Live frugally and resourcefully. Here are a few tips: -replace zippers in coats, it’s easy, take your time, save a ton of money. Even if you have to hire someone to do it, it is way cheaper than buying a new coat.
-don’t buy packaged or over-packaged food, learn how to cook, bake bread, make things from scratch
-educate yourself on quality, buy beat up used furniture and refinish, you can end up with a great piece of furniture with only a little bit of work for next to nothing
-repair your computers and devices or find someone local to do it.
-if you MUST replace appliances, buy basic hardworking non-computerized, metal component items either new or used. In future, you will be able to repair yourself and chances are they will last much longer. Unless you are a tech pro, you won’t be able to fix computerized parts in appliances. I replaced a computerized sewing machine that cost as much as a used car when IT was used with a basic non-computer new one. It will last until I’m long dead and cost a fraction of the price.
-find b
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Live frugally and resourcefully. Here are a few tips: -replace zippers in coats, it’s easy, take your time, save a ton of money. Even if you have to hire someone to do it, it is way cheaper than buying a new coat.
-don’t buy packaged or over-packaged food, learn how to cook, bake bread, make things from scratch
-educate yourself on quality, buy beat up used furniture and refinish, you can end up with a great piece of furniture with only a little bit of work for next to nothing
-repair your computers and devices or find someone local to do it.
-if you MUST replace appliances, buy basic hardworking non-computerized, metal component items either new or used. In future, you will be able to repair yourself and chances are they will last much longer. Unless you are a tech pro, you won’t be able to fix computerized parts in appliances. I replaced a computerized sewing machine that cost as much as a used car when IT was used with a basic non-computer new one. It will last until I’m long dead and cost a fraction of the price.
-find better ways of doing things such as using a metal or wooden soil blockers for starting seedlings in stead of plastic sectioned trays that only last a season or 2 then end up in the landfill.
-in the ethnic sections of grocery stores you can buy bulk packages of single spices and herbs way cheaper than little bottles to make your own blends such as curry powder, taco seasoning, meat rubs, etc. Use mason jars to store everything in. If you have a bulk barn nearby you can even reuse your own bags to buy in.
-put your leftover meals in the freezer in portions right after dinner. You avoid forgetting to use them and having to throw out food. End of the week, you have healthy ready-made food and spreading out the meals so that you don't have to eat the same thing multiple days in a row.
-you can get a lot more wear out of old runners by only replacing the insole
-I just rebuilt my home first aid station. I have quality bought kits for the vehicles but for at home, the ready-made kits have lots of unnecessary fillers. I bought various sized gauze pads, tape, rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, bactine spray, polysporin, big packs of bandaids, etc. as these are the things we use at home. I keep ice packs in the freezer and a heat pad for muscle stuff. Consider the usual type of injuries with regards to your lifestyle and stock accordingly.
-learn how to replace handles on axes, shovels, garden tools etc. And when buying these tools, make sure they have replaceable handles as some new plastic or hastily welded ones are not replaceable.
-I NEVER throw out a scrap of wood, ever. I have used every single little piece in some place, somewhere on my property.
The future of food is urban greenhouses and small family farms that use ages old conservation & regenerative soil practices. It's not factory farms of any kind. And anyone with a yard can do some gardening. Anyone with a sunny window or porch/balcony can grow herbs & spices and many greens. We need to be proactive about food security, starting at home. A neighborhood swap is a micro farmer's market, too.
Welcome to the Mother Earth News Store, the ultimate source for books and products for homesteading, gardening, cooking, preserving, raising livestock, natural health and more. Shop now and get on the path to wiser living.
Henry’s guide to getting #cuddles in 3 easy steps: 1. Lower head and make solicitous face at a likely-looking human. 2. Walk slowly into the edge of human’s personal space bubble so as not to frighten them off. 3. Position head in convenient location to receive #ChinSkritchies.
If human is chosen well, human will then provide many chin skritchies and tolerate being affectionately shoved into a hay pile.
This has been Episode One of my new docuseries, “Ways that #Horses are Basically Giant Grass-Eating #Cats.”
Here’s what the 2025 garden spot is going to look like: Yes, I know that just looks like gibberish. The basic gist is this: I have three beds to fill, two in the back and one in the front of the yard. I will be planting tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers, just like last year, albeit fewer individual plants this time around. I had more peppers than I knew what to do with.
Here’s what I’m hoping to plant this year:
Tomatoes (Roma, Beefsteak, Cherry)
Peppers (Jalapeño,
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Liz Cultivates: Garden 2025 Planning
Here’s what the 2025 garden spot is going to look like: Yes, I know that just looks like gibberish. The basic gist is this: I have three beds to fill, two in the back and one in the front of the yard. I will be planting tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers, just like last year, albeit fewer individual plants this time around. I had more peppers than I knew what to do with.
As ever, I know this is ambitious, and I reserve the right to change my plan at any point.
One of my bigger architectural goals for the garden this year is to place paver stones between my larger beds. The lawn mower doesn’t fit in there, and I’d rather not use mulch, so I need to come up with a stone-and-pebble-based solution. Consequently, this will also make the whole garden look a little nicer and more inviting, along with at least one arching trellis I’m hoping to place over the beds. You can see that the space between the beds was not well-planned at all. I’d also like to consider fruit. Strawberries, Raspberries. I’m going to attempt to take better care of the apple trees, as well.
We’re in the part of the year where I want to do everything and grow every plant and eat every vegetable. We’ll see how long that lasts! Ohio feels like it wants to be warm lately, and spring is struggling to emerge — to the point that the other day, we had rain, hail, and sun all in the same afternoon. This time of year always gives me a small surge of hope and excitement, especially since my birthday also falls right around now. I’m looking forward to seeing what this new year brings.
A theme is emerging here, and that is: The Way of Kings is really long. I’m still working on it.
Other than that, my February goals were pretty achievable (I’m learning how to be more realistic nicer to myself in my old age, I guess). Here’s what’s up for February and March:
Temperature blanket progress
I am very close to finishing the temperature blanket (I’m on row 21 of 31 for December), and I can’t wait to show you all how beautiful this thing is going to be. Here is somewhat of a sneak peek at the colors from the last couple of months:
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Monthly Goals Check-in: February and March
A theme is emerging here, and that is: The Way of Kings is really long. I’m still working on it.
Other than that, my February goals were pretty achievable (I’m learning how to be more realistic nicer to myself in my old age, I guess). Here’s what’s up for February and March:
Temperature blanket progress
I am very close to finishing the temperature blanket (I’m on row 21 of 31 for December), and I can’t wait to show you all how beautiful this thing is going to be. Here is somewhat of a sneak peek at the colors from the last couple of months: This top square was November. It got cold at the end of the month!You can see the giant stack of squares I’m going to put together.
March Goal:
Finish squares and start stitching them together!
Content strategy ongoing
As you can see by checking out this blog, I have been posting a few things here and there. I’m also starting to use my Bluesky queue more often, which allows me to have more regular posts (which, as much as I hate it, the numbers do show that posting more gets you more exposure).
There are lots of things coming down the pike, too — I love a fat content calendar, and mine is looking pretty full! Get ready for even more rambling from me. And we’re getting ready to record some more Literally 2c episodes this week!
March Goal:
Three blog posts (one reading series, one about the Scribe&Bard stream I’ll be doing in April, one about the latest episode of Literally 2c); ongoing Bsky queue; ongoing Instagram posts.
Reading & Writing
I think I’ll probably go easy on myself re: Way of Kings, because like I said, it’s long and a bit of a slog at times (still a fantastic book, but it is what it is). I picked up Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik at the library, and so far it’s a compelling read. The audio book’s narrator has the perfect voice and intonation for it. I’ll probably put my thoughts into a post or two — the writing style is quiet without being sparse and extremely clean. This is my first real audio book, as well! For Literally 2c, I am reading The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism by David Golumbia, which is a depressing little book because I can see a lot of the people I know in it. We’ll be talking about it on an upcoming episode of the show, so stay tuned.
As far as writing is concerned, I’m working on several blog posts, including a review of my favorite tabletop role-playing podcasts. I am about halfway through the first chapter of the last section of my novel, as well.
March Goal:
Finish Spinning Silver and make some progress on The Way of Kings.
Garden and Homestead Life
My gardening goal for last month was to plan out what I want to grow, make sure I have the correct seeds, and draw a vague map of where I’m going to put everything. Well, this was a full success! I can’t wait to officially open the garden season. I’ll probably start some seeds here in the next couple of weeks (broccoli, spinach, beans).
March Goal:
Seed starting and grow lights!
Be proud of yourself
… Because I am. This is the third month of doing regular goal check-ins, and I might be falling into a nice routine of it (I’m trying not to count my unhatched chickens, just being cautiously optimistic about my content goals). As you can probably tell, I haven’t settled on a format for these yet, but that can come later. This is why small personal blogs are awesome: I don’t feel the need to be immediately polished right out of the gate.
Here’s what the 2025 garden spot is going to look like: Yes, I know that just looks like gibberish. The basic gist is this: I have three beds to fill, two in the back and one in the front of the yard. I will be planting tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers, just like last year, albeit fewer individual plants this time around. I had more peppers than I knew what to do with.
As ever, I know this is ambitious, and I reserve the right to change my plan at any point.
One of my bigger architectural goals for the garden this year is to place paver stones between my larger beds. The lawn mower doesn’t fit in there, and I’d rather not use mulch, so I need to come up with a stone-and-pebble-based solution. Consequently, this will also make the whole garden look a little nicer and more inviting, along with at least one arching trellis I’m hoping to place over the beds. You can see that the space between the beds was not well-planned at all. I’d also like to consider fruit. Strawberries, Raspberries. I’m going to attempt to take better care of the apple trees, as well.
We’re in the part of the year where I want to do everything and grow every plant and eat every vegetable. We’ll see how long that lasts! Ohio feels like it wants to be warm lately, and spring is struggling to emerge — to the point that the other day, we had rain, hail, and sun all in the same afternoon. This time of year always gives me a small surge of hope and excitement, especially since my birthday also falls right around now. I’m looking forward to seeing what this new year brings.
Bad news: we have to leave the spot we have been living in for a while, soon soon.
Good news: we have been offered help with transport to state that we more had in mind.
In the meanwhile, we need the funds to get ready! We need to keep covering our car and insurance payments, we need to arrange a spot to move to. We need to increase our monthly pledged support to make our new labstead/homestead happen, a place the Vulpibus and Leaf can call home.
Last year the wind here really complicated our mapling efforts. We don't have a proper sugar shack, and it's tough to build anything new here as most of the flat land is taken. So I knocked this travesty of a sugar shanty together for $4 of pallets and an hour of work.
It'll either help a lot or burn down immediately. Tomorrow's supposed to be in the 40s, so we'll find out soon!
Prepping for this season by making seed tape 🥕 While somewhat finicky, it ensures good plant spacing and cuts down on the low to the ground work that can strain your back.
🌨🫘🌱 Cold stratifying seeds is a useful skill for #gardening, #homesteading & #permaculture folks, whether you are starting a food forest or just want to grow some less common perennials!
Do you want to grow some perennial seeds that require cold stratification? Many perennials that are adapted to temperate climates with cold winters require
The talk of the month (year) here is buying Canadian. What I am seeing a lot of, though, is comments like, “what about this particular product brand”, “I can't find a Canadian equivalent of this exact thing”, “I only like such and such, what is the Canadian version of it”... etc. etc. Ok come ON.
Time to shake things up, make changes, maybe even different personal choices, leave your comfort zone and get real. If you are struggling to live your life because you can't get a particular brand of any corporate produced, over-packaged, highly processed SOMETHING, you have bigger problems than our trade war with the US. For more than 20 years I have been talking about and giving ideas of how to use less energy, live with less consumption, make less garbage, and live lighter on the land.
If you are filling a garbage bag a week, and have no backup systems for power outages, store closures and supply interruptions, it's time to get with the game. Buying Canadian is absolutely important, but even more important is buying locally, in season foo
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The talk of the month (year) here is buying Canadian. What I am seeing a lot of, though, is comments like, “what about this particular product brand”, “I can't find a Canadian equivalent of this exact thing”, “I only like such and such, what is the Canadian version of it”... etc. etc. Ok come ON.
Time to shake things up, make changes, maybe even different personal choices, leave your comfort zone and get real. If you are struggling to live your life because you can't get a particular brand of any corporate produced, over-packaged, highly processed SOMETHING, you have bigger problems than our trade war with the US. For more than 20 years I have been talking about and giving ideas of how to use less energy, live with less consumption, make less garbage, and live lighter on the land.
If you are filling a garbage bag a week, and have no backup systems for power outages, store closures and supply interruptions, it's time to get with the game. Buying Canadian is absolutely important, but even more important is buying locally, in season food from farms and gardens in your area, growing your own where possible, buying used and reclaimed goods, making your own, mending, repairing, refurbishing, and making do.
Try eating different kinds of food, learning different ways of doing things, get creative with your day to day living. And further to this, instead of expecting other people on the internet to do this work for you, try doing some searching, label reading, and sourcing on your own. This is a built-in resilience against these kinds of situations that we are finding ourselves in now. It also makes life a hell of a lot more interesting.
To those who are into the #homesteading lifestyle, #selfsufficiency #gardening #DIY etc but want to avoid the sometimes right wing culture and ideas that come attached with this topic, might want to check out the "Poor Proles Almanac" podcast. it is based in the u.s.a so some things might not apply to other places, but it is still an amazing resource of knowledge and interesting topics that is very inspiring and timely. check it out
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 Whether you live in a city or rural area, 🥫 Food Prices will Increase due to Tariffs, or the threat of such, so learning how to preserve food safely is important. **If you are a city dweller, you can save money buying by the case and preserving produce. Living in an apartment? Yes you can, can! 👉 Here's an excellent website from a source that I know from years of experience provides instructions about how to safely can meat, veggies, fruit and more...With recipes!
#garden and #homesteading are two hashtags that’ll be interested in this. I started really seriously reading up on this in 2020, and your best bet is to grow potatoes, dry beans, and winter squash as your main foods. Growing and processing grain is insanely hard without diesel power and grain is picky and vulnerable. Potatoes are a lot hardier in most climates, and they produce just absurd amounts of food per square foot. Dairy goats are good for dairy folks - cows produce *a gallon a day* when they’re fresh. Goats are more manageable. Rabbits and chickens for protein.
Reconnecting people with food through large-scale gardening can transform the world. Grow fresher, healthier, pesticide-free food with unique varieties. Access seeds, guides, and One Community’s open-source strategy to feed 100+ people in a year.
Green Building: An open source plaster and waterproofing resource discussing traditional and natural methods of plastering and eco-plastering a natural home.
I'm trying to expand my feeds and would love to find content related to #art (real world art, abstract, performance, etc), web #design, retro computing, #gardening, and #homesteading.
And here's the little monster / expectant mother now. Pinkey is still the smallest if not the sweetest. That honor goes to her love bug of a twin sister.
Throwback to when Pinkey Princess earned her name. For weeks she would only sleep on Mom's back, like the Princess and the Pea. Last season's lambs were all color names since Dad was Littlest Red.
The last thing you see before drowning in a cuddly lanolin sea. The ewes have decided that 20F isn't so bad, so they can come out of the barn to yell for dinner.
Hey there! I'm Lily, a proud trans lesbian from Conifer CO, a mom of a 13 year old, and a perpetual instance migrator.
I'm a neurodivergent woman in tech working as a Senior SRE at Writer.
I love to be outdoors, tend to the farm, play in my wood shop, hang out with my kiddo, play guitar, snowboard, play videogames, and see whatever kind of trouble my wife @deb and I can get into on the weekends.
Hey since I only started using #mastodon again only lately, I'm resending my #introductions note in the hope for other people with similar interests as myself to connect with.
I am excited to announce that homestead.social is officially open for signups! If you're passionate about sustainable living, getting back to the land, or exploring self-sufficiency, this is the place for you. 👩🌾 🚜
Whether you’re an experienced hand at homesteading or just starting out, our community is here to support you with tips, advice, and camaraderie. We’ve got spaces for every kind of homesteader—permaculture enthusiasts, animal keepers, off-grid dreamers, DIY lovers, and everyone in between.
So come on in, find your new homestead family, and let's grow together. From gardening and DIY projects to the joys of farm life and everything in between, we can’t wait to see what you bring to the community!
homestead.social is an inclusive community open to anyone interested in homestead living. Welcome home!
Please consider supporting our instance costs! 💜
https://ko-fi.com/lilymooncohen
This is 'Life on the Homestead', an account dedicated to featuring content related to homesteading, farming, gardening, off-grid living, and more ran by the homestead.social team (honestly it's really just @lily for now but hey)
Pastoral Song by James Rebanks is one of the best books I've read this year. It is beautiful and honest and is a perspective I have longed to hear on how and why farmers went from farming small, in small rural communities, to operating at commercial/industrial scale, and back to small again.
A must-read for any farmer or homesteader, and anyone who cares one ounce about the realities of feeding this world.
"Rejuvenating the soil is one of the basics of creating a mini-forest on a degraded site.
"In fact, it’s the critical first step—the goal is to simulate the living soil of a healthy, mature forest.
"This happens naturally during the stages of ecological succession, but because the Miyawaki Method skips immediately to the climax stage, some preparation is required to compensate.
"In the absence of a loose soil with plenty of organic matter, trees will struggle to grow properly. In a Miyawaki forest project, the soil is typically recharged by decompacting and amending the site with organic ma
"Rejuvenating the soil is one of the basics of creating a mini-forest on a degraded site.
"In fact, it’s the critical first step—the goal is to simulate the living soil of a healthy, mature forest.
"This happens naturally during the stages of ecological succession, but because the Miyawaki Method skips immediately to the climax stage, some preparation is required to compensate.
"In the absence of a loose soil with plenty of organic matter, trees will struggle to grow properly. In a Miyawaki forest project, the soil is typically recharged by decompacting and amending the site with organic materials.
"Planting Density
"Planting density is another signature of the Miyawaki Method.
"Conventional wisdom says that plants compete for light, water, and soil nutrients; therefore, plants should have lots of space between them to reduce that competition.
"But it’s not how a Miyawaki forest works.
"For a Miyawaki forest, the standard planting density is three plants per square meter. This density helps achieve the goal of ecosystem regeneration.
"After all, in a natural forest, plants are not evenly and widely spaced.
"Dense planting stimulates mutualistic and competitive interactions among the plants and facilitates connections with soil microorganisms. It also promotes virtuous competition for sunlight, hastening upward growth.
"Mulching
"Mulching is a critical component of the Miyawaki Method.
"After planting, the ground is covered with a thick mulch similar to fallen leaves on a forest floor. Indeed, once the young trees have had a chance to mature, they will contribute leaf mulch to the forest floor naturally.
"Mulch protects the bare soil from water loss by evaporation, from erosion, and from temperature extremes. Mulch also suppresses weed growth and eventually decomposes into the soil, enriching it.
"As they become established over the first few years, the plantings typically need occasional watering and weeding, but after three years the young forest patches are developed enough to shade out weeds and shelter the soil.
"They are then generally self-sufficient and need no maintenance of any sort—no pruning, no watering, no fertilizing, no pest control—ever."
Want to witness the magic of the mini-forest? When you practice The Miyawaki Method, you'll see an empty lot or backyard transform into a biodiverse forest.
