Homesteading Essentials

There is something truly satisfying in feeding your family directly from your hard work. In cutting out the middle man (the grocery store) you can spend your time doing real and honest WORK. Work that has a direct part in sustaining your family. That is truly gratifying. Instead of spending forty hours a week doing (sometimes inane) tasks in order to acquire money to trade for food from far away that you have go to the store and retrieve..the whole process is so much more abstract and removed that it has to be.

1) Grow food.
2) Put it in the mouths of your family.

And that's that. Beautifully simple.

Don't get me wrong, money is essential in this culture. But the more you can circumvent the "extractive economy" as Shannon Hayes calls it, the more time you have (and the richer that time is) with your family. I would much rather be pulling weeds with my children playing nearby than typing up spreadsheets in a cubicle while some childcare provider cares for them.

Anyway, here is the point of my post, thanks for being patient while I zigzag to it. I have been compiling a collection of homesteading tools and essentials that might be of interest to anyone heading down the semi-self-reliance path. I am finding that much of my efforts are going toward making the most of what we already have and stretching the ever-elusive dollar. Feel free to add suggestions!

Kitchen:

• A good water bath canner (kettle)
• Canning rack
• Jar lifter
• Good set of jars ( I like a variety of sizes with one size mouth to make lid replacement easy)
• Pressure canner/cooker
• Good jars can also be used for food storage instead of tupperware. (It's clear, so you can see what in it, and it doesn't have harmful plastic chemicals.
• A chest freezer. (These days they can be had for a good price and are not too pricey to run. You can save a TON of money by putting up your harvest or buying in bulk from local farmers. Plus its like having a grocery store in your house. Save some gas! I use color-coded reusable grocery bags to organize the chest freezer into meat, veggies, seafood, and others to make it easier to remember what I have. 
• Boxes, sand and shelving for root cellaring.

Home:

• A good quality clothes line. You wouldn't believe how much money you can save by not using a dryer. I must admit, though, its nice to have one when its raining or when you are raising babies with cloth diapers. 
• A woodstove. So important if you live in a cold climate and in an area where the power goes out frequently. Plus you can cook on it if you have an electric range and the power is out. It is NOT fun to be cold and hungry.
• A sewing machine
• A set of basic reliable tools
• Snow shovel, even if you live in a warm climate you never know these days!
• Water jugs (always full)
• A ladder
• An axe or splitting maul
• A generator (for peace of mind when you have a chest freezer full of your year's work)

Garden:

• A set of good garden tools: including a quality shovel, hoe, hoses, trowel, rake, big wheelbarrow, tarps
• Rain barrels and gutters (if you want to get fancy. I don't have these set up yet but when it happens, it will get its own post.)

Other great things to have:

• A pickup truck, or access to one: You can save so much money by getting furniture and salvage materials at yard sales or on craigslist. If you can move them. Try borrowing one from a friend and giving them fresh eggs/produce in return. 
• A bike! No gas necessary.
• chains and a winch (for getting stuck or moving heavy objects)
• A tractor if your loaded. No need to expound on the virtues of a tractor. 
• A skil (circular) saw and a good cordless drill. Few projects are beyond your reach with these. 
• A computer with access to YOUTUBE. I have learned how to do countless things right in my living room, from hand-tossing a pizza to tiling a shower. Youtube is seriously empowering.