Homesteading Skills To Learn

Continually finding new homesteading skills to learn and develop is a necessary part of this journey, no matter what stage we are at.

We aren’t born with these skills, and many of us these days weren’t taught them growing up. So it is up to us, to seek them out.

Every bit of knowledge and experience that we could gain gets added to our “tool belts” and help to build the lifestyle of our dreams.

Our goal in homesteading is to become as self-sufficient as possible, right?  We want to be able to rely on ourselves for our family’s needs, whenever able. So this leaves the door of learning possibilities WIDE open!

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*We will have posts and links to all of these skills in the future as we publish more content..Subscribe to our Newsletter and stay tuned!

So where do we start?!  How do we learn these Homestead Basics?

You will hear me say a dozen times throughout our blog “Start where you are at”. That is going to look a bit different for each one of us, so there isn’t an exact roadmap.

Ask yourself:

“What do I already know that I could build upon?”

AND

“What is a new skill that I could learn to help me reach our family’s next goal?”

Start with whatever you answered.

For our family, as we explain in our “About” page, we are living in CT and building our homestead in VT.

Whenever we get to spend time on our land in Vermont, we are actively doing hands on labor intensive projects.

But as we spend most of our time right now in Connecticut, we aren’t letting ourselves sit idle regarding our goals. We are constantly learning and putting into practice as much as we can.

When the day comes that we could officially move to our Vermont homestead, we will have a loaded tool belt of skills and be ready to go full force on Day 1.

I would recommend everyone do this, especially if you are dreaming of a homestead but not yet in the position to fully build one.

Don’t wait until you have the “perfect” land, setup, or dedicated time. If this lifestyle is what you ultimately want, and even if you feel it’s going to be a few years before you could truly start homesteading, then don’t waste precious learning time NOW.

You’ll be that much farther along, skilled, and confident for when the “right time” happens. Start building your dream now one skill at a time.

So, how do we learn and develop these new skills?

Books- Some of our favorites- Edible Wild Plants , Polyface Designs, Sweet Maple,The Encyclopedia of Country Living, The All New Ball Book Of Canning  (paid links)

Google- It’s awesome to be able to google anything and everything, with answers instantly at our finger tips!

Facebook Groups on the topic to learn from others. The homesteading network is great, so full of knowledge and experience to share. Join Homesteading FB pages but also pages regarding the specific skills that you wish to learn or advance.

Volunteer- See if you could offer your time to help on a local farm or someone’s homestead in exchange for them taking the time to show you the ropes. I want goats…I have a friend who has them. We are planning on having her husband teach me how to clip their hooves, the next time he needs to do them. I will be giving him a hand with chores and he will be giving me hands on experience. Win Win!

Those being said, my personal favorite way to learn is YouTube!

This past year, when Covid hit, I quickly started going down the Youtube rabbit hole.

I was trying to avoid the news and anything negative. I also wanted to be as productive with my couch time as I could and focus on what our goals are.

This kind of got addicting and I’ll tell you what, I think it’s been a year since I watched an actual movie or full tv show! You could find homesteading skills to learn through “How To” instructional videos but also learn practical “In the day of the life of a homesteader” type things.

You’ll see things and mentally take note of what you would like for your own homestead, as well as things you definitely want to avoid.

My Favorite Homesteading YouTube Channels:

(not in any particular order bc they each have their own strengths and purposes)

Roots and Refuge – Jess and Jeremiah are rays of joy and light. Jess’s love of growing vegetables is absolutely contagious and she always gives such great tips and tricks for the garden, really explaining well and eagerly. Their videos also give a good taste of other things that you would experience having a homestead (building projects, pig births, and such!). They have a pretty big Facebook following with a “Friends of Roots and Refuge” page that creates a great network of likeminded gardening people too.

Homesteading Family– Josh and Carolyn are such a genuine, “down to earth”, wise and experienced couple. You could learn SO much by watching their “How To” videos on a wide range of topics as they have true gifts for teaching. They have a great blog, and recently started podcasts as well. Carolyn also offers paid online classes in things like bread making, canning, herbal remedies, etc.…

Lumnah Acres-  Al and Gina offer a real look at “the day in the life” , from morning goat milking, skunks in the chicken coop (you HAVE to watch that episode! TOO funny!), through various building projects, and ending with a family dinner. It’s pretty cool to watch their journey and their homestead grow in real time. Al is always building something new it seems, and you could get a lot of good creative ideas as you plan your next project.

We also truly enjoy their videos because they are located in New Hampshire and fairly close to our Vermont property. This is important because as we watch their videos we get to have a more realistic idea of what homesteading in that region will be like, especially with their gardening videos.

As you build your Youtube “go tos” be sure to seek out one (or some) from your state or general region to watch as well. This could prove to be an invaluable resource.

Justin Rhodes– Ok this one is truly unique. Justin not only takes you on his own family’s homesteading journey, giving in depth “day in the life” footage and creative project ideas, but also takes you on so many other homesteaders’ journeys as well. His family took a year, to travel across the country meeting farmers and homesteaders, documenting it all. Everyone has their own methods and techniques that you could learn from. You will have LOADS of videos to binge watch with his channel and not get bored at all with the content!

Yowell’s Hoppin Hilltop Farm– Jake is someone I “met” on Instagram who truly impresses me! His videos are fun and farm animal based, full of new things to learn. Especially great if you are toying with the idea of adding to your livestock. Any adult could learn new things from him but the best part is that kids love to watch and learn from his videos as well. They look up to him….he is a teen! Check him out and you’ll quickly see why I’m so impressed.

If you have kids, absolutely have them watch his videos.

My 8yr old came to me excitedly “Mom! Did you know that you could crush up egg shells and feed it back to chickens for calcium?!” …

**Face Palm**

I had already taught him this in our homeschooling lesson weeks prior.

But you know what?! He listened and excitedly learned from Jake because he could relate to him.

I think that is incredibly awesome!

Jake told me that he was inspired to make his videos from other YouTube channels. He fell in love with all of the animals he was watching. “I already had my Kunekune pigs and Bonnie (my sow) had given birth to 6 of the cutest piglets ever, so I decided to make a video showing them. And that’s really where it all started! Now I am always trying to learn more and make my videos better, so I like to include some information that I think others can learn from!”, Jake said. 

Side note- When watching Youtube, I intentionally watch the commercials vs. skipping because that’s how they earn through their videos…..I love that I could help them earn a living as opposed to lining the pockets of Hollywood! Plus it’s my way of saying “Thank You” for sharing their journey, experience, and entertainment. Totally worth a few seconds of patience.

This weekend, we are attempting to tap for the first time.

Troy tapped a few Maple and a couple Black Walnut trees.

We’ll keep you posted on how it all works out!

This Spring/Summer I plan on expanding my herbalism knowledge.

Later in the year, I plan on tackling Pressure Canning. I have Water Bath Canned for over 15 years but finally taking it to the next level!

Troy is planning on expanding his meat processing skills this year as well.

Ok I hope this inspires you to set goals of new homesteading skills to learn

and to start putting them into motion.

What are YOUR Homesteading skill goals for this year?!?