How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

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jsanders

How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by jsanders »

I searched homestead and didn't get a hit like this question so here goes.

I make likker, farm, make soap and shit like that... trying to be as self sufficient as possible.

What about y'all?
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by HolyBear »

Yep, just harvested me bee hives today. We grow our own garden, actually gardens, milk goats, chickens, and hogs. Also do lots a hunting, fishing and generally foraging in the woods. We do lots a canning, making cheese, cottage cheese, ice cream, bread, sausage, bacon, pork chops, steaks, roasts, lard, smoked/canned fish and yes, I make me own drink... I think today the new term for us is "Prepers"... but when I was growing up, we called it livin... :wink:
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by LWTCS »

I'm pushing 50 now and my folks did all that as just part of getting by. and certainly my grand parents more so....

In only one generation (perhaps two or three for some?) we have lost the ability to take care of our selves with out the assistance of convenience.....Lord help us.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by qball »

I'm not really into homesteading, but I enjoy figuring out how to make something and how to make it better than you can buy in the store.

I home brew
I distill
I'm getting ready to start making salami's and cured meats
I love to cook anything/everything...
I work on and repair my cars myself

So I enjoy the "hands on" to things I enjoy.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by jsanders »

It's funny, we made cheese, yogurt, reloaded and hunted, then went veggie. We've got bees, and I'm thinking about raising rabbits for when we need them. WCTS, you're right too. people are sooo dependent on the grocery.

Preppers, that's what I'm aiming at. Have you guys seen the book "Dare to Prepare"? Great book to make you think of things that need to be done. I drink my stuff but I'm also thinking about barter. when the time comes.

Here in the south over the past 5 years or so the underground economy has exploded. barter, trade, cash. i know a guy owns a BBQ restaurant traded food for a truckload of hickory. We use heirloom seeds and pick the best to get seeds from,

There is so much to handle. You are right though, my grandparents did it, I grew up in a family that knew how to do it. We're putting food back, mostly dehydrated, canned and pickled.

It's hard to do it when you've got time to plan!. What are all the people gonna do when shtf and walmart is closed. riot and loot. The skill we practice here will be what sets us apart.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Husker »

Good topic. I think a WHOLE lot of us here are like this. DIY and try many new (new to us, but really OLD school) projects.

I hunt/fish, distill, make my own soap (rendering tallow myself), make all sorts of sausage, process deer, hogs and chickens ourselves (but have the butcher do beef, they are just too big for us). The wife made her own landry detergent recently, and loves it. We garden (did not this year), can, have a 140 sq foot pantry full of foodstocks (and ammunition).

Mrs Husker has been so sick the last few years that a lot of our 'back to basics' projects have been put on hold, but I think we will get back into it. We do want our little cabin in the woods, and will be moving that way. We have a couple years until our youngest is out of school, and hope Mrs Husker is still with me by then, so she can be with me to turn our backs on the corp rat race.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by jus teasin »

wacabi1 wrote:Yep, just harvested me bee hives today. We grow our own garden, actually gardens, milk goats, chickens, and hogs.


SURE WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU MILK THEM CHICKENS AND HOGS :lol:
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by pfshine »

well I got into this hobby just for that reason learn how to distill when shtf then you can barter the booze use the alcohol to disinfect and ethanol for motors and so many other things. distill poluted water for one. right now I am in the city but plan to move to the country as soon as I can. husker do you dig up your own lye or do you have another natural source of acid?
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Dnderhead »

"""husker do you dig up your own lye ""
I'd like to see that done......
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by pfshine »

After forest fires hardwood ashes make lye so you can get it from the remains of a large blaze the amount you get from burning hardwood in the bakyard is just noy enough.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Dnderhead »

we burnt wood for most all heating/cooking so it was no problem. but iv never seen it dug up.you must gather ashes befor rain as any lie whould be leached after.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Husker »

pfshine wrote:husker do you dig up your own lye or do you have another natural source of acid?
I do not use my own lye, but that is one direction I do want to go. I would make KOH lye if I did it (potassium). Made from steeping wood ash. The method is pretty simple, but computing exactly how much lye you have is the hard part, and for soap creation, where you want to measure very accurately, this is one of the problems. Getting 'safe' consistant soap would take many runs, to be able to determine the proper amount of fats to use with your homeade lye. This is beyond my skillset at the time.

NOTE, lye soap is not without it's own dangers (just like home distillation). With lye soap, if you do not use enough fats to use up ALL of the lye (and just a tiny bit more), then what you end up with is excess lye left over, after the reaction has fully completed. In an ideal world, you would want exactly the right amount of fatty acids and lye so that when done, there was none left over of either. However, in the real world, this reaction can not be driven 'perfectly'. it requires an excess of the fats, to drive the reaction fully, to use ALL of the lye. The amount is not a great deal more, possibly a couple of percentage of excess fats. But when you have known strength materials to start with, getting this 'just over' by a few percentage is pretty easy. When you make your own lye, you would have to learn over time, the proper proportions of your HM lye, and fats, so that you would have excess fat, but not too MUCH excess fats.

Gaining this knowledge (of how to create a known strength lye, and how much fats to use), certainly would be a very good skill to learn now, before the shtf. Right now, obtaining the fats is cheap (free) and easy (walk a block to the local groc, and tell the butcher to same me some trimmings for a day or 2). Obtaining a good supply of wood ash is easy also, (free from our camper community, from peoples fire pits). So, in todays world, a person really 'should' gain this type of experrience, when the materials are very cheap and easily obtained, so that if shtf, and certain commodities such as fats/veg-oils become much more valuable and harder to obtain, and materials like commercial lye become unavailable, that quality soaps can still be produced. I simply have not taken the time (yet) to gain this knowledge.

My soap making has been much like my booze making. It was one of those 'can I do this?' thoughts, and what ended up being produced (with some digging into information on the net), was that, yes I could, and I can do it BETTER than the commercial available stuff. I can make better booze, and can make better soap, than I can cheaply buy. I have yet to go the 'true' 100% on your own methods, of either booze production or soap making (or many of the other DIY projects).
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Husker »

Dnderhead wrote:we burnt wood for most all heating/cooking so it was no problem. but iv never seen it dug up.you must gather ashes befor rain as any lie whould be leached after.
If you are to the point (i.e. shtf), that you are NEEDING to produce your own lye, then you will likely have adequate ash source to produce lye. Ash produced by someone running a wood stove over the winter would have more than enough ash stock to make enough for your own usage. If it truely was shtf situation, then there would be many people using wood, and the supply would be much greater.

But dunder is 100% correct. If ashes have had any water on them, the lye is GONE. It is very water soluble, and water is how we extract it to be used in whatever way we want it.

H.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by HolyBear »

If I remember right, volumn 1 Foxfire tells how to make lye.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Bushman »

Since retiring I tell my wife as I'm heading out the door to go fishing that it is a full time job feeding the family. :) I also like building furniture and do most of my own remodeling.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by HolyBear »

"The encyclopedia of country living" should be in everyone's home (or bunker) good resource...

"Store lye is just fine if you follow the directions. For homemade lye, put in an egg or potato. (Dunder here's another egg trick) if it floats enough that a piece about the size of a quarter is exposed on the surface, the lye is about right for soap making."

There is alot more about it within this excellent book. Every home should have a copy of "The Encyclopedia of Country Living"...
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Husker »

wacabi1 wrote:If I remember right, volumn 1 Foxfire tells how to make lye.
It does, but there is a difference between making 'some' lye, and making a KNOWN measureable amount.

An analogy would be that you can produce either jailhouse toilet wine or top shelf home distilled spirits. Now, BOTH will have ethanol, and both will get you drunk. But only one is going to be enjoyable.

H.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Dnderhead »

"(Dunder here's another egg trick)"
yes and also for a 10% salt solution like is used for brine in pickling.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by pfshine »

have been told that if an egg has gone bad it will float in water.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by HolyBear »

Glenn Beck has a new channel on dish network. Its channel 212 and called "The Blaze". One of the shows that he has on there is called "Independence USA". Its kinda hokey, but its all about independence off tha grid living. Decent show, heading in the right direction, its on right now and they are making a cannon!!!
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by frozenthunderbolt »

In answer to the original question: Yep. I brew, distill, garden, weld, carve, tan, cook, preserve, sew, make soap, spin, weave (cant knit though) etc I love learning new skills :mrgreen:
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Samohon »

Great topic. We try to do most things ourselves, but the UK is so small with +65 Million people, thats its hard not to find some sort of convenience.
Ukraine on the other hand offers us a closer sense of homesteading where we really do need to cater for ourselves.

Like most here on HD, distilling, brewing among other things help us to keep the home environment steady as the crunch bites deeper.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by Dnderhead »

with most of things like this, it was done once a year.one batch and you have 10-20 lb of soap,enough for the year.i dont remember any precise measurements.it was more of a tub of rendered fat..and a pot of leeched wood ashes boiled down.from my memory it was not something you wanted to be doing in your kitchen,as some times it have a violent reaction.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by NcHooch »

We've always had a garden, and made a little cheese, hunted, fished, brew beer, wine, hooch, lot's of DIY skills, etc .
Mrs Hooch gets on my case sometimes about my collection of "raw materials" :) ....How am I sposed to make shit with nothing?
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by HolyBear »

I learned a little trick a while back that the readers of this thread might be interested in.

Some folks like to store food, (grains, sugar, etc) in those 5gal buckets, well... I baught several 50lb bags of beans, rice, wheat,noodles, sugar, etc and was really dreading breaking everything up and filling those buckets. So, I got several 50 gal food grade drums, and some 50 lb bags of stuff called "diatomatious earth" (don't think I spelled it right). I packed the food loosely in the barrels and spread the diatomatious earth all throughout. From what I understand, it is crushed sea shell fossils and works as a physical insecticide by cutting the insects. It is safe on our scale and is used by organic gardeners as an insecticide. Man that shit works!!! I have since rotated out a few bags (two years latter) with no bugs!!! Dead ones can be found in the drums, hell when you by certain things they have bugs and eggs in it. That stuff works...
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by whiskeytripping »

Wacabi, it definately does work, some feed company's use it in their grain silos. We use to use it on the dogs food, and on his back. Good for fleas, put it in their bed too
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by jsanders »

I've got some of those 5 gal buckets and a couple food grade 55 gal barrels. I'm thinking about storing uncut likker in mason jars in 1 of the 55 gal barrels. I need to get a few more barrels. Don't forget to put a butt load of sugar back! It could take a few months to find a source for our hobby.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by jsanders »

If any of you subscribe to magazines, I suggest looking into "Backwoods Home Magazine". It's a no BS approach without a lot of advertising and saying what they really think of the govt and such. Lots of DIY info.
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by moose11 »

Hey jsanders thanks for mentioning Backwoods Home Magazine, I've never heard of it and after I searched it and found it to be a great read. I would subscribe but the extra 18 bucks a year for postage to Canada is kinda steep.
I've always been a self sufficient do it your self-er, from always doing my own home and auto repairs to having a good sized garden (almost a 1/4 acre) and filling the freezer with wild game (duck, deer, and of course mmmm.... good.... moose) heating my house with wood and my shop with used motor oil for free, I'm a fabricator by trade and I'm used to starting from scratch, and find the magazine very interesting.
Most of my friends think I'm cheap, but I take a lot of satisfaction in making things myself, like my alcohol, although I have never made soap, I get the impression that it is more complex than distilling.
Mrs moose is a bit of a squirrel, she's not quite at the extreme couponing tv show level but we have enough food and necessities (shit tickets) and canned goods in stock to last us a couple of years, and nothing bought at full price.
I started stilling because the Ontario Government is so gready that a 40 oz bottle here is 38-48 dollars depending on brand, very steep compared to the price you guys in the US pay and you guys think you're overtaxed!
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Re: How many of you are doing this as part of homesteading?

Post by jsanders »

Moose - soaps not that hard once you do it. I'm sure Mrs. Moose or you could knock out 5 lbs in no time. These 2 sites are what I used to get started.

http://www.soapcalc.net/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow and http://www.teachsoap.com/forum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Also, you can find everything you need at the grocery or make it yourself. Molds can be built out of wood or they can be milk cartons. They say in an extended emergency, sanitation will be the one of the biggest challenges for people. Soap will be a cheap, easy barter item.

Try it!
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