My cousin Stacy lives in Texas (Hey Stacy!). For the past several months she has taken classes at Homestead Heritage. The main place is located in Elm Mott, Texas, just outside of Waco. They have a School of Woodworking and a School of Homesteading.
I wish that I was down
there to take some of these classes, even though I do know some of the skills
they are teaching, it sounds like it would be a great learning experience and
I’ve always had a fascination with homesteading, pioneering, and the frontier.
Homestead Heritage writes
that they offer “a complete curriculum for gardening, crafts, homesteading and
other essential self-sustaining skills”.
This is also from their
website:
“People in our urban, techno-industrial world, are, in increasing
numbers, reaching back to rediscover essential craft and agrarian homesteading
skills. This is more than a bid for a bit of the peace and calm we associate
with the past. There is a profound purpose and sense of accomplishment in
rediscovering and mastering these skills. There is a sense, too, that these
skills and the associated way of life bring families together and replenish
values and integrity as well as hone manual and intellectual skills. Those who
have chosen to learn and participate in these essential skills also find that
the discipline these skills require develops such character traits as patience,
endurance, attentiveness and perseverance. As many of our pioneering
forefathers discovered, when people regain the ground of personal
responsibility, rejecting the claim that the “good life” means freedom from
such responsibility, they taste the fruit of fulfillment and accomplishment.”
When I was a child, Mommy
was intrigued (alright semi-obsessed) with the Apocalypse and having grown up
during the Cold War (her during the Cuban Missile Crisis era, me in the lovely
1980’s) she had this almost maddening doomsday survival readiness. We had a closet filled with military MRE
(Meals Ready to Eat) and these cans of dehydrated peanut butter mix (just add
water…yum) and a bunch of other such items (oh the stories I could tell…). During this time (late 70’s early 80’s) my
parents (and subsequently us kids) lived by these preparedness books Mommy
had. This of course gave us all skills
that most people, especially nowadays, don’t have. They canned and juiced items from the garden,
we had a humongous dehydrator in the patio that was utilized every summer (also
by the elderly couple who lived next door) and homemade wheat bread was made
from freshly ground wheat; to this day Daddy still has and uses the grinder.
Even with some of these
skills I already know, I’d love to be able to take some of the courses they
offer. Here’s a taste, see their website
for more.
Gardening Weaving Kitchen Skills
Baking Bread Cheese
making Soap Making
Beekeeping Basketry Blacksmithing
Looking over the site it
looks like a lot of work and a lot of fun to be had by all.
Happy Wednesday!!
Very interesting!
Posted by: Yoli | March 18, 2009 at 07:11 PM