Cultivate Self-Sufficiency Skills

Homemakers Cultivating Self-Sufficiency Skills for Today

When we started The Urban Homemaker business, twenty years ago, the main skills I had were baking whole grain bread, canning applesauce, basic sewing skills, and the ability to cook.  Thanks to the gentle prodding of customers and readers I have mastered many more skills from the list below.

But there is so much more to learn for the benefits of our family, our community, and our world. I believe there is a growing underground movement of people led of the spirit to master such lost arts as:

• Growing your own fruits and vegetables
• Canning, drying, lacto-fermenting or freezing their produce
• Learning to store your own root crops
• Making your own lacto-fermented beverages and creating herbal teas
• Pressing cider and juices
• Making jams and jellies
• Raising livestock and poultry
• Smoking meats
• Making cheese, yogurt, butter, and kefir
• Making soap and non-toxic home cleaning products
• Keeping honey
• Keeping dairy cows or goats for the family’s own use
• Keeping chickens for meat or eggs or both
• Cutting their own firewood
• Making toys
• Creating their own entertainment rather that dependence on commercial alternatives
• Learning and applying principles of herbal medicine
• Sewing and mending clothes for family and others
• Knitting for family or for profit
• Repurposing used clothing
• Building your own house, barn, shed, or out buildings
• Composting
• Quilting and crafting
• Baking for your family
• Cooking for your family
• Many other skills too numerous to list or even know about yet.

Lost Arts for the 21^st Century – A key to navigating an uncertain future

If you and your family have been led to master some of these lost arts for the benefit or your family or for profit, I would love to have you  email me a short testimonial that could be used to encourage others.

Or perhaps, The Urban Homemaker has played a part in your journey over the years. Can you share a short note with others to celebrate our 20^th Anniversary?

Encourage Others by Sharing your thoughts

Wherever you are in this life’s journey, just starting to consider this idea of self-sufficiency skills or having mastered most of the above list, I would love for you to write to me at marilyn@urbanhomemaker.com so that I can share your thoughts to encourage others.

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