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  • How to Use Bentonite Clay

    How to Use Bentonite Clay

    If you don’t already have bentonite clay stashed away in your natural medicine cabinet, you should.

    Bentonite clay, which is a sedimentary clay made up of weathered and aged volcanic ash, is an amazing natural health tool with a wide variety of uses around the homestead. It’s strong electromagnetic pull naturally draws out toxins, heavy metals, and impurities and can be used both topically and internally.

    Here are just a few of the ways you can use bentonite clay for your natural medicine chest

    Toothpaste

    Bentonite clay can be used as a base for natural, homemade toothpaste, including this tooth powder recipe.

    Deodorant

    Many natural, DIY deodorant recipes call for bentonite clay, and it can actually help reduce the negative impact of commercial deodorants by drawing out toxins they can leave behind.

    Facial Mask

    Mixed with any number of other beneficial ingredients or simply made into a smooth clay with water, bentonite clay masks can help smooth and condition skin and reduce acne and other imperfections.

    Drawing salve

    As part of a healing drawing salve, bentonite clay is wonderfully beneficial for many skin irritants and conditions.

    Hair mask

    You can actually use bentonite clay as one method for cleaning your hair with the no-poo method, or as an occasional hair mask to help minimize residue left by commercial hair products or to combat dandruff or chronically oily hair.

    In Soap

    When added to homemade soap, bentonite clay can help create a very soothing, medicinal soap.

    In Calamine Lotion

    We posted about homemade calamine lotion awhile back, and bentonite clay works great as a base for this.

    Detox Drink

    You can actually drink bentonite clay either in conjunction with other detox recipes or on it’s own, and it can do some serious detox in your body (just make sure to drink enough water and eat enough fiber to filter all the toxins out).

    Detox Bath

    Probably one of the easiest and most effective ways to use bentonite clay is to throw it into a bath and soak for 10-15 minutes. This will draw toxins and heavy metals out of your body and into the water, so follow with a quick shower to rinse it off!

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  • The Best Homesteading Herb (Video)

    The Best Homesteading Herb (Video)

    I normally follow this YouTube channel for survival-related stuff, but I loved this video on lemon balm, a great homestead herb.

    Lemon balm is very easy to grow and has a multitude of medicinal and culinary uses.

    In this video, she explains it’s medicinal uses, and a few different methods for using it in cooking or as an herbal remedy, as well as how to make delicious lemon balm tea! Enjoy:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBFyqAr6sZ4

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  • The Easiest Way to Consume More Liver

    The Easiest Way to Consume More Liver

    We have been covering the health benefits of liver recently, including a very delicious way to prepare it that makes it quite enjoyable to incorporate into  your diet. This way to prepare it is liver pate, which is made out of mostly liver and butter. While I certainly find this recipe to be quite delicious and enjoyable, it’s also pretty caloric and rich, and not necessarily what you want to eat on a regular basis.

    There are also many who simply do not find liver pate to be enjoyable, in fact, they find it to be just about as repulsive as plain old liver and onions.

    This is definitely understandable! Liver certainly has a bit of an odd, acquired taste, that is sort of earthy and strong. And sometimes, no amount of butter, bourbon, or seasonings is going to mask this if you already have an aversion to liver itself.

    So, if you really want the amazing health benefits of liver, but don’t feel like having to eat it, there is one simple solution that might be more palatable to you or at least, might make the process of consuming liver a little less unpleasant.

    This is to make your own liver pills. That’s right, you can literally make pills out of liver that you can swallow, which helps you to literally hold your nose and quickly toss some awesome nutrients down the hatch without having to think too long about what you’re actually consuming.

    Here’s how:

    Ingredients

    1 package high-quality, organic, grass-fed chicken or beef liver (and thawed if bought frozen)

    Directions

    1. Read through all the directions first, so you’re sure you have room in your freezer for the liver “pills” and a sharp enough knife to make them.
    2. Rinse your liver in cold water and pat dry.
    3. With a sharp paring knife, slice up your liver into pill-sized pieces. This might take awhile.
    4. Place the liver pieces on a cookie sheet lined with parchment.
    5. Leave in the freezer until frozen solid.
    6. Transfer the frozen “pills” into an airtight container and leave in the freezer for at least 14 days.

    These two weeks of additional freezing will ensure that any pathogens in the liver have been killed, making it safe to consume the “pills” raw. After two weeks, simply swallow one or two with every meal.

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  • Most Decorative Edibles for Your Yard

    Most Decorative Edibles for Your Yard

    Maybe you’ve only got a small yard or a patio, and would like to combine your vegetable garden with your landscaping. Or perhaps you can’t have a garden where you live and you’d like to grow some veggies under the guise of decorative plants. Perhaps you’re just the visual, artistic type and would like to produce food and have a stunning, attractive, decorative garden.

    Either way, there are lots of beautiful options for you to grow vegetables that are both decorative and edible! Here are some of the best:

    Basil

    Basil is a cinch to grow and just so happens to be very pretty to look at and will blend in nicely with most decorative foliage. Not to mention, it’s naturally bug repellent and smells wonderfully as well!

    Eggplant

    There’s actually eggplant you can grow that is purely decorative, but the edible kinds of eggplant are gorgeous too! There are lots of varieties available that have different colors of fruit, but they all have very stunning foliage and fruit.

    Mint

    Mint is a great ground cover crop, one that you can tuck away in virtually any corner of any garden, or grow in a pot for some very easy, pretty patio decoration. It also has many medicinal benefits and culinary uses, making it a wonderful all-purpose plant to grow.

    Swiss or Rainbow Chard 

    Both Swiss and rainbow chard have very beautiful, visually-striking stalks and gorgeous green leaves that look like deliberately planted decorative foliage. A great advantage to chard as well, is that you can pick leaves off of it regularly and it will just keep growing, so it’s a perfect plant to grow for a regular supply of nutritious, delicious, and attractive leaves.

    Beets

    Beets have very lovely little green and red leaves that are great to grow between decorative plants. You can eat the leaves themselves or wait for the root to come to fruition, either way, it’s a very pretty plant that is perfect for any decorative garden.

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  • The Best Animals to Raise on a Homestead

    The Best Animals to Raise on a Homestead

    Being able to raise livestock is one of the biggest appeals of homesteading, and it’s very rewarding too! Livestock can bring so much reward, from delicious byproducts, to valuable contributions to gardening and even landscaping, as well as companionship.

    Here are some of the best animals to raise on a homestead, and why.

    Chickens

    Chickens are just awesome. They’re cheap to feed, can be put to work in a number of ways, can easily be tended to using natural remedies, and produce delicious eggs and meat for you. Chickens are a globally popular animal to raise, for good reason to. If you had to have one animal on your homestead, chickens might really be it. They’re great.

    Pigs

    Pigs might seem like a lot of work, but they’re actually quite cost effective for raising for meat. Plus you can throw them scraps, probably my personal favorite reason to raise pigs as I hate throwing out leftovers! They don’t take up much room, they grow very big very quickly, and they’re very cheap to buy as piglets. You can easily fill up your freezer with pork for a whole season in just a few short months.

    Goats

    Goats are great for homesteads for many reasons. They’re relatively easy to care for, eat almost anything, can provide delicious milk which can pull a nice profit for your homestead, and you can also raise them for meat as well. If you’ve got lots of ungroomed land on your property that you want cut back in a totally sustainable and eco-friendly way, goats are the ideal laborers for this task, trust me.

    Rabbits

    Rabbits are a great starter animal for meat. They require relatively simple habitats, can also be fed fruit and veggie scraps, have delicious meat, mature quickly, and breed…well, like bunnies! They’re a great sustainable meat crop if you want to raise something that produces quickly and doesn’t require a lot of space.

     

    There are of course many more homestead animals you could raise, these are just at the top of the list because they are easy, affordable, and produce quickly. Try your hand at one of these types of livestock to try your hand at animal husbandry and see if it’s for you!

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  • DIY Dry Shampoo

    DIY Dry Shampoo

    Last week I wrote an extensive post about how to wash your hair using the “no-poo” method, and one method I mentioned was using homemade dry shampoo.

    This is a method of freshening up your hair that can go in conjunction with regular washing, or the no-poo method. You probably won’t want to use it as your only mode of washing, but just as a way to absorb oil and grease in between washing, and adding texture to hair to help with styling.

    Dry shampoo is essentially what it sounds like; a dry rub you can use to clean your hair. There are many popular brands on the market, both that you can spray and dry powders that you can sprinkle in your hair. But, you can also easily make it at home! Here are two very simple recipes, one for light hair, one for dark hair.

    Dry Shampoo for Light Hair

    1/4 Cup cornstarch or arrowroot powder

    5 drops essential oil of choice

     

    Dry Shampoo for Dark Hair

    2 tbs cocoa powder

    2 tbs cornstarch or arrowroot powder

    5 drops essential oil of choice (bear in mind it will already smell like chocolate

    Directions

    Blend all your dry ingredients together in a bowl. If you’re using essential oil, drop in your desired amount, and make sure to blend throughly throughout the starch and cocoa powder. It might take a bit of pressing the droplets with a fork and gently whisking around. Make sure to wash that for well!

    Once well-blended, store in an airtight jar and keep in your medicine cabinet or wherever else you store your hair products.

    To use, take a makeup brush and lightly dip in your jar. Brush the dry shampoo throughout your hair, on your scalp, then “scrunch” your fingers all around to try to disperse it throughout your hair. Wait about five minutes, or leave in overnight for more oil absorption. Finish by combing or brushing it out, and style as usual.

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  • Urban Homestead

    Urban Homestead

    This is a very inspiring short film about “the hub”, a 1/2 acre lot in the small town of Oxford, in North Canterberry, New Zealand.

    Kane and Fiona Hogan are able to grow a beautiful, productive, and lucrative garden right in the middle of their town, and use that revenue to get out into the community and help the elderly with their gardening needs as well.

    This humble 1/2 acre lot is the center of a growing urban gardening culture in this small town, and is working to establish a sustainable, affordable, and healthy source of food for the community.

    Kane and Fiona share beautiful thoughts on what an important role gardening can play in a community, and the film highlights their amazing food lot and the work they do in their township.

    Seeing projects like this is so inspiring to me, to showcase how unrestricted the culture of homesteading can be and how much gardening can positively influence our lives and the lives of our communities. Whether you live in the country or right in the middle of a busy urban hub, I think everyone can glean from just how much of an impact we can make by trying to be more self-reliant and productive. Enjoy!

     

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  • Soaking and Sprouting Times for Seeds (Infographic)

    Soaking and Sprouting Times for Seeds (Infographic)

    I shared an article last week on sprouting alfalfa, and I did mention that you can use many other kinds of seeds and beans as well, using this method.

    It is definitely true that the basic principle of soaking, draining, and sprouting applies to many seeds and beans, they vary, sometimes quite drastically, in ideal soaking time and the amount of days it takes for them to sprout.

    Here is a great resource from nourishsystem.com for any aspiring sprouters out there. This is a chart that lists many of the popular sprouting seeds, grains, nuts, and beans, and all the information you’ll need to sprout them.

    What is particularly helpful about this chart, that I haven’t seen in other similar infographics, is that it includes the dry amount of seeds you’ll need, and what that will yield in sprouted greens. This is a great resource, so you can measure out exactly what you’d like to use and anticipate how long it will last you once sprouted. I’m definitely keeping this up on my fridge for future sprouting.

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