Homeschooling isn't just about books, computers, essays, researching......it is also learning.
Living on a farm is great for learning. We don't have a farm, just 27 chickens at the moment. We had a few hogs, but they are now in piggy heaven and in our bellies. Sorry for those who are squeamish. God put some animals on this earth for us to eat. Don't get me wrong....I LOVE animals. I would never harm or kill something on purpose. But if it is food for us, that is different. I personally do not go hunting or kill anything (except spiders). But my husband and sons do hunt. We do have a golden rule in our house though. That rule is, if you aren't going to eat it.....you don't kill it. :) That doesn't mean we eat squirrels and road kill! We eat deer, turkey, chicken, pork and beef just like every other meat eating family.
My husband does want to start a goat farm for meat and raw milk. Not too fond of the idea because of raising something I know will be in the freezer in the future. I don't have deer as pets, and I don't want our food to once be our pet. Funny, I've named most of our chickens a while back. When my husband butchered them though.....I felt bad. No more getting attached to them. Yikes!
Living off the land has been a dream of mine as well as my husbands. When we first moved to WV we had an environment friendly composting toilet! That lasted for about a year and I couldn't deal with it anymore. Not my thing! But if I had to use an outhouse or composting toilet due to a natural disaster, I could. I'd just rather not use it by choice, lol.
We actually get our water from the rain. We have our gutters drain into a large holding tank underground. We found that storing it underground keeps the tank cleaner. It protects it from the hot sun and algae growth. We use this water for washing clothes, cleaning, etc. Our drinking water comes from the city. We haul it with our 220 gal. portable water tank. But again, in a disaster, we could boil our holding tank water for drinking. I sometimes wonder if the city water is any better really. There are many diseases and things that get into our city's water here in America. And don't think that the bottled water you buy is always safe either! Some studies have shown that that is tab water in the bottles!
We use a wood burning stove for our ONLY source of heat!
We chop, split and stack our own firewood so our heat bill is free. Well, labor only ;) When the power does go out on occasion, we have a gas generator that runs the blower on the stove. This blows the heat into our ducts throughout our home so we will still have heat with no power. We have oil lamps and candles for light.
We also had a huge garden this year. This is the first year we canned and boy is it a lot of work! But it is very worth it! In the past we just froze all our garden supplies, but we wanted to think long term so we investing in a good pressure canner.
So you see, homeschooling isn't just about books, computer, etc. It's about hard work, being self sufficient and living off the land the best we can.
No comments:
Post a Comment