Homesteading Blogs

We use this phrase a lot around here: “For all things, there is a season.” In winter, we prioritize resting and hibernating, and planning for the following year. It’s a great time to reflect on the past year, and plan for adjustments or improvements for where we are on our goals. We brainstorm goals for the next year, and put pen to paper to map out options. I love doing this. I love when My Love and I sit on the couch in the back room and plan on the chalkboard, and…

I spend much of my time thinking about what is happening around me, a bad habit from my time in the U.S. Army as a Combat Medic. I remember, in planning for any operation, there were times when we would ensure that we could account for a volume of possible incidents. For the vast majority of these things, we fell back onto what were called ‘Battle Drills.’ For some things, however, we would have to decide…

When I was growing up, my Father used to tell my brothers and I the decisions we make say more about us than the words we say. I remember hearing him say, “stealing makes you a thief and lying makes you liar.” Life, as we all learn, is very rarely black and white. It is varying shades of grey. As I got older, I remember him telling us that we…

We recently wrote about the importance of knowing where your food comes from, and harvesting our meat rabbits for the first time was a real-life lesson in appreciating our food. Harvesting wasn’t fun, but with very grateful hearts, we were very happy with the end result. To recap, check our Episode 1 & Episode 2. Last week, we harvested 14…

Knowing where your food comes from sounds like a simple concept. You go to the store and buy things to eat. People who grow and make food, sell the food to the store. Right? But do you really know where your chicken eggs come from? Do you know if they were washed in bleach water before being placed in the egg carton? Do you know how many days ago they were laid? We use eggs for lots of things, not just breakfast…

I know. What a title! Is it clickbait? No, sadly. I am sure you asked yourself this before you decided to click on this article. This will be a longer article that is filled with a lot of information so I want you to buckle up. If you are sensitive to having international and national policies critiqued, you may want to stop reading now…

Stretching our grocery dollar budget always seems to be a challenge. I’m all about penny pinching, coupons, sales, buying in bulk and repackaging, and meal planning. When I get the receipt and it shows I’ve saved $20+ at the grocery store, it feels worth it. (Until I wonder how much they artificially inflated prices in order to “save” that much.) But regardless, by only buying…

Before we begin, we must highlight that there are in fact two homesteads; the lifestyle choice where an individual lives a more self-sufficient life and legal designation called Homestead that is recognized by the government. Throughout this article, we will address both but make it very clear when we are making a distinction between the two…

The farmer’s almanac this year had us anticipating a 6 Oct frost. With everything we had going on just before that, I was really banking on having that long. Nope! Frost came early, and it was a quick scramble that morning to harvest what we could that was still out in the garden. Thankfully, we had collected our “last harvest” the last week of September, but I had left quite a few…

As I learn more and more about homesteading, I am baffled at how much I don’t know. From understanding growth cycles and the moon, the health benefits of plants we collectively call weeds, and how tinctures and extracts are made. I picture myself, sometime in the future, walking my property and harvesting a specific plant I need to create a concoction for…

I’ve been repeating this phrase a lot lately: some things are worth beans and rice. What I mean by this, is that some things are worth prioritizing over excessive spending. No, I do not want to only eat beans and rice. Yes, some people have to…

Oscar Wilde is credited with the famous saying, “Imitation is the purest form of flattery.” There is no doubt that we should follow in the footsteps of those who have successfully navigated difficult endeavors. However, is there a fine line between imitation in an attempt to recreate and imitation to the point to where you are basically copying someone’s life or processes? I strongly believe that…

If you are between the age of 30 and 50, you probably remember the days when any media that portrayed homesteading as pretty normal. For many, ‘Little House on the Prairie’ comes to mind. This was simply a family attempting to live off the land, withstand the elements, dealing with the crisis of the day, and trying to highlight important life lessons. In today’s media landscape, a remake…

Growing up, I had a little toy combination-lock safe I got one year for Christmas. It was meant to be a piggy bank, with a coin slot in the top. On the front, it had a sticker that read “A penny saved is a dollar earned.” Every time I opened my safe to count my ‘stash, I was more…

We admire Joel because he has been able to, through many years, gain and implement his understanding of proper relationship between nature and animal husbandry, which he calls ‘permaculture’. What’s beautiful about his process is that he is able to operate on the land to support our modern food consumption but not disturb the natural cycle to the point to where it results in disease and pestilence.

This was a great show if you still have Netflix. It was really exciting to see homesteading and regenerative farming promoted. In a Hollywood film! This documentary really showed permaculture principles in a positive light, and was really encouraging, personally, to do more, but also encouraging the regenerative farming movement.

Here at Campfire Homesteading, we try our hardest to stay out of the political fray. Our approach is to vote for your interests, whatever that means for you. It is no secret to anyone that America is in the midst of significant domestic turmoil. It is not our intention to argue the merits either way. The reason we raise this is because we are homesteaders and preppers in the sense that we have invested in our own ability to weather a crisis. As a U.S. Army Combat Veteran, I still…

Imagine you are embarking on a great journey. You have prepared, planned, and are now executing. Things are actually going great! You are learning new things, and experiencing things you didn’t expect. The scenery is beautiful, you are able to camp out in amazing places, catch some fish, and the weather, as if conspiring to…

Fall is here and ole’ man winter is not long behind. The time of the year we all look forward to, where we spend time with our families and are reminded of what we should be the most thankful. For us homesteaders, winter provides a break from some of the labor our land demands. The garden is at rest, our chickens stop laying, we may not

Homesteaders, regardless of your background, have settled into a simple mindset on our property. We don’t want to be around people, traffic, and the hustle and bustle of city life. We want to grow our food, raise livestock, maybe participate in the local farmers market, and…

We get not everyone has time to grow and process a garden. It can feel like a lot of work, especially in the heat! But loads of people, like myself, would love to buy homegrown and canned pasta sauce from someone I knew who canned amazing homemade pasta sauce from their garden produce. Full of only food, no mystery, from someone local. What could be cleaner than this? But without a $15,000 federally inspected food police kitchen, this can’t happen…

Welcome back to our Meat Nuggets series! If you missed Episode 1, click here! Since the first update, we have weaned the kits (aka meat nuggets aka baby meat rabbits) from their mommas, and moved them to the rabbit’s pasture grow-out cage. That’s right, these little ones have all the grass they can eat, along with…

If you are a homesteader, you know more than most, the joy of being able to wake up and listen to nature sing her morning song. This may also include your chicken’s egg song depending on your homestead setup. We also understand that the reason we are able to enjoy this…

I’m incredulous and pretty heartbroken at the moment. I don’t like to dwell in the negative, so I’ll end on a high note, I promise. But stand by for some bad news. I couldn’t believe what I just read…

The first attempt at any great endeavor is a learning lesson. This is the mental framing I tried to keep during the first year of our homestead experience. Admittedly, what complicated everything was the fact that this year was 2020… enough said, right? We began our initial…

There is a simple saying I find apt within this topic, “don’t recreate the wheel.” But have you ever done the mental gymnastics of imagining someone do it? You come home and see your significant other in the garage…

If you’ve switched from eating food in boxes and packaging, to eating fresh food, especially from your garden, CSA farm box, or farmers market, you might be eating less. No, not just less calories, but less…

If you are looking for the best place to homestead, don’t fall victim to the beauty trap. This is where you look for land in a state with amazing weather, some open land, and is picturesque nearly year round. What you overlook, because you are blinded by…

This week marks our first week on the homestead. I have no idea where the time went. Moving in so late in the summer/early fall, about all we did when we first got here was buy a zero turn mower (cash of course), to keep our 5+ acres in check as we unpacked and settled in. Oh, we did put in a fire pit the day after we moved…

In early 2006, I was stationed in Alaska. A young paratrooper in the U.S. Army preparing for my first deployment to Iraq. I remember our Brigade had a rigorous pre-deployment training schedule that even the most seasoned leaders found ambitious. We jumped a lot, both from fixed and rotary wing aircraft…