Category Archives: Homestead Skills

What do dandelion roots, chicory roots, persimmon seeds, and beech nuts all have in common? Their descriptions in a book of wild edible plants will include the phrase “can be used as a coffee substitute”. Of course, none of these … Continue reading →

The tomato cages that you can buy in the store are either too small, too shoddy, or too expensive for nice ones. So we decided to make our own tomato cages after seeing similar ones at my sister-in-law’s. We got … Continue reading →

Two days after the previous steps, our Dandelion petal must was dark yellow and ready to be fermented. In the interim, we stopped at Valley Vintners & Brewer in Eugene. I described what I was doing, and they picked out … Continue reading →

The Dandelion is an amazingly useful plant.  Young leaves can be picked for the salad.  Older ones can be stewed.  The roots can be baked and ground into a coffee substitute.  And the flowers can be fermented to produce a … Continue reading →

The first cord of firewood we purchased arrived cut and split.  Unfortunately, a “cord” on craigslist is really about 3/4 of a cord if that.  A dry cord of softwood weights 2000 pounds, and hardwood weighs about 4000 pounds.  If … Continue reading →

Update (01/21/2010): This page describes our early usage of the wood stove. A more recent post provides wood stove cooking tips. Since our wood stove got installed I have been doing all our cooking on it. Cookies, cake and topping, … Continue reading →