Recently I was asked to review the new book being released by author Anna Hess called The Weekend Homesteader, A Twelve Month Guide To Self Sufficiency.
This is a great little book broken down into 12 months of projects with a homesteading skill suggested for each weekend of the month. You'll find projects that range from everything from building a clothesline and hanging laundry to no till gardening. Baking bread, bees, seed saving, food preservation, chicken keeping and much much more. Each project is broken down into goals, costs, time required and difficulty. For the new homesteader this book is a must. Not a book that gets bogged down with too much technical information but rather an introduction to new skills explained simply and concisely from an experienced homesteader and entrepreneur.
This would make a great holiday gift for anyone interested in homesteading, permaculture, self sufficient living or just general gardening and food preservation.
Whether you are a novice or longtime homesteader, rural or urban, there is a project in this book for everyone.
You can find a link to Anna's blog The Walden Effect listed on my right side bar.
Skyhorse Publishing has kindly sent an extra copy of The Weekend Homesteader to give away to one lucky reader. To enter the giveaway just leave a comment below about what you think the most important homesteading skills are and what were the easiest and most difficult ones for you to learn. I'll pick a random winner Monday December 3 from the comments. This giveaway is open to continental US residents only.
The Weekend Homesteader is now available at Amazon.com for $10.43
Blessings from The Holler
The Canned Quilter
Growing your own food. I would say butchering the animals that we raised for food was the hardest to learn.
ReplyDeleteBeth
We grow all our own meat and butcher them. That is the most important thing to learn because you will always have protein! I feel this is the most valuble thing that my children have learned and they are now pros :)
ReplyDeleteAs I am fairly new to homesteading I think the most difficult aspect so far has been deciding what will work on our place. We live on a couple of acres in Wisconsin and we never know if the trees or garden that we plant will grow. We planted a couple of cherry and apple trees that never made it . However the plum trees we planted have produced very well. We planted a peach tree that this past summer because of the late frost produced one small peach .Oh, did that one peach taste good though!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to next summer and better luck. I also think the easiest part for us has been raising our own chickens. I feel that the freshness of the meat and eggs are the greatest advantage.
We lived off of our land and livestock on the farm I was raised on that is hard work , but well worth it . Here in Canada there is not a lot of homesteading unless you are Amish but it is slowly coming back . I am going to give a veggie garden a try next spring I just hope I remember all my mum taught me on the farm ! Have a good day !
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult thing is altering your mindset! As Americans, we get stuck in a rut, always doing things a certain way, not necessarily the most conservationist way to benefit the Earth. I'm really enjoying the challenge of learning new skills and continuing to learn as I start this homesteading journey.
ReplyDeleteI think, for us, that gardening is the hardest thing to learn, but growing your own food is also the most important. Stupid tomato worms and squash bugs and 80 foot tall weeds got the best of us last year, but my hopes are high for next year. What a great giveaway - thank you for entering me! :)
ReplyDeleteI think the most important homesteading skills would be the ability to build and/ or repair things. All of my projects get put on hold until I can hire out the work...and that's just crazy. The hardest thing for me is butchering...but it sure has changed my eating habits...we don't waste anything!
ReplyDeleteI believe the most important homesteading skills are to be able to apply critical thinking and use what you have available on hand to meet the needs your homestead. The easiest skill for me was canning food from my garden. The hardest skill has been to schedule when to plant what in my garden. Haven't gotten to the subject of chickens yet. That will be next year, chickens willing.
ReplyDeleteOooh, that's a tough one. What is THE number one most important homesteading skill? I'd like to be a smarty pants and say reading, because if you can read with comprehension you can learn to do anything. :-) I know that's not what you mean, though. I think chicken husbandry is probably the most important homesteading skill, even before gardening. I LOVE rotating the chicken pen and garden spots annually. When I have my garden in last year's chicken pen the soil is so rich, soft, and virtually weed free! Plus, I can feed the chickens things that would go to waste from the garden. Chickens first and garden second, in my book. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhoops! I missed the part about easiest and hardest. For me animal husbandry has been the easiest. I am an animal lover by nature, and was a biology, pre-vet major in college for a while. Even harvesting animals for meat, while not easy, is doable for me because I know I gave them the best life I could and that it was WAY better than that of an animal raised in a CAFO. The hardest thing has been staying on top of the weeds in the garden. We grow a bigger garden that the chicken pen's size (something we hope to change in the future) and once the weeds get a toe-hold it feels impossible to get them back under control.
DeleteI think the hardest thing for me would be butchering our older non-laying chickens. We've tried not to make them pets and they aren't really, but we've had some of them for a couple of years.
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing for me is prioritizing. It has been hard trying to keep up. There seems to ALWAYS be SOMETHING that comes up in the middle of canning or planting or..... especially when you have a really old house and animals :)
ReplyDeleteI have collected a couple of months of this book on kindle when they were free and have so far enjoyed them. Would love to have the whole book.
Learning to work with the earth is a vital skill...or in more modern parlance "skill set". I don't necessarily mean in a totally holistic way, although I consider low input methods the best. What I mean by learning to work with the earth is to learn the basics of gardening, orcharding, haying, pasturing, animal husbandry and even forestry. All these are intertwined on a complete and productive homestead. The homestead revolves around a tract of managed and productive soil. In learning to work your homestead, be open to input from those who are doing it already, but always be ready to try something new.
ReplyDeleteBe an optimist. The positive thought process that you can do it, you can make it, you can create that homestead that you desire. Optimism is necessary because homesteading...and all of life...will contain setbacks and hardships. It is imperative to rise above the situations and circumstances and overcome the obstacles. In today's world, the deck can be stacked us folks who want to live a simpler life. Optimism is absolutely necessary to survive and thrive!!
In my writings, I often urge readers to simply 'get to it and go do it'. I state that their building, garden, barn, house, orchard, etc. will not necessarily look like any they've seen in a book or blog. It will be unique, it will be their own. Never measure your work by the standards of another. Your needs and desires are probably different. Create your own unique homestead and enjoy the blessings of it.
The most difficult skill for me have been learning the good and proper growing of fruit trees and of hog butchering. I still struggle with raising good, consistent apple crops. As for hog butchering, I have butchered countless deer and small animals like rabbits and chickens, but had not done hogs until this past year. I've now helped at four hog butcherings and am looking forward to this season's! I just jumped in when the opportunities presented themselves and did it!
Blessings to you all.
C. Sanders
Sounds like an interesting read.
ReplyDeletethis sounds like a book that has something for everyone, even the urban folks with small gardens and community gardens. Although I grew up with a farming background (dairy) I did not return to the country and farm life until I remarried at age 53. The easiest thing to learn was that my daily life, particularly food, was only as limited as I allowed myself to be. With a garden and some minimal preserving skills we could eat well all year. Soups became my forte. The hardest thing to learn was the flip side of that: I was limited by myself. At age 53 the old back was not up to doing as much gardening as I would have liked, even preserving meant long hours standing and I had to figure out ways to do things while dealing with the pain and discomfort so common in folks my age. I am learning all the time. No till gardening seems to work for me. If my back is too bad to deal with canning , most things can be rinsed and stored in the freezer to use as is or canned at a later date. Life is an adventure, always something new to learn. The satisfaction of providing for myself and my family is a feeling that is worth all of it.
ReplyDeleteGardening has been the easiest skill for me, probably because I grew up with a family who gardens. I'm not sure I can pinpoint the most important skill but it probably has to do with water/fire/cooking/gardening. I'm very much the novice so the most difficult for me so far has been reigning myself in. I want to go hogwild and try to tackle too many new things at one time.
ReplyDeleteI would say growing a garden to provide yourself with food would be the most important skill. I would love to have this book!!
ReplyDelete(I'm the author, so don't pick me for the giveaway. :-) )
ReplyDeleteI loved reading the skills folks found most important! I tend to agree with Julie V, although learning your own land is also the most satisfying part of homesteading for me. Learning to kill old hens was definitely a tough one for us too, Carmella.
Thanks for reading and sharing my book!
I think combining skills is what it takes to make things work and being successful. It's also a continual process, learning new things to add with the old and updating the skills one has. Sometimes it's easy to continue to do things the way we've always done them and the hard thing can be to stay open to new suggestions as to how things can be improved upon. Passing on our skills and looking back over the day and being able to say, "I learned something new today." is a great day. With that said, Have a GREAT day! :)
ReplyDeleteI am just starting out. Purchased 5 acres out in the country. Thinking about it, I think one of the fastest and more important things for me is canning. What is the pourpose of all that food if you can't perserve it? :) I think the easiest (for me) was the garden of plenty. There is much satisfaction of picking the bounty of your labor. The previous posters have some AWESOME comments! I am not that far along and would love to know more. So, I think for me the hardest thing would be to butchering. I plan on ordering some chicks in the spring. (Still working on the coop). Thank goodness my husband is up for the job! So much to learn and loving every minute of it! I follow you on pinterest!!! :)
ReplyDeleteThe easiest for me is gardening, I love to garden. The hardest was to just get started and to trust that "I can do....." whatever the skill is. I can learn it. None of us was born knowing these skills. Many of us have never 'seen them in action' and are learning from scratch. But we all can learn just about any of the skills, we may not be masters of them, but we can learn and continue to improve. Happy Homesteading!
ReplyDeleteFor us it is changing the attitudes of our children, we don't need to run to Wal-Mart as much as they would like. Our daughter cried in class because she had never had Hamburger Helper and most of our food comes from canning jars. The easiest for me is the satisfaction of knowing; our hard work saves money, is healthier for us, creates work ethic in our children, and we spend time together.
ReplyDeleteI think the hardest part for me is finding the right balance between what is practical for me to do and what isn't. The easiest thing for me is cooking from scratch. I think the most important skill (that I haven't mastered myself) is how to preserve seeds from year to year. Find to grow and preserve for one year but what if I had to do it multiple years without being able to buy seeds and plants....I'd be out of luck.
ReplyDeleteNow completely other question --- Can I water bath can two layers of pint jars at a time with a rack between them or is it better to just do them one at a time? (I'm making cranberry sauce.)
Sure you can! I do it all the time...if your pot is deep enough but remember you need atleast an inch of water OVER the top of the jars : )
DeleteThank you. I just wanted to make sure...lol. My pot is definitely deep enough with no problems.
DeleteCanned 7 quarts of sweet potatoes today using the method you shared. Love to hear that ping!
I'd love to win this book!
ReplyDeleteI think the most important skill would be food preservation - knowing how to store food well for the future.
The most difficult to learn for me would be foraging - knowing what wild foods are safe to eat, how to use them & preserve them.
Thanks for the chance to win.
I grew up with a garden in the back yard, my mother cooking home cooked meals and canned/froze what they grew. My mother would hang laundry out to dry. We had a wood stove, so my dad would always be cutting wood. Well, all of these (and I'm sure there were many others) 'homesteading' skills are familiar and important to me, but canning food is the hardest for me to tackle. I am always so worried that I am going to ruin good food (and don't want to be wasteful) that I shoot myself down before I even get started. Also the balance of having enough food to can has been an issue for me. I always feel like a need a whole bunch of produce to can, but I know in my mind that little batches can be canned as well. I'm going to wipe that all from my brain and just do it!
ReplyDeleteThe hardest thing for me is finding the time to do all the things I want to do since I work full time. I'm finding time in small increments can be quite useful just as much as big chunks of time though. The easiest thing for me to learn was canning. I just dove right in and got to it. I love it!
ReplyDeletefor my family I feel that sewing is the most important. I would love to start gardening, but we wouldn't get a whole lot of use out of it because my husband doesn't eat vegetables.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm still learning the basics, I don't know which is easier or harder.
ReplyDeleteI guess picking pecans is easier because the trees are already old? We've picked about six or seven hundred pounds so far this year - by hand with a picker - which wasn't completely easy, true.
Getting into the mindset of gardening (and weeding) every day will probably be the hardest in the beginning.
Have a wonderful Friday, CQ! ♥
Some of the most important skills to learn are to produce and preserve at least some of your own food. I worry about so many having complete dependence on the grocery store. That being said, for me the hardest part of this is finding the time since I am still working full time.
ReplyDeleteI think the easiest part is taking care of the chickens and gathering eggs. I love my 'girls' it is so relaxing to watch them scratch and peck. I also love gardening and canning. I guess the hardest part is having the time to get it all done and work a full time job. Best reward of it all is the simple life we lead and the joy we find in things that are often overlooked in this busy world.
ReplyDeleteDawn
I think permaculture is the most important homesteading skill... gardening for food is the easiest and foraging for food is the hardest to learn... we are learning something all the time...
ReplyDeleteFor me, raising chickens has been the easiest. Growing my own vegetables has been up and down, somethings have done well sometimes. The first year, I was truly awash in squash! The next year squash bugs ruined it all, that sure taught me to not get "big-headed". I found canning and dehydrating easy, but will just be starting to butcher animals in the near future. My husband and I are trying to learn all we can about butchering, but I think that will be our most difficult skill to learn. I think providing your own food is the most important (that kind of lumps gardening and raising animals together). Thanks for offering this giveaway!
ReplyDeleteTo me the most important homesteading skill is to be BRAVE and have a little a lot of faith and patience in whatever task you are attempting. It started with my first, little garden that burned fast and bright…like a shooting star. I second guessed everything I did and experienced a cart load of failures that first year because of lack of knowledge, but experience grew confidence and understanding and that lead to better results the next year. That’s right…squash bugs, blight, root rot, potato bugs, powdery mildew, and all their friends tried to defeat me, but that first little yellow squash underneath those big green leaves made my heart flutter.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest skill is fitting everything into my regular work schedule. I’m at the stage that my garden, chickens, and small orchard are still “hobbies.” They may feel my heart with joy, but that joy doesn’t keep the bills paid. So, weekends and evenings are homesteading time, which helps the work week fly by!!
The easiest skill for me has been scouring the internet for blogs, articles, and books for needed “How-To’s.” I usually read everything I can find on a subject and then start filtering out the least likely ones for me to follow. Glory be to everyone that didn’t mind sharing those hard learned facts!!
Growing/raising own food is most important. Easiest to learn was cooking from scratch because it is fun. Hardest for me was living with less. We roughed it a lot to get started. Years without power, running water or if we had that no hot water. Pooping in an outhouse mid winter! Modern conviences we take for granted, but it was humbling and it makes me all the more grateful for the small things. I am stronger too and confident I can survive hardship.
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ReplyDeleteFor me the easiest has been just cooking from scratch but butchering seems like the hardest.
ReplyDeleteGrowing food! Great giveaway!
ReplyDeleteEasiest thing will be the cooking from scratch, the hardest will be food production especially butchering is hard
ReplyDeleteA strong stomach! Hauling our animals to the butcher was easy, our first foray into butchering ourselves was "interesting".
ReplyDeleteEasiest thing... A love for life and Gods creatures. The hardest? The energy to do it all!!
ReplyDeleteMichelle has a great answer! I think (speaking as a pregnant woman of 9 months) sometimes the time and energy and WORK gets overwhelming. It's certainly easier to order take out pizza some nights. The easiest is way to start doing for yourself is to actually do less: less purchasing, less going out/driving, less errands, etc. It redirects you home with no energy output!
ReplyDeleteshannoncarman at yahoo dot com
As one who grew up on a farm, then got carried away by the current of life only to find myself longing to get back the skills and joy of my youth, I think for some of us, the hardest part is simply believing that it is possible! We get so trained by this society to go somewhere to get something, not to make it or fix it or whatever, that we are losing the knowledge that it can be done. I at least have a background in these things, we need to reach and educate the kids, so they get to experience the simple joy of a simple life!
ReplyDeleteThe most important skill to have is (open mind+sense of humor)= the right attitude. The easy part is having an open mind. One step into the outdoors and the wonder of the world starts the thought processes. The hardest part can be keeping the sense of humor and putting the little problems that seem so gigantic today into their proper perspective.
ReplyDeleteThe easiest way for me was getting my chickens! Who needs television when you have "As the World Clucks", in your very own backyard. The most difficult for me is convincing myself that "dammit" I CAN do this all my self! Great book to read and add to my every growing library. If only my garden would grow that easily! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWe are VERY new so I can't say a lot from experience but I think the most important homesteading skills are learning from your mistakes. I think the hardest would probably be butchering & the easiest is "pigging out" on the meals where we know & can pronounce all of the ingredients! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think the most important skill is growing your own food. If you can get away from the big food corporations, you are we'll on your way to self-sufficiency. For me, the hardest part of homesteading is getting overwhelmed! There are so many things I want to do and information out there to do it, but I get so overwhelmed it almost paralyzes me into no action. I need to get organized and tackle one thing at a time. This book sounds like just what I need!
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ReplyDeleteI love the concept and would love to have the book
ReplyDeleteI feel gardening is the one of the most important homesteading skill any homesteader could learn. My first year of beekeeping has been a very difficult process to learn (if only the bees could talk) LOL - thank you for sharing this book!!!
ReplyDeleteLearning to garden, processing the produce, and then learning how to save seeds are really important things to learn...a little at a time.. I think keeping a milk cow has been one of the more challenging things for me. The milking is the easy part, dealing with all that milk is the other!
ReplyDeleteI think the hardest would be butchering the animals! I enjoy gardening and canning our vegetables. I think learning to make things ourselves is very rewarding and I've passed that down to my son.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have the book so I could learn more!
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