the above mentioned things either, pick something you like and try it. Homesteading is about getting back to a simpler life, a more enjoyable life, that is the point of homesteading - getting back to basics!

We hope that you have enjoyed this and that you too can start your own homesteading life.