For the whole year of 2021, I am challenging myself. I am going to learn 52 new self reliant skills throughout the year. Yes, that’s one new skill every week! I’m calling it the “Self Reliant Skill of the Week”. And I hope you’ll follow along!
I am going to be posting a new post here every week with the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, and a video of the results on my YouTube channel. It will be announced on Friday by roughly 5:00 pm MT on my Facebook page. Follow me there to get the reminders!
My email subscribers will also be getting a reminder on Friday. Sign up below to get those emails!
I hope you’ll follow along on my journey. I’ve been homesteading for 3 years, but there is always something new to learn!
I am especially excited about learning all of the old-fashioned, vintage skills. The ones that helped our grandparents get through hard times, like The Great Depression.
Self reliance is learning to do things on your own, to be independent. My goal is to lessen my dependence on the grocery stores, to grow and make a lot of what we consume here on the farm. To make our own income from our land. To be prepared for whatever life throws at us.
I have always been drawn to living simply. In fact, I sometimes joke that I was born a generation or two too late. My mother was born during The Great Depression, so she passed on a lot of her frugality to me. She always had a food storage, reused things that she could, and saved as much money as she could.
I believe that these vintage skills are too valuable to let slip away. So I’m embracing them! This is going to be a fun experience for me, and I think it will be fun for you too. I sincerely hope you’ll consider joining me in learning these “new” self reliant skills. Let’s do this together!
Have you ever wanted to try making soap the way your grandma used to? I’ve wanted to for a long time. After all, what’s a self-reliant person supposed to wash themselves with? So I decided that for this episode of the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, I was going to make soap from homemade …
If you’re trying to be more self reliant, and watch what your family eats, you might want to make your own homemade ketchup. While ketchup from the store is cheap, it’s really NOT healthy. And making your own ketchup is super easy! For this episode of the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, I made …
Make Your Own Easy Homemade Ketchup (No High-Fructose Corn Syrup!) Read More »
If you’ve ever made soap, you may be wondering, “Can I make soap more sustainably?”. Well, I have exactly the solution for you! You can make lye from wood ashes to make your own sustainable soap. At its very basic form, soap is made from lye and fat. For the fat, you can use oil, …
Have you ever ground your own flour? If you have a simple grinder, you can easily grind wheat into flour. For this edition of the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, that’s exactly what I’m doing! Last year, when the pandemic hit, there was NO flour on the store shelves. None! So what did I …
Now that spring is here, our chickens are laying eggs like crazy again. We get about 6 dozen a week right now, and that’s more than we will eat before they go bad. So what do we do with all those “extra” eggs? Well, in the past, we’ve sold some, to help offset the cost …
How to Waterglass Eggs for Easy Egg Preservation Read More »
Did you make tallow with me the week before last? Why not try making tallow candles with me? This is an easy project for anyone interested in making their own candles. Let’s learn how to make tallow candles together! For this episode of the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, I am making candles for …
Here on our farm, we have raised meat rabbits for about 3 years. But so far, I hadn’t done anything with the hides. I’ve always wanted to learn how to tan rabbit hides, but just hadn’t done it…until now! For this episode of the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, I am tanning rabbit hides …
We had company from the city last weekend, and we had an interesting conversation. I told them that I was going to render tallow from a sheep that we had butchered ourselves. I tell you what, I’ve never seen so many blank stares and scrunched up noses, asking me “What’s tallow?”. So for this episode …
In the last episode of the Self Reliant Skill of the Week, I made flour tortillas. They were a lot harder to make than I though they would be! So for this week, I am making homemade corn tortillas. These corn tortillas are versatile, easy, and only take 3 ingredients. In the spring of 2020, …
My family eats tortillas all.the.time. In fact, we almost use tortillas more often than we use bread! We sometimes use tortillas to make a sandwich wrap. A favorite “dessert” here is fried tortillas with cinnamon and sugar. And don’t judge, but some members of my family (definitely NOT me) will even eat leftover spaghetti wrapped …
