Backyard Bird Feeding on the Homestead
It was a cold morning and I had just come in from filling the backyard bird feeders. I stoked the fire and poured myself a cup of coffee. I make…
Mortgage Free! Radical Strategies for Home Ownership By Rob Roy
If you are embarking on your homesteading experience and faced with building your home on vacant land, popular opinion says that you need three things: a banker, a contractor, and…
An Early History of Rock: Precious Asset, Homesteader Headache, or The Giver of All Life?
Serene prairie or green cover or a homesteader's worst nightmare? Is there mystery and power in “dem dere hills n‘ prairies” or simply a money pit made of granite, sandstone,…
Small-Scale Mushroom Farming
Homesteaders, whether the 100-acre or backyard type, are always on the lookout for their next big project. If this project can meet the requirements of the rule of three and…
The Pawpaw: America’s Secret Native Fruit
Ozark banana. Quaker delight. Asimoya. Hillbilly mango. This relatively obscure fruit goes by many regional names, pawpaw being the most common. The humble pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is an unassuming little yellow-green…
Soup’s On!
Soup. Ahhh, warming, comforting, nourishing, left-over using soup. Not a week goes by that I don't factor in soup as a meal. No, I'm not talking about that can of…
Beginning and Ending with Seeds: Starting, Growing, and Saving Seeds
A garden offers some truly great benefits to those who undertake the task. It is a way to exercise greater control over the food in your diet, allows for greater nutrition…
My Homestead Income: Selling Goat’s Milk Soap for Profit
Over the last ten years or so, and around my various “off the farm” work schedules, I have learned a bit about gardening, preserving food, sewing, quilting, raising livestock, and…
Portable Persuasion: Using Levers on the Homestead
It’s certainly no secret that farm work frequently requires some heavy lifting, but what if you’re not too good at muscle-intensive manual labor? Well, probably the best solution is to…
Garden Season Extenders and Cold-Weather Husbandry
It may seem strange to think about cold weather when it is still scorching but cold weather is right around the corner. For a homestead to be sustainable, and continue…
Black Bean and Corn Salad
It's often quite true—particularly with food—that simpler is better and this recipe is no exception. It's a big favorite of mine because not only is it delicious, it's healthy and…
Black Walnuts: Pennies From Heaven
Here at Exclamation Pointe, autumn is a tranquil time when the subtle shift in the winds and the gradual drop in the temperatures, foretell of winter to come and turn…