Resources We Are Currently Using Around the Homestead

There are so many resources available these days to help us learn how to manage our home and homestead.  I thought I would share with you several books that we are currently using as we learn more and more about managing our home and little homestead.




These "down-home" DVD's produced by our friend Ken Carpenter at Franklin Springs Video were probably the push we needed to get started learning about so many new things.  Soapmaking, gardening, herbs and making our own dairy products are things we now do regularly after being so greatly inspired by the West Ladies.  They truly are a blessing!  And guess what?  I just found out this original set is 45% off at Vision Forum!!  Just click on the picture and it should take you there or click on the picture in my sidebar.




We only have two of the books in this set:   Storey's Basic Country Skills:  A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance by John and Martha Storey is a treasure-trove of information including how to pick out a place in the country, gardening, cooking and preserving, animals, farming, building fences and barns and so much more.  I have particularly enjoyed the recipes and instructions relating to dairy products lately.

The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan is full of tips to show you how to produce all the food you need on just a quarter of an acre.  We have almost 9 acres here, so we really should be able to be quite productive (but most of our homestead is currently woods).

http://www.visionforum.com/browse/product/?productid=38462&search=large+family+logistics&sortby=0

I have already given a review of Large Family Logistics by homeschooling mom Kim Brenneman.  What a wealth of information and logical ideas for managing the large family home!  I am still gleaning so much from this book and look forward to studying it more thoroughly with Kaelan as she starts her high school level work in the next year or so.  What a tremendous blessing the information in the book would be to a young wife and mother just starting out and a young lady preparing for a life of motherhood would do well to study this while she is still young and can help her own mother incorporate some of the ideas in her current home.

http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302525650&sr=8-1

 Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon is a book I pull off the shelves every so often when I get a nudge to feed my family a more traditional diet.  Not all the recipes have been successes in our home, but currently I am studying the section on dairy products and have been using some of the recipes for simple cheeses, sour cream and yogurt with success.

So there  you have the current resources that are encouraging and teaching us in our homemaking and homesteading journeys.  There are several online sources that have been a huge blessing to us as well.  Amy at Homestead Revival has been a great encourager and motivator with her informative posts and her weekly preparation challenges.  On Facebook, I came across the page for  Back to the Basics--Hope for the best, Prepare for the Worst.  What a ton of information they have to share about so many areas of homesteading and preparing.  I don't have a link, but do a search on FB and I really think you will be blessed by the wealth of information shared there.

So, what resources are you using to help you in your quest to build a homestead or just to get more organized in your home life?  I would love to hear what you have found out there!

Check out what others are learning around their homes at Homestead Revival.