No small “self sufficient” farm is complete without backyard poultry and they’re a part of the archetypical homesteading image for a reason: chickens are easy to keep, provide a source of protein and fat that gardens typically don’t, and allow a quicker conversion of food scraps into usable soil. The…
Autumn olive (Eleagnus umbellata) is one of our favorite things to forage and also one that we get the most of. This small tree isn’t native to North America, but it’s spread to a lot of the continent. Due to its fast growing and nitrogen fixing qualities, it’s been used…
Canning is one of those archetypical homesteading skills that finds itself in the mental picture we all have of the lifestyle. And this isn’t without reason; preserving food in glass jars by way of canning is an extremely useful way to make sure your valuable harvest doesn’t go to waste….
I grew up in what people would now call a “prepping” house. That term wasn’t in vogue for most of my life, but that’s basically what my parents did and as such, influenced how I was raised. Nothing like the Doomsday Preppers made famous by the show of that title…
Another easy food to forage in winter, at least around here in the parts of the Eastern woodlands that are predominantly mixed forests, is the wintergreen plant. Wintergreen is a plant that grows primarily by forming colonies with massive connected underground roots that thrive in the woody duff. For our…
Soil health is something that’s routinely overlooked as it relates to justice and liberation, but it’s historically been one of the major drivers behind the growth and decline of empires and one of the earliest resources on which to base oppressive power structures. Soil is more than dirt with certain…
I realized I’ve put up a few posts now that direct y’all to forage plants for food, but I’d entirely forgotten to set down some foraging basics. Many of the people who read have some foraging experience, but I’m sure there are also plenty coming to these pages who have never foraged.
A few years ago when I was doing small game trapping more regularly in the late fall and winter, I would regularly enough forage in between checking traps. Even going into winter with the snowfall I’d be able to find at least a little. The main area I trapped at…
Making a really good stock is one of those simple sort of skills that a lot of people don’t seem to know to do. It’s an essential way to get the most out of an animal that’s been killed to feed you and yours, and although I’m a piss poor…
Here’s a quick tip for winter foraging: barberries are edible. Barberry is a short, thorny bush that’s been used to decoration for a long time. That’s the main reason why they’re so widespread and basically invasive. There’s a native variety, but most of what we see is the Japanese barberry…
