Amy at Homestead Revival wrote a post on this recently, as a guest poster at Like a Bubbling Brook. Her beliefs on this mirrored mine so well, that I decided to post the link to her on here, rather than type up an entire post myself. Here is the link:
Should a Christian Practice Food Storage?
Also, Faithful Mama at Homesteading by Faith and Blessed Mom at Blessed Simplicity each wrote a post on their blogs--today--about taking inventory of what skills we currently have that will benefit us in these hard economic times, and what skills we would like to learn. I don't think I am nearly as advanced as these two wonderful ladies, but I am working on it! Here are the links to their posts, and then I will add my list below:
Taking an Inventory of Skills (Homesteading by Faith)
Skills (Blessed Simplicity)
(Can I just say that I love my little blogging "community"?)
Okay, sooo....my current skills are: making all my food from scratch, making homemade household cleaners, grinding grain to make bread, making homemade laundry soap (stopped doing this for now because it is NOT working with our super hard water), gardening, dehydrating, keeping chickens and ducks for eggs, using natural remedies for healing and preventing illnesses, caring for dairy goats, making yogurt, making butter, buying in bulk, making jam.
Skills I want to learn: I am a novice gardener so I want to keep getting better and better at gardening, including adding a medicinal herb garden, raising baby chicks for eggs and meat, raising rabbits, currently working on learning to breed dairy goats, making cheese, making soap, adding more berries and fruits to my garden, learning to can and make pickles this summer.
You can see that I am smack dab in the middle of learning some skills as we speak: gardening, dairy goats/breeding, canning, and making pickles. These are my current ventures and should keep me super busy this summer! I am excited to become less and less dependant on "the system". I hesitate to say "self-sufficient" because of the word "self", as really we are "God-sufficient", but I do believe that God wants us doing our best to take care of ourselves without having to rely so much on the system.
How about you? What skills are you currently learning, and what would you like to learn?
April, you are doing GREAT!! It's wonderful that you're taking the time to evaluate and figure out what you need to learn!! I am anxious to learn about your goat experiences as well, as we are hoping to do that one day! We will get this done one step at a time! I love what you said...we are "God-sufficient", not self-sufficient! Without HIM, nothing is possible! Hugs!!
ReplyDeleteThank you, April! I appreciate the mention and link to my post. Always learning here at the homestead!! Right now, I'd like to learn about growing and using medicinal herbs. Whew! That's a large topic!
ReplyDeleteHi there! Thank you so much for mentioning me!! :D Friend, you are living some of my goals!!!! I am so excited to learn from your goat experience, and I am so excited to see so many other women, yourself included, who are really trying to learn how to do things the old way! I think these skills are so important to pass to our children! Love to you girl! I love the post! Wish you were her for tea with me this morning! (hugs!)Hope you have a wonderful, blessed day!!-S
ReplyDeleteI most certainly think a Christian should practice food storage skills. The Bible is quite clear about being prepared, being frugal, being resourceful, and about filling our storehouses.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we have to temper it..God instructed the Israelites in the desert to just take up the manna for the day (or one extra day to cover the Sabbath) in that He provided daily. We are also instructed to not worry ourselves about what we eat..what we wear, etc.
So, tempering this with moderation! Being a good steward of God's provision in all ways.
As the previous poster mentioned, these skills are important to pass down, and have been largely lost in our generation!
I do much of what you are doing, as far as homemaking/homesteading skills go. I do wish to become better with sewing! I wish to sew more clothing for our children! It's a skill I never properly learned, and plan on using the Homestead Blessings: Sewing, from Vision Forum, to learn more.
We are limited with our homesteading desires by where we live. We live on the edge of town in a "ranchette" development. These are homes on much larger lots..yet, we have strict CC&R's, and aren't allowed any farm animals. When we moved here, our goals were slightly different, and we are not going to be moving, so we have to put some of our desires on the back burner, and work with what we have..I do garden, so that's a good thing, but no home farm eggs or animal products.
Thanks for a great post! God Bless!
I just found you from a post at Blessed Simplicity. I just read some of your posts. You are a wonderful writer! I may have to visit here more often.
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