Skills and the Home Economy
Producing things is creative work. But it takes skill. Unfortunately many once-common skills are now rare. Think of some of the skills people used 150 years ago to run a homestead.
- Gardening
- Cooking and baking
- Preserving
- Making cheese and butter
- Animal husbandry
- Fence-making or hedge-laying
- Woodworking
- Building
- Sewing
- Quilting
- Spinning
- Weaving
- Knitting
- Crocheting
- Splitting wood
- Building a fire
- Soap making
- Candle making
- Running small home businesses
Then there are the new skills like computer use, changing a car's oil and basic plumbing repair. Popular Mechanics compiled a list of 25 skills every man (and woman) should know. They included things like painting a room, sharpening a knife, using a torque wrench and mixing concrete.
If you're like me there are a many useful skills still to learn. It's good to remember we don't have to learn everything. Even years ago, people didn't. Pick the skills that interest you and would be most important to your home economy.
Don't try to learn everything at once. Pick a couple of new skills to learn each year.
You can build on your current skills too. If you already garden, try propagating new plants, seed saving or growing a year-round source of food. If you cook, try preserving food or making your own convenience food.
There are lots of places to learn new skills: friends, books, the internet, classes, trial and error.
Have fun. Learn something new.