TheBar1 Homestead- From a sword to a plowshare

Well I have been reading my rear end off doing research for the homestead so today I am going to talk about a couple of the books I read or am in the process of reading if I may. The first is Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits by Bob Bennett.  To be honest it was kind of hard to get by the first chapter, while the information is good the author comes across as condescending stating a lot of opinions (which granted at backed up with over 50 years of experience) and presenting them as facts.  He comes off as a such a breed snob to the point I had to do research to see if he was a president of some breed association or something.  The book really should be call Storey’s Guide to Commercially Raising Rabbits.  Mr. Bennett, looks at everything through a commercial lens, and that is not really what I want to do, but he assumes that is the only reason to raise rabbits, to make money on them.  The book is not really all that useful for what I am looking at, he d...

  Perennial Wooded Garden What is a perennial wooded garden?   A perennial wooded garden is known by other names such as a survival garden or hidden food plot or permaculture.  A perennial wooded garden is not  as much a garden as we see it with its organized rows but more of an organized chaos.  The main focus of the perennial wooded garden is the one time planting of trees, shrubs, vegetables and herbs that continue to grow and produce year after year with little to no human input.  It is much as it would grow in the wild with the exception that we plant it where it will most compliment or benefit the other plans in your gardens yet it maintains it natural chaotic appearance rather than in neat orderly rows. Rick Austin is the person who I am basing most of this idea on.  I recently listened to a web seminar that he was a part of and just ordered his book “ Secret Garden of Survival: How to grow a camouflaged food- forest. ” Which is wh...

Pre serving Food Other than figuring out how I am going to harvest grain, preserving food is probably the thing that intimidates me most next.  In order to be as self-sufficient as possible in a northern environment I need to be able to preserve food for year round usage.  When you talk about butchering a whole pig or cow, let’s face it, that is a lot of meat.  Freezing it all is just not an option when you also want to put some veggies (like corn on the cob) in there as well as some poultry and a rabbit or two!  Not to mention you need to have a backup plan if electricity is lost for an extended amount of time.  This week I am signed up for a web seminar called “Beyond Off Grid Summit” that will have many classes including one on canning and one on traditional food preservation.  For those interested the web site is http://beyondoffgrid.com/summit (and it is free)There are three types of food preservation/storage I plan to practice (other than standa...