Getting back to the basics and returning to the land is something our family of seven has been able to do. My husband and I were brought up in the city and had no experience with country living. When we first got married, all I knew how to cook was macaroni and cheese from a box, canned ravioli, and hamburger helper. We would have starved without a nearby grocery store. After we started having children we wanted to move out to the country and hopefully plant a garden. It was always a dream of ours to one day be self sufficient. We bought an old farm house on 3 acres, and fixed it up really nice. I met some Amish folks and began taking lessons on cooking, butchering, sewing, and canning. We spent one year’s tax returns on our first milk cow. We could not believe how fun and economical this lifestyle was. We started raising chickens, collecting eggs with our little children, and making really healthy meals. The first year we started canning with the Amish, we canned about 500 quarts of everything from tomatoes, green beans, apple sauce, to meat. I found that we were spending less time in the car going to the grocery store and more time as a family working together. There is no greater joy than building relationships with your children by working together for the greater good. We wanted to share our joy. Since we are professional photographers we decided to create a DVD teaching what we had learned. For over a year every new project was recorded on camera, raising chickens, boiling down maple syrup, making bread, growing a garden and all the other homestead type projects. Homesteading for Beginners DVD series is the result. Everyone who watches it says it truly inspires them try some of these LOST skills. These are skills our fore fathers knew well and used to survive hard times that would come upon them. Families would do well to learn these skills and get back to the basics. When jobs are lost or power is failing, it would be helpful to know how to provide food for their family.
Our Homesteading for Beginners DVD I and II will give you basic skills for homesteading. The first DVD is a good teaching tool for children and parents, but is geared to keep children captivated. It is a basic step one for those who know very little of homesteading. Our second video is geared more to an older audience and goes into greater depth. Both DVDs introduce everything from milking a cow, making butter, cheese, kefir, planting a garden, to butchering chickens.
Through all the homesteading we have learned, lived and recorded the one thing we have learned is this: There is a real need for Community life. Community life was the way of old. People would come together to work, to survive, and to learn from each other. Our family has come up with an idea to bring like-minded families together in their homesteading adventure. We created a website and forum that others can join to encourage one another. We will be offering a platform for trading, buying, selling, and getting to know others in the same season of life. It will be an opportunity for people to learn, be creative, write articles, ask questions, get the products they need, and build family bonds.
