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. Read more.
Planning Your Kitchen Garden for Success
Growing many of your own fruits and vegetables is a delicious way to save money. And it's easier than you may think. Right from the start, plan your kitchen garden for success. Read more.
Good Kitchens
A good kitchen is a place that makes it easy to cook. It doesn’t have to be large or expensive or fancy or filled with the latest gadgets. It does require a few basics. Read more
Small Can Be Bountiful
How much food can you grow in a tenth of an acre? The Dervaes family grows an amazing 6000 pounds of produce. They raise about 350 different kinds of vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, nuts and other products. Read more.
In Praise of Libraries
I love libraries. My local library is one of my favorite places. It helps me build my home economy in many ways. Read more.
Mind Maps
Sometimes the most useful tools are the simplest. One of my favorite tools for organizing is a mind map. The mind map, a diagram of ideas, was popularized by Tony Buzan. Read more.
Rabbit-Proof the Garden
I like bunnies; but those sweet, innocent-looking creatures are cotton-tailed eating machines in my vegetable garden.
If I want to have any veggies to eat, I need to keep those "wascally wabbits" away from my garden. So I'm trying a two-fold strategy. In one section of the garden, my vegetables grow in containers and raised beds. Read more.Seeing Time
A review of Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern
In Time Management from the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern writes that she has found that "the single most common obstacle people face in managing their time lies in the way that they view time." It seems that there are quite a few of us who have no idea how long a task will take or how many things we can fit into a day. Morgenstern's solution is to find ways to make time tangible. Read more.