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Homesteading – Page 65 – Homesteader Depot

Homesteader Depot

Category: Homesteading

  • Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin (How to Cook a Rooster)

    Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin (How to Cook a Rooster)

    When it comes time to butcher some roosters to reduce their numbers in your flock, you might find them quite tough and difficult to butcher. Roosters make for particularly tough meat, and need to be cooked properly in order to enjoy them, but when you do, they can provide a delicious and rich flavor that will make you glad you ever had roosters.

    This recipe is loosely based on Julia Child’s Coq au Vin recipe, which you can check out and follow more closely if you like, but of course most Coq au Vin recipes you will find use store-bought chicken parts, as the majority of city dwellers don’t have access to country roosters!

    You can easily adjust and adapt this as you like, but the trick is the slow cooking process and the wine, which will soften and bring out the best flavor of the rooster.

    Ingredients: 

    1-2 roosters, plucked and butchered

    1-2 bottles of red wine

    3-4 cups chicken stock or broth

    1-2 onions or shallots

    thyme

    Recipe: 

    1. As soon as your rooster is slaughtered and butchered, place the pieces in a bowl or tupperware, pour half the wine over it, enough to thoroughly soak the rooster (and ideally immerse it, but of course wine is expensive). Let soak overnight, up to 24 hours.
    2. Once you are ready to cook, caramelize your onions or shallots in a skillet and place in your slow cooker. Set aside .
    3. In the same skillet, using more butter or oil, gently brown your rooster pieces on all sides.
    4. Place the rooster pieces in the slow cooker on top of the onions and sprinkle with thyme, salt and pepper
    5. Cover the rooster pieces with the remaining wine and chicken stock.
    6. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, checking regularly to see how tender the rooster meat has become. Once it is tender to your liking, it’s done.

    This is a great way to prepare several roosters at once, if you’ve got small roosters and would like to use the meat in other dishes, but it can be served as is as well, with a side of roasted potatoes and a simple salad perhaps. Enjoy!

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  • Simple Shortcuts to Living Off-Grid

    Simple Shortcuts to Living Off-Grid

    The ideal situation for living off grid would be to own your own land with acerage, good soil, a well or spring, and the resources to raise animals and grow and process lots of food. This is obviously something that most people will have to work up to, homesteading definitely takes time, patience and resources.

    If you’d like to start living off-grid in your daily life now, however, whether you’re beginning to homestead or still living “on-grid”, there are some simple steps you can take to remove yourself from the grid.

    “Off-grid” technically means off the municipal electric grid, but it’s come to have a broader meaning of self-reliance and separation from the mainstream. If you’d like your lifestyle to be a little more self-sustainable and independent, here are some simple steps to take:

    1. Try to actually get off-grid: if you are in the position to change your living arrangements, try to buy land! Consider going partially off-grid at first, for example being on the electric grid but with well or catchment water, or using county water but a simple solar set-up or no electricity at all. It’s amazing how much less we really need electricity in this day and age than we think!
    2. Ditch your cell: OK, OK, so pretty much everyone considers a cell phone a necessity of life these days, but you don’t really need it anywhere near as much as you think. For example, if you have internet at home, do you really need a data plan? Do you really need it on all the time, or can you turn it on airplane when you’re not using it? It wasn’t too long ago that everyone got on just fine without cell phones, and we never know when the grid will crash, so don’t lose sight of functioning in life without a cell.
    3. Look into solar: you might be able to get solar power at your home now, and not only save some money but use a renewable source of energy to power your home.
    4. Raise animals: you can raise chickens in even a small yard, and they provide fresh manure for your garden and eggs for your table! It’s a very small step towards a self-sufficient lifestyle, but it will give you a sense of what raising animals is like
    5. Get off social media: much like #2, how much do you really need social media? We get so plugged in to the internet these days we are forgetting how to form real relationships and connections. Yes, there are valuable networking opportunities for homesteaders that can’t be overlooked, but like your cell phone, are you really using social media as much as you need to?
    6. Collect books: the internet might not be around forever! If you want to really rough it and get off-grid, invest in some physical books on homesteading, gardening, construction, home improvement, etc.

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  • No Thin Method for Planting Carrots

    No Thin Method for Planting Carrots

    Anyone who has grown carrots knows that many of the carrots are lost to thinning.  With seeds as tiny as carrot seeds are, it is difficult to handle them and space them out when planting.  Even if great care is taken not to plant too many in one area, you might wait only to find large spaces in your row with no carrot sprouts at all.  If they do sprout close together they are difficult to thin out without removing and killing more than you need to in order to thin.  But, there is a method to plant carrots that, if done correctly, doesn’t require thinning.

     

    • Get a container like a clean glass jar for each variety of carrot that you will be planting. Don’t mix varieties since they may germinate at different times.
    • Pour some seeds into each container, you don’t need to pour in the whole packet, one of the points of this method is to conserve seeds.
    • Add enough water to thoroughly soak the seeds, but not enough so much that they are floating around in inches of water.
    • Cover with the lid on loosely and place in a warm area that doesn’t get direct sunlight. Check the containers daily, opening them and allowing them to vent.  In just a few days you should see a root begin to sprout out.  Look closely because they will be small and you want to get them when they have just started to appear.
    • When the seeds have sprouted you will need to make a planting gel for them, the purpose of the gel is to keep space between the seeds. To make the gel simply heat cornstarch in water until it takes on a gelatinous consistency, then allow it to cool down so that it does not kill the seeds.
    • Once it has cooled, add a little water to the sprouted seeds so that you can swirl it around, collecting all the seeds, and then pour it into the gel.
    • Being very careful so that you do not damage the sprouted root (this is also why it is important to catch them before they grow too long) mix the seeds throughout the gel.
    • Pour the gel with the sprouts into a plastic bag and cut one bottom corner off. This will allow you to use the bag like a pastry chef and spread out the gel in a shallow trench (1/2 inch or less).
    • Cover the gel containing the sprouts lightly with soil and water carefully with a fine light spray or mist.

     

    I hope this method helps to save you money on seeds and delivers a great harvest for you.

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  • 10 Household Uses for Borax

    10 Household Uses for Borax

    Borax, or sodium borate, is a very cool old-school natural cleaning agent that has many uses around the home. It is most commonly used as a laundry booster or as a base for DIY laundry detergent, and it’s great for this. But there are actually many household uses for borax!

    A box of borax is easy to find, typically sold in four-pound boxes at your hardware store or Walmart (in the laundry section) and will last a long time. You can use it for all kinds of DIY cleaning agents, many of which will replace toxic, expensive cleaning products that also probably wouldn’t even be half as effective.

    Here are some creative ways you can use borax around the house!

    1. Laundry booster: just add 1/3 of a cup to every load

    2. Stain remover: make a paste with 2 parts water and 1 part borax (a spoonful will do) and scrub into a stain. Let sit for a few hours, then wash as normal

    3. In homemade deodorizing spray: mix 1/3 cup into a quart spray bottle of water and use as you would Febreze

    4. To deodorize mattresses: mix 1 part borax with 1 part baking soda and sprinkle into your fabric, wait a few hours, and vacuum up

    5. Cleaning grout and tile: make a paste with water and apply liberally, let sit, then scrub away and rinse off

    6. To clean floors: add 1-3 tablespoons to your mop water for extra clean floors

    7. To sanitize brushes and combs: soak in warm water with a handful of borax added, then rinse thoroughly

    8. To unclog toilets and drains: unclog the toilet or drain as much as you can, then dump borax into the clogged area. Let sit for 20 minutes, then pour drown with boiling water

    9. To sanitize sinks and counters: add a tablespoon to a spray bottle with water and vinegar and use as an all-purpose cleaner

    10. To kill cockroaches: nothing kills cockroaches like borax! Mix borax with sugar and sprinkle in the path of cockroaches. Clean up and refresh regularly and **make sure to keep out of reach of small children and pets. **

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  • First-Time Permaculture (Infographic)

    First-Time Permaculture (Infographic)

    I have always been fascinated by permaculture. It seems like such a cool method of gardening, but also complicated and confusing. I’ve always wanted to study it more, but it’s hard to know where to start.

    I recently came across this great infograhic that breaks down a lot of the principal components of permaculture for beginners. It’s really detailed and extensive and was originally published on Fix.com with an accompanying article detailing the informatic contained in the graphic. Since we’re heading into winter, why not start to consider trying out some new permaculture methods for spring? This graphic has honestly made me want to start studying and planning more myself!

    permaculture-embed-small

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  • Making Your Own Potting Soil

    Making Your Own Potting Soil

    Whether you are growing in raised beds, containers, or even in rows, you can benefit from starting your crops on tables and even under cover.  But starting your crops outside of their final location, or growing in containers will mean that you need potting soil, which is expensive.  Reducing this cost is a crucial step in lowering the overall cost of your garden.  Here are some tips on making your own potting soil to cut costs.

     

    Peat

    It’s unlikely that you will be able to build your potting soil without purchasing anything, but purchasing individual ingredients in bulk, and then stretching them will reduce costs dramatically.  One ingredient that you are not going to want to go without because of its ability to wick water up is peat, or coconut coir but generally, peat is cheaper.  This can be stretched by adding saw dust to it that you might be able to get for free if you look for a mill in your area.

    Compost

    Compost is, of course, something that you can produce for free.  When using it for potting soil you want to make sure that you are using the finest material you can.  Avoid material with large sticks and obviously, recognizable pieces of ingredients that have not decomposed.  Vermicompost or worm bin compost is great for this.

    Perlite

    Perlite is a volcanic rock that aids in drainage and preventing soil compaction.  These are important factors especially in potting soil.  Perlite can be expensive, but it is a difficult ingredient to replace because of it’s unique and highly beneficial characteristics.

    Separate

    Once you have mixed these ingredients thoroughly you have potting soil.  To avoid the need to purchase these ingredients again, simply segregate your spent potting soil and compost it in a separate pile or add it to your worm bins.  This will keep all of your perlite available for future use, the compost will be replaced, and it will reduce the need to purchase more peat.

     

    Making your own potting soil not only reduces the cost of purchasing it by the bag, but it also reduces the loss that you would suffer from unsuccessful direct sowing of valuable seeds.  Don’t let the cost of potting soil deter you from starting in a more controlled environment, make your own.

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  • Three Important Homestead Firearms (Video)

    Three Important Homestead Firearms (Video)

    If there is one incredibly appropriate place for firearms, it is on a homestead. There, they are important tools. They provide security of your home, belonings and animals. They can scare off, injure or kill dangerous predators. You can use them to kill animals you raise quickly and painlessly, as well as wild animals you’d like to hunt for food. You can even use them as pest repellant if you’ve got critters trying to steal your food or plants!

    If you are new to firearms it can be hard to know where to start, so I thought this video would be a great primer to a topic that can be intimidating to beginners. This is an experienced homesteader and firearms expert who shares his expert opinion on the three most important homestead firearms. Enjoy!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7_-h_mXmh8

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  • 5 Pre-Industrial Skills Everyone Should Have

    5 Pre-Industrial Skills Everyone Should Have

    The modern era has many advantages. Modern technological advancements have made daily life much simpler and less labor-intensive. No longer do we need to spend hours hand-washing our laundry, hauling water from streams and creeks or pumping it from a well, harvesting and grinding grain. etc. However, modern life has also made us very reliant on a complex industrial grid that could go down at any time, or of course, that many are trying to escape.

    There are many skills of yore that we grow up simply not doing or experiencing, that might quickly become a way of life if our grids fail or if you choose to go off-grid and start a homestead from scratch. When you first buy property, you might not always have a house built or the resources for every modern convenience. Here is a list of 5 pre-industrial skills that we’ve lost that might become very useful in situations like these:

    1. Building a fire: this is a primal skill that early man mastered, and that everyone should know how to do. You can use a fire to cook, boil water and keep warm.
    2. Hunting: another primal skill that everyone should at least be familiar with the basics of. Life doesn’t always allow for animal husbandry, but hunting skills such as shooting, learning to use a bow, and the basics of dressing an animal are invaluable.
    3. Sewing: basic hand sewing can help you out in many situations, and it is a household skill that is quickly moving into extinction. Simple stitches are very handy to know for mending and making many kinds of clothing and supplies.
    4. Grinding flour: it is so easy to take being able to grab a pound of all-purpose flour at Wal-Mart for granted, but grinding flour takes hard work without large industrial equipment. The simple process of harvesting, drying and grinding grain is very rewarding to become familiar with.
    5. Construction: whether you are constructing a simple hut or building your own house, having some idea of how to sensibly plan and execute the building of a shelter is a coveted skill, and could be life-saving in the wilderness.

    This could, of course, be a much longer list, but I tried to think of the very basic technological skills that can help you out in survival situations or bare-bones homesteading. These skills can be rewarding to learn, and sure to make you appreciate our post-industrial amenities a little more as well!

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