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  • How Does Homesteading Make You Healthier?

    How Does Homesteading Make You Healthier?

    When you have a homestead, no matter the size, you do not have a lot of time to rest if you want it to stay up and running properly. Homesteading can provide you with a sense of accomplishment, but it certainly takes work. However, this work can be very good for your health. This is one of the “hidden” benefits of homesteading that many people do not think about. Let’s look at some of the ways that becoming a homesteader could make you a healthier person.

    Getting Exercise

    You are going to be outside and working quite a bit. Whether you are tending to the livestock, in your garden, making repairs, dealing with snow, fishing, hunting, or hiking, you will be out getting plenty of exercise. This can help you to shed some pounds and keep you in good shape.

    Eating Better

    When you are homesteading, you can eat better, too. You are growing your own food rather than eating unhealthy processed food and fast food. You will be getting more nutrients since you are putting better quality food in your body. Fresh meat, veggies, and fruit are key elements to a healthy life. They are good for the insides, and they can also help you lose weight. In addition, eating healthy tends to be good for your skin, too.

    Improved Psychological Health

    Many find that homesteading can help improve their outlook on life and their psychological health. They feel better when they are doing something to contribute to their survival; other than sitting in a cubicle. They like getting things done on the farm, they like the quiet it can offer and the starry nights.

    As you can see, there are many benefits to living the homestead lifestyle. If you are still on the fence about homesteading, it could be the perfect option for you.

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  • How to Choose Your Bug Out Spot

    How to Choose Your Bug Out Spot

    If you’re not yet homesteading and would like to be more prepared for survival situations, you naturally want to have a bug out location ready just in case something happens. However, not just any spot will do. If the world starts to go south, you need to have a good and secure location that you can retreat to and where you will be able to survive for as long as needed.

    You have to put in some thought when it comes to choosing the location. You have to think about the security of that location for starters. How easy is it for other people – people you would not want to be at the spot – to get there and find the location? How easily defendable is the location?

    In addition, you have to think about the survivability aspect of that location. Even though you might have a lot of food and water stored right now, if you have to survive for a long time, the supplies will dwindle. Is it an area where you will be able to hunt and fish? Will you be able to start and maintain a garden? What is the weather like? You need to consider all of these different things when it comes to your bug out location.

    Look at the pros and the cons of the different areas you are considering. When you do this, you also have to think about the distance from your current location to the bug out location. Will you need to drive there? Will you be able to walk and hike there? You need to know how long it will take both ways. Even if you think you will be driving, you have to prepare for the worst and that means hiking into the location. Understand how long it is going to take and whether it is feasible.

    Do not make a rush judgment when it comes to choosing your spot. Take the time to find the best place for you and your loved ones so you can remain safe.

     

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  • Keep Your Chicken Coop Clean

    Keep Your Chicken Coop Clean

    When you are a homesteader, you likely have livestock. One of the most common types of livestock to keep is chickens. You can use them for their eggs, as well as their meat, if needed. Building or buying a chicken coop and raising chickens is relatively easy if you put in some time and effort to learn more about what you are doing. One of the most important aspects of keeping your chickens nice and healthy though is to keep the chicken coop clean. A dirty coop will lead to disease and other problems with your chickens.

    Fortunately, keeping your coop clean is easy. Just make sure you clean out the coop regularly. Of course, if you notice that the coop is dirty before you are scheduled to clean it, make the cleaning a priority.

    Steps to Keeping the Coop Clean

    When your chickens are out in the yard, head into the coop with a shovel and scrape the floor to remove the manure, shavings, dirt, feathers and anything else that might have accumulated in the coop. This can take some hard work and elbow grease if you haven’t been diligent about keeping the coop clean at least once a week.

    Once you have cleaned out the main part of the mess and disposed of it, you will then wash it. Using a hose is easiest. Spray down the walls, roosts, and the floor to remove any manure that might still be on the floor. This will also help the dust to settle in the coop. Then, you will want to take a shovel and scrape the coop again, just to make sure you have everything removed.

    Next, mix water and vinegar in a bucket (in equal parts). You can pour some of the mixture onto the floor and then us a push broom to scrub the coop clean. Once you have finished, you will want to rinse it again with water and then allow it to dry thoroughly. Open up the door and any windows you might have in the coop. Ventilation is always important, as it can help the coop to have a fresher feeling, which is beneficial for the chickens.

    Once everything is perfectly dry, you can then add some new bedding for the chickens. When you are adding the bedding, consider adding some herbs to provide a better, fresher scent in the bedding. Mint can work well, and it does a good job of keeping away pests. The scents from the herbs will make the coop smell better, too. You can also add rose petals for much the same effect. The chickens will also be happy to eat these, as well as the herbs.

    Check the bedding at least once a week. If it appears damp or soiled, make sure you change it. Then, maybe two times per month, you can give it a full cleaning. Again, how often you need to clean it fully will depend on the condition of the coop. Keep these tips in mind, and your chickens will remain happy and healthy.

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  • DIY Winch (Video)

    DIY Winch (Video)

     

    This video demonstrates and explains how you can make a powerful winch from only a rope and two strong cuts of wood.  This can be used to remove a stump as the video shows, free a stuck vehicle, or assist in safely felling a tree in a direction you choose.  The technique is easiest with two people, so that someone is holding each piece of wood at all times for safety, but you can also use two stakes if you are by yourself.  The stakes should be placed in-line, perpendicular to the object being moved, and on the side of the anchor object, this will prevent the wooden levers from moving as the tension grows.

     

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  • Pineapple

    Pineapple

     

    Pineapples are a fruit that requires some patience to grow, but not much else.  If you buy pineapples from the store and have a spare container lying around you already have everything you need to grow your own pineapples.  Here are some simple instructions for how you can grow delicious pineapples in your backyard garden.

     

    1. When you cut up a pineapple to eat it, save the top section with leaves. Remove all of the sweet flesh from the top, any leftover flesh will rot while you are trying to root it and will hinder the rooting process.
    2. Place the top, with all flesh removed, in a container with water so that the bottom of it is submerged. Change the water every day or so until you have roots about an inch long.
    3. Transplant the rooted pineapple top into a container (or if you live in a warm enough zone that never sees frost you can put it in the ground). You should use a container that is at least 10 gallons.  Since the pineapple leaves are spiky, you won’t want to be reaching in a weeding it out later so mulch it well.
    4. Pineapples like rich soil with plenty of drainage. Make sure to add cinders or perlite to help promote easy drainage.
    5. Give your pineapple all the sun that you can and water it regularly. It will need to be composted every growing season and may take more than 2 years to produce its first fruit.
    6. After your pineapple has fruited, you can further propagate it by using the top of the new fruit, and the plant should produce a new growth that can be rooted. You can remove it carefully to root it, or you can first bury it and water it until it produces roots in place.

    Pineapples are not for the impatient gardener, but they are easy to grow and provide a unique look to your garden that can be complemented by planting succulents and aloe around them.

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  • Learn DIY Repair for the Homestead

    Learn DIY Repair for the Homestead

    If you are a homesteader, you need to invest time and effort in learning to do quite a few things that you may never have imagined yourself doing. In addition to taking care of livestock, growing food, and hunting for food, you also need to take care of many repairs around the house. When you have a piece of property, large or small, things are going to go wrong. You will eventually need to have repairs.

    People are not born as a jack of all trades who know how to fix everything. It is accumulated knowledge, and everyone needs to start accumulating that knowledge at some point. You might as well start now. Fortunately, you have quite a few options when it comes to learning today.

    Talk with friends and neighbors about some of the things that you might want to learn and that they know. Maybe one of your neighbors knows how to work on cars. You can ask if they will teach you a few things the next time they are working on a car. Someone else might know how to replace tile on a roof or how to fix the fence so the racoons will stop getting into the yard. In addition, you can find plenty of videos on YouTube, as well as good old-fashioned books that can provide you with the knowledge you need.

    Keep in mind that you shouldn’t just keep your learning limited to DIY repairs. As a homesteader, the more you know how to do the better off you will be. Learn to make your own soap, learn to make candles, learn to hunt and fish, and more. In addition to learning the theory behind all these things, it is important to put it into practice so you actually know how to do it.

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  • Are You Making Prepper Mistakes?

    Are You Making Prepper Mistakes?

    If you are into learning how to survive and prepping, you read as much as you can on the subject, and you are generally willing to work hard to make sure you have everything you need when it comes to living after the SHTF. Of course, many out there do not take any steps beyond buying some “cool” and interesting gear, some freeze-dried food, and maybe some water. Those who fall into this latter category could be making some serious prepper mistakes.

    One of the big issues is people buying supplies and then never bothering to rotate through them. If something has a shelf life of five years, you should use it before those five years are up. You need to learn to rotate your supplies. Buy new and use the old. You can’t just buy it and forget it when it comes to things like food and water.

    Another problem people have is forgetting to resupply their items. If you have a first aid kit that you have been taking from over the last year, and you never bothered to resupply it, when the SHTF, you could be in trouble. What if you have a lot of ammo, but you decide to go out to the woods or the range to do some target shooting? You need to resupply that ammo so you have it when you need it.

    One of the other problems comes from preppers and survivalists who have all of the gear they think they need to survive, but they have no practical knowledge of how to use it. They have items they have never used or tried and simply bought them because it seemed like the thing to do. You need to know how to use all of your supplies, and you need to increase your knowledge well beyond what the supplies offer with real world skills.

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  • Cats as Pest Control on the Homestead

    Cats as Pest Control on the Homestead

     

    Homesteaders often find that they are at odds with a range of different pests, including rodents. You can find different methods to use when it comes to controlling those rodents. Some might use traps, while others might use poison. This tends to be a losing battle though. The traps are not likely to kill as many mice or rats as you have, and the poison could end up hurting your other animals or even getting into your food supply somehow.

    Using Barn Cats

    One of the best natural and truly organic ways to deal with your mouse problem is to have some cats on the property. Cats, so long as they are not soft house cats that have never seen the outdoors, can do a good job of helping you with your pest control problem. Just a couple of good barn cats can help to keep the levels of mice, rats, moles, voles, squirrels and other rodents to a minimum.

    The best option is to raise the animal from a kitten. Ideally, the mother would have been a barn cat as well and will have imparted some of her knowledge to the kitten before you get it. Those that are part of a lineage of cats raised in barns tend to have more of a killer instinct, as well.

    When you are keeping your kittens in the barn, during the first few weeks, confine them to a relatively small area that has a bed for them, as well as a litter box. This shows them that this is their area, their home, and they are less likely to wander away for long periods.

    Keeping the Cats Safe

    Just as the cats can prey on the mice and other rodents, you do have to be careful of some animals preying on your cats. This includes things such as foxes and coyotes, so be sure you have methods in place for keeping those predators off your property. Having some large guard dogs, good fences, and a shotgun ready to go is often enough to deter these types of predators, and it can help to keep all your animals safe.

    Not All Cats

    Here’s something important you need to realize – even though cats in cartoons tend to have it out for mice and birds, some cats are simply too lazy to care. This means that not all cats are going to be great barn cats, and you might still be overrun with rodents. In those instances, you can find some other methods of keeping the pests out of your home, barn, and other areas. You could also try another cat, or get some help from the professionals.

    Keep in mind though that if you are a homesteader living in a rural area, the battle against pests will be ongoing. Even if you have pros come in and remove all the pests from your property, they will come back. This is why having some good barn cats that are always on duty is your best bet.

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