Mission: 52 Homesteading Skills in One Year

At lunch one day a former colleague of mine once asked…”If you didn’t have any bills to pay and could do anything you wanted, what would you do?”

What was my answer? You guessed it – I would start a farm.

Everyone at the table had a good chuckle including myself. Yeah, what a silly idea. Me, who knows nothing about farming.

“No, really,” they asked. “What would you do? Wouldn’t you want to move to the Bahamas, relax and sit on the beach all day?”

Actually, I would. For maybe 23 minutes. And then my fair skin would burn to a crisp and I’d be headed to the local real estate office to find out how I could purchase farm land in the Caribbean.

Despite my homesteading dreams, I likely would have stayed at my communications job forever. The work was enjoyable, the pay was good and the people I worked with were awesome.

But then I got pregnant. After my one-year maternity leave, I realized I couldn’t go back full-time – I wanted to stay at home and raise my kids. It was during this time that I started to dream. To think about what I really wanted to do with my life.

Well, here I am, 7 years later, on the brink of bringing my silly idea to life. Of course, I do face some serious challenges and lack of knowledge is definitely one of them.

So I’ve decided to turn this obstacle into an adventure. You see, secretly I’ve always wanted to be like Frodo from Lord of the Rings – to embark on a great quest where I set out to battle evil and save the world. I suppose I could just play a video game, but I don’t think I could sit still long enough. So instead I’ve decided to embark on a real world adventure.

Unfortunately, my homesteading quest does not involve saving the world – I am going to attempt to learn 52 new homesteading skills in one year.

When I first thought of the idea of creating a website, I imagined I’d just share some things we were learning. But as the weeks passed, I realized how much I enjoyed tackling these new projects and the idea of a challenge took root.

I know this isn’t going to be easy. With two kids who love to “help”, a husband who works full-time off the farm and home renovation projects to complete, let’s be honest – this is going to be challenging. But as they say, if you’re doing something you love, it really doesn’t matter.  Right? Well, actually, I prefer not to think about it for too long. Let’s just get started!

Since I began this blog four weeks ago, I can cross off learning to: make fermented pickles, plant raspberries, dry herbs and make the perfect pie crust.

That means I now have 48 weeks and 48 skills left to tackle. I hope to learn to:

• milk a goat or cow
• make my own yogurt and cheese
• keep bees and harvest honey
• compost with worms
• grow my own salad greens year round
• knit
• keep chickens for eggs without killing them
• properly prune a fruit tree
• fish
• and many more… (38 to be exact)

If I can do this, so can you. Raise your pitchfork, shovel, trowel or whatever farming implement you have on hand and join me in my quest. Or just follow along. That’s great too! And, as always, thank you for reading.

PS. If you happen to know an expert in any of the above homesteading areas who would be willing to take on a trainee, please let me know in the comments section below or send me an email.