Grow where you are planted! A surprising amount of food can be produced on a small piece of land. We live in town on a 100x140 ft. lot. We have 4 gardens, a small greenhouse, fruit trees, grape vines on the fenceline, 6 laying hens, elderberry and black raspberry bushes, 3 beehives. We are retired and this is our forever home.
Am in absolute agreement. As a single mid-life adult, working full and often overtime, I still manage a small fruit orchard, garden, which I share with various chickens, rabbits, a pigeon (don’t ask) a duck, dog, and multiple cats. I tend to grow or create a lot of what I need in life, although I still have to outsource some products and animal feed. It’s not what I’d term “ homesteading”, it is a healthier, and happier, way of living.
I’ve loved my journey. I went from container gardening at an apartment to a small 16x16 garden to the 1000 square foot garden with fruit trees. I’m cooking from scratch, canning, making my own bread as of this year. I’m in love with this life and I have just an average suburban home.
It's so beautiful to hear the conversations happening about homesteading -- I grew up in the late 60's and early 70's, started gardening with my grandfather when I was 7 and haven't stopped (52 years & counting). We always hung our clothes out to dry, tried to eat local and put up food for the winter, we always thought that was just what large families did. I remember buying my first homesteading book (after the Foxfire series), The Practical Homesteader in the early 80's and everyone laughed when I said I wanted to buy land and start. Still holding fast to the rural dream -- small sequential steps. Well life kicked in -- I went down another path and dedicated my working years to a traveling holistic healing practice while base-camping in suburbia -- still gardening, still hanging clothes, canning food and filling the freezer. Thank You for sharing your experiences and bringing this community together. I'm now caring for Mom in her late years and doing mini-homesteading in an 80x120 lot filled with gardens. You Tube keeps me connected to others putting similar value into the world. Blessed to watch as my nephews and their families begin their own walk down this path. ✌
I know what you mean about turning off the lights. Hurricane Helene cut our power for 2 weeks and we loved it. We cooked outside over the fire and did our evening activities by lamp light. It was like life slowed down and everything was more gentle and purposeful.
We're convinced that homesteading is a state of mind! The more you get into it, the more you want to do! We're in the UK so it's a bit more tricky, but there's lots you can do with relatively little space and only a garden 😊 merry Christmas from the UK! 🎄
I just joined VIP! For under $5 AUD, I saw so much value that will help me in the future. While I am not ready to start homesteading now, at my next property, I really do want a manageable small-scale homestead where I can grow as much fruit and vegetables as possible. This course is going to prepare me so much!
Love this chat today! Makes me realize I’ve come ahead in skills in the last 10 years and I see where I’d like to go next. It’s so not an overnight process.
Enchiladas were always our Christmas Day dinner and we always looked forward to them! For our small family of 4 a turkey was too much and everyone loved enchiladas. As for sewing, mom made all of our clothes. Going to buy fabric and pick out patterns is one of my best childhood memories. You are making memories. 😊
I love that you had enchiladas for Christmas dinner! We have done that in the past and it is an easy, make ahead meal. This year we had 2 different lasagnas. Made things real essy this year because I had a head cold. God bless you and your family in the new year!
We live in a mobile home community and can not do a whole lot. BUT my husbad and I started buying as bare of ingredients as we can so I can learn little by little how to do things. We bought tomatoes for 99cents a pound from a local farmers market and i was able to make about 12 pint size jars of sauce and 4 cans of diced tomatos. And just being able to do that made me giddy. I also started making my own bread and my husband grinds our meat now. We buy cuts from the butcher and grind it. He made 15lbs of his grandpas keilbasa last week. Baby steps. One day we will have land and ill have a better garden and chickens but little by little were learning. 😊
Seeking out local homesteaders and asking to spend time helping with their chores to gain experience with animal management especially with harvesting, firewood production etc... I think this would be invaluable for the obvious reasons BUT also see if the dream measures up to reality and how would you like to match or change your vision.
Carolyn, thank you so much for this excellent video! I live with my parents currently and am planning on moving to an RV so I really appreciate you talking about homesteading with that. I started really diving deep into homesteading last year and ended up going full force ☺️ but with that I think also became burned out along with life circumstances. Picking back up from where I left off and excited to get started again. Thank you for all your help!
We are full-time RV'rs and do move around. We can make our own bread products and sauces. Due to having cats, we can't do container veggies inside. Just making those few items has really changed our habits. We don't buy boxed, canned, or frozen prepackaged foods. We scratch cook, that is our homesteading way at this point in our lives.
I believe I have had the Homestead Mindset since I was a young kid. I wanted to and did grow veggies and raise rabbits even though we lived in the city. My parents and grandparents came from ranching and farming but moved into the city. I have as an adult produced clothing, supplemented food by fishing, raising chickens, rabbits, sheep and pigs, gardens and fruit trees and bushes. It really is who I am.
I love defining homesteading as a mindset. I watch so many of you and long for the ability to do what you do. I will never be able to do it, but I am working at growing as much as I can on our small property in a small town in central NC. I buy from our state farmers market and from farm stands in our area to fill in the gaps. Most of our eggs are fresh because we have friends with chickens. I have learned to dehydrate and to can. Working on homemade herbal remedies and then to natural products I can make myself. I am cooking more of our meals at home. Still need to work on that.
Excellent, practical advice! This is why I appreciate your videos. While my family doesn't have a full scale "homestead," we started fairly small and try to improve as we go. We have a small flock of egg layers, a fairly large garden, and several fruit trees. This year, we plan to use companion planting to make small "food forests" around our fruit trees. We only have 1 acre. A lot can be accomplished on a small amount of land. One step at a time.
We used to do a full-on turkey dinner much like Thanksgiving but with a few dishes swapped out. Way too much work for such a busy season. We finally decided enough was enough. The last decade or so, we decide as a family on what Christmas dinner will be. One year it was homemade pizza, the next year it was Irish stew, the year after it was prime rib, etc etc etc. This year we got takeout from Texas Roadhouse on Christmas Eve and reheated it for Christmas dinner. It has been such a stress reliever.
Homesteading is a mindset, you can take certain aspects and incorporate them anywhere. I’m in the UK suburbs and while a milk cow may be out of the question there are other things I can do - growing, preserving, cooking from scratch etc. I call it Half Homesteading
Thanks so much Carolyn! I am a member of the School of Traditional Skills as well and would absolutely love it if you might be able to teach some basic sewing skills about how to use dress patterns. You’re such a great teacher and the youtubes I’ve watched to achieve this fail miserably. Thanks for all you do and God bless you guys! 🙋🏼♀️❤️
I signed up. I cannot make the lives because of work. 😢 I look forward to the classes. That is awesome on teaching your girls to sew. My kids are all grown. I bought my daughter her first sewing machine a few years ago and tried teaching her. My granddaughter is 8. I would love to teach her, but I live so far away from her. As a child, I loved watching my grandmother sew on her treadal machine. In school, I took home economics and made a shirt and jacket. Later I made a skirt and I was so proud of myself. My first purchase in high school was my own sewing machine. There was something about making it myself that I loved.
I was introduced to sewing by a family member who was a seamstress. We were taught to first make outfits for Barbie dolls using scraps of material from the factory. Practiced on them and then graduated to bigger projects along the way. That exposure has turned out to be a really valuable life skill!! I do not look at it now as just fashion. I see cost effective solutions for real life problems. And if power goes out for any reason or length of time, I know I can still make do very well! Even hygiene needs. We've often sourced bed sheets for beautiful dresses, modern and traditional. Sewing & tailoring is indeed a skill Americans and first world countries take for granted.
Beings my 3 children are adults, I give special gifts when I can afford them. I have 1 grandson that is also an adult, same for him. I am trying to break the traditional dinners for holidays, enchiladas are a good choice. Your little girls might enjoy making doll clothes out of worn out socks. It's really easy and requires little sewing and can be hand sown.. With such a large family I am amazed at how well you manage. 🎉
You were younger, a lot of things that we thought was fun back then really bites now. Lol when I was growing up in the mountains of Appalachia all we had was raw milk or powdered milk when fresh wasn't available it was never tested and I can't remember anyone getting sick from it. If powdered milk doesn't kill you🤢( I hated that stuff) you will probably be ok. But if testing makes you feel better then that's what you need to do.
Josh, you and Carolyn have been saying you are not doing a lot of things this year you normally would, such as larger projects, etc. Are you also staying home from the Modern Homesteading Conference, or will you still be speaking? And if you are not speaking, will you still have a booth?
Hi Carolyn. I live in Sweden and we have a 9 hour time difference from Idaho. How is that going to be for the Live that you are doing. I would really like to be able to see and participate but am a bit worried it will be in the middle of the night here. What are the times you have planned to broadcast it? Happy Holidays from Sweden/Barbara
We stopped doing any gifts because it seemed to take away from the Birth of Christ It’s just me and my husband so we did church activities and had a low key dinner
Hello Im concerned about the fact that gov will be testing and possibly forcing farmers to vaxx chickens. How will we know where to buy chickens that havent been tampered with?
Grow where you are planted! A surprising amount of food can be produced on a small piece of land. We live in town on a 100x140 ft. lot. We have 4 gardens, a small greenhouse, fruit trees, grape vines on the fenceline, 6 laying hens, elderberry and black raspberry bushes, 3 beehives. We are retired and this is our forever home.
Sounds very similar to our setup. Every day is exciting.
Am in absolute agreement. As a single mid-life adult, working full and often overtime, I still manage a small fruit orchard, garden, which I share with various chickens, rabbits, a pigeon (don’t ask) a duck, dog, and multiple cats. I tend to grow or create a lot of what I need in life, although I still have to outsource some products and animal feed. It’s not what I’d term “ homesteading”, it is a healthier, and happier, way of living.
Duvet covers are another item to get large amount of fabric with nice designs.
Such an encouraging Pantry Chat with great advice.
I’ve loved my journey. I went from container gardening at an apartment to a small 16x16 garden to the 1000 square foot garden with fruit trees. I’m cooking from scratch, canning, making my own bread as of this year. I’m in love with this life and I have just an average suburban home.
I think modern homesteading is a way of life, not just a location. So how you choose to live is more important than where you are living.
Couldn't agree more
It's so beautiful to hear the conversations happening about homesteading -- I grew up in the late 60's and early 70's, started gardening with my grandfather when I was 7 and haven't stopped (52 years & counting). We always hung our clothes out to dry, tried to eat local and put up food for the winter, we always thought that was just what large families did.
I remember buying my first homesteading book (after the Foxfire series), The Practical Homesteader in the early 80's and everyone laughed when I said I wanted to buy land and start. Still holding fast to the rural dream -- small sequential steps.
Well life kicked in -- I went down another path and dedicated my working years to a traveling holistic healing practice while base-camping in suburbia -- still gardening, still hanging clothes, canning food and filling the freezer.
Thank You for sharing your experiences and bringing this community together. I'm now caring for Mom in her late years and doing mini-homesteading in an 80x120 lot filled with gardens. You Tube keeps me connected to others putting similar value into the world.
Blessed to watch as my nephews and their families begin their own walk down this path. ✌
I know what you mean about turning off the lights. Hurricane Helene cut our power for 2 weeks and we loved it. We cooked outside over the fire and did our evening activities by lamp light. It was like life slowed down and everything was more gentle and purposeful.
We're convinced that homesteading is a state of mind! The more you get into it, the more you want to do! We're in the UK so it's a bit more tricky, but there's lots you can do with relatively little space and only a garden 😊 merry Christmas from the UK! 🎄
Ditto onthe oil lamps just bought the cooking lantern and the tabletop with finger hold !!! Love themboth !!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Prayers for a quick recovery Josh 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Prayers for Carolyn tending to home and family alone while Josh recovers
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
I love thrifting wool clothes and flannel sheets for sewing and crafts
4:33
My favorite meal shared with extended family for Christmas was fondue and sushi 🥰
I just joined VIP! For under $5 AUD, I saw so much value that will help me in the future. While I am not ready to start homesteading now, at my next property, I really do want a manageable small-scale homestead where I can grow as much fruit and vegetables as possible. This course is going to prepare me so much!
Love this chat today! Makes me realize I’ve come ahead in skills in the last 10 years and I see where I’d like to go next. It’s so not an overnight process.
Love this question and your thoughts on it. Thanks!
Enchiladas were always our Christmas Day dinner and we always looked forward to them! For our small family of 4 a turkey was too much and everyone loved enchiladas. As for sewing, mom made all of our clothes. Going to buy fabric and pick out patterns is one of my best childhood memories. You are making memories. 😊
If I can’t watch one of the crash course episodes can I rewatch?
I love that you had enchiladas for Christmas dinner! We have done that in the past and it is an easy, make ahead meal. This year we had 2 different lasagnas. Made things real essy this year because I had a head cold. God bless you and your family in the new year!
We live in a mobile home community and can not do a whole lot. BUT my husbad and I started buying as bare of ingredients as we can so I can learn little by little how to do things. We bought tomatoes for 99cents a pound from a local farmers market and i was able to make about 12 pint size jars of sauce and 4 cans of diced tomatos. And just being able to do that made me giddy. I also started making my own bread and my husband grinds our meat now. We buy cuts from the butcher and grind it. He made 15lbs of his grandpas keilbasa last week. Baby steps. One day we will have land and ill have a better garden and chickens but little by little were learning. 😊
Seeking out local homesteaders and asking to spend time helping with their chores to gain experience with animal management especially with harvesting, firewood production etc... I think this would be invaluable for the obvious reasons BUT also see if the dream measures up to reality and how would you like to match or change your vision.
Carolyn, thank you so much for this excellent video! I live with my parents currently and am planning on moving to an RV so I really appreciate you talking about homesteading with that. I started really diving deep into homesteading last year and ended up going full force ☺️ but with that I think also became burned out along with life circumstances. Picking back up from where I left off and excited to get started again. Thank you for all your help!
We are full-time RV'rs and do move around. We can make our own bread products and sauces. Due to having cats, we can't do container veggies inside. Just making those few items has really changed our habits. We don't buy boxed, canned, or frozen prepackaged foods. We scratch cook, that is our homesteading way at this point in our lives.
I love thrifting for fabric. Especially for quilting.
I believe I have had the Homestead Mindset since I was a young kid. I wanted to and did grow veggies and raise rabbits even though we lived in the city. My parents and grandparents came from ranching and farming but moved into the city. I have as an adult produced clothing, supplemented food by fishing, raising chickens, rabbits, sheep and pigs, gardens and fruit trees and bushes. It really is who I am.
Loved hearing about your startings in LA. Hope new year classes a a big hit for you
Much appreciated! Great channel!
Yes. Turning the lights off even the relationships do better! I experienced it back in winter storm 2021 here in Texas.
I love defining homesteading as a mindset. I watch so many of you and long for the ability to do what you do. I will never be able to do it, but I am working at growing as much as I can on our small property in a small town in central NC. I buy from our state farmers market and from farm stands in our area to fill in the gaps. Most of our eggs are fresh because we have friends with chickens. I have learned to dehydrate and to can. Working on homemade herbal remedies and then to natural products I can make myself. I am cooking more of our meals at home. Still need to work on that.
Signed up. Excited yo learn from you!
Excellent, practical advice! This is why I appreciate your videos. While my family doesn't have a full scale "homestead," we started fairly small and try to improve as we go. We have a small flock of egg layers, a fairly large garden, and several fruit trees. This year, we plan to use companion planting to make small "food forests" around our fruit trees. We only have 1 acre. A lot can be accomplished on a small amount of land. One step at a time.
We used to do a full-on turkey dinner much like Thanksgiving but with a few dishes swapped out. Way too much work for such a busy season. We finally decided enough was enough. The last decade or so, we decide as a family on what Christmas dinner will be. One year it was homemade pizza, the next year it was Irish stew, the year after it was prime rib, etc etc etc. This year we got takeout from Texas Roadhouse on Christmas Eve and reheated it for Christmas dinner. It has been such a stress reliever.
Homesteading is a mindset, you can take certain aspects and incorporate them anywhere. I’m in the UK suburbs and while a milk cow may be out of the question there are other things I can do - growing, preserving, cooking from scratch etc. I call it Half Homesteading
Wishing Josh a speedy recovery, I remember how unpleasant the recovery from that surgery was in my teens!
Thanks so much Carolyn! I am a member of the School of Traditional Skills as well and would absolutely love it if you might be able to teach some basic sewing skills about how to use dress patterns. You’re such a great teacher and the youtubes I’ve watched to achieve this fail miserably. Thanks for all you do and God bless you guys! 🙋🏼♀️❤️
Appreciate you so much, blessings on you and your beautiful family. Happy New Year! ❤️🙏🏻Val C
I signed up. I cannot make the lives because of work. 😢 I look forward to the classes.
That is awesome on teaching your girls to sew. My kids are all grown. I bought my daughter her first sewing machine a few years ago and tried teaching her. My granddaughter is 8. I would love to teach her, but I live so far away from her. As a child, I loved watching my grandmother sew on her treadal machine. In school, I took home economics and made a shirt and jacket. Later I made a skirt and I was so proud of myself. My first purchase in high school was my own sewing machine. There was something about making it myself that I loved.
I was introduced to sewing by a family member who was a seamstress. We were taught to first make outfits for Barbie dolls using scraps of material from the factory. Practiced on them and then graduated to bigger projects along the way. That exposure has turned out to be a really valuable life skill!! I do not look at it now as just fashion. I see cost effective solutions for real life problems. And if power goes out for any reason or length of time, I know I can still make do very well! Even hygiene needs. We've often sourced bed sheets for beautiful dresses, modern and traditional. Sewing & tailoring is indeed a skill Americans and first world countries take for granted.
Thank you
Witam i pozdrawiam z Polski
Great episode!
Beings my 3 children are adults, I give special gifts when I can afford them. I have 1 grandson that is also an adult, same for him.
I am trying to break the traditional dinners for holidays, enchiladas are a good choice.
Your little girls might enjoy making doll clothes out of worn out socks. It's really easy and requires little sewing and can be hand sown..
With such a large family I am amazed at how well you manage. 🎉
Modern homesteading can start with a flower pot of herbs on a windowsill.
Lehman's has the oil lamps that I'm saving up for.
You were younger, a lot of things that we thought was fun back then really bites now. Lol when I was growing up in the mountains of Appalachia all we had was raw milk or powdered milk when fresh wasn't available it was never tested and I can't remember anyone getting sick from it. If powdered milk doesn't kill you🤢( I hated that stuff) you will probably be ok. But if testing makes you feel better then that's what you need to do.
Absolutely and sometimes curtains
Josh, you and Carolyn have been saying you are not doing a lot of things this year you normally would, such as larger projects, etc. Are you also staying home from the Modern Homesteading Conference, or will you still be speaking? And if you are not speaking, will you still have a booth?
What time of day do you plan on going the live?
The first thing we bought from Leimans was a hand crank ice cream maker!
Hi Carolyn. I live in Sweden and we have a 9 hour time difference from Idaho. How is that going to be for the Live that you are doing. I would really like to be able to see and participate but am a bit worried it will be in the middle of the night here. What are the times you have planned to broadcast it? Happy Holidays from Sweden/Barbara
So no kefir, yogurt, cheese, sour cream, butter for a month? Yikes-we are heavy dairy here lol when they take dairy from us, I will be very sad
Hi there , l would like to be a part of the coarse but we are in Europe and the times won’t work for us ! How can we do that ?
What source of income do you have to maintain family expenses???
Do you have a good salsa recipe? If so would you share it
We stopped doing any gifts because it seemed to take away from the Birth of Christ
It’s just me and my husband so we did church activities and had a low key dinner
Hello Im concerned about the fact that gov will be testing and possibly forcing farmers to vaxx chickens. How will we know where to buy chickens that havent been tampered with?
Yes half pint😂
👍
And of course, I return to work… January 06, 2025, and will be, as always, unable to attend anything “ live”. (sigh).
👩🌾👍🫶❤