Friday, December 28, 2012

The Homesteader's Achievement Checklist (aka New Year's Resolutions)


  1. Grind a handful of grain coarsely for cereal. Grind finely for flour.
  2. Mix, knead, raise, punch down, raise, and bake a loaf of bread.
  3. Put on a bee suit and open a hive.
  4. Make yogurt.
  5. Start with cream and take it through every step until it has become a salted ball of butter and a glass of buttermilk.
  6. Make cottage cheese.
  7. Make hard cheese.
  8. Milk a goat.
  9. Put a cow in the stanchion and milk her.
  10. Feed the poultry and gather eggs.
  11. Clean out a rabbit hutch.
  12. Plan and cook a meal in which the food is 100 percent home-grown.
  13. Raise, catch, kill, scald, pick, singe, cut up, and cook a chicken.
  14. Dry a batch of fruit or vegetables in a food dryer.
  15. Take out the ashes. Build a fire in a wood stove. Adjust the dampers.
  16. Freeze a batch of a fruit or vegetable.
  17. Make a batch of sourdough starter. Cook a meal of sourdough pancakes using that starter.
  18. Make homemade noodles and/or crackers.
  19. Dry and save seeds from an annual and/or a biennial.
  20. Separate milk. Ake apart, wash, dry, and reassemble the separator.
  21. Make a batch of homemade ice cream using a crank freezer.
  22. Harness a team of horses (or oxen). Hitch them up to an implement or wagon. Till a field with them.
  23. Build housing for animals. Repair or build a fence.
  24. Correctly identify 10 different herbs from sprigs laid out on a table.
  25. Make a pot of herb tea from herbs you have grown and harvested.
[Adapted from the "Appendix" section. Other topics include: Chronology of This Book; Various Editions Described; World Records This Book May Have Set; A Final Exam for You; and Index.]


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