Why I Bother Learning Old-Fashioned Skills: Making Stock

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I had never considered making my own stock until this year, when I came across these posts:

http://simplemom.net/how-to-make-homemade-basics/

http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/broth-is-beautiful

http://www.maggiesnest.org/2011/04/14/whats-gaps-and-why-now/

http://www.gaps.me/preview/?page_id=28

At the time, I was in the middle of researching nutrition, specifically to support good gut bacteria and thereby boost the immune system. Making stock from scratch seemed like a fairly straight-forward and easy change that I could make to our family diet, so I experimented, and I was really pleased with the results.

I have found that I get the most use out of chicken stock, rather than vegetable or beef stock. Over the past few months, I have streamlined my method, which is as follows:

Why I Bother Learning Old-Fashioned Skills: Line-Drying

Australian Women's Weekly advertisement 10 Aug 1955

Well, this one’s a no-brainer to me. I am fortunate enough to live in a climate which has a lot of hot, dry weather, so line-drying is just common sense. However, for those of you who have not considered it, here are the pros and cons as I see them.

Why I Bother Learning Old-Fashioned Skills: Sewing

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One of the skills I learned as a young girl from my mother was to sew. She taught me the basic stitches of plain sewing and embroidery, and when I reached secondary school, I enrolled in lessons in machine sewing. I learned to measure and cut to a pattern, pin, sew, and finish the garments. 

I learned to sew mainly because I enjoyed it, and embroidery in particular was my favourite hobby for a number of years.

Conserving Water

I live in Perth, Western Australia, where water is a scarce and precious resource. Over the past decade, our government has been steadily working to educate people on why and how we should conserve water in our homes. 

 

I thought it would be good to share some of these tips with you; even if you don’t live in an area where water is scarce, conserving water will save you money!

What do you like about your home?

There are many 'features' of our home that I like now, after disliking them intensely for a number of years.

For example, our home is small by modern standards. When I first started entertaining family and friends, it was a shock to discover that our cosy dine-in kitchen was definitely a tight squeeze when guests were present. And once my eyes were opened, I started looking enviously at others' homes, planning renovations, researching styles in print and online, and endlessly day-dreaming about my dream home.

Uses for the humble clothes peg

I thought this could be a fun list to work on together! Add your ideas in the comments, and I'll re-post the completed list later.

• pegging laundry on the washing line
• displaying children’s artwork and greeting cards
• closing partially-used food packets (eg flour, pasta, etc)
• pinning children’s capes and dressups
• improvised shower cap (peg a plastic bag over your hair)

What could you use a clothes peg for?

My top 10 frugal living tips

Every time I turn around, it seems someone has posted about the importance of frugal living, so I won’t repeat all that. Here are some things that our family does to stretch our family income, and (sometimes) help the environment:

• Cloth nappies (aka diapers)
• Slow cooking
• Bucket insert in kitchen sink to collect & re-use clean water
• Recycling cardboard packaging for childrens’ constructions
• Recycle paper for telephone notepads or childrens’ artwork
• Home-made and second-hand children’s clothing. I have not bought clothing for my daughter in about 2 years, and she has items in her closet that have never been worn! My second son has also inherited most of his clothing.
• Using rags for cleaning – I cut up my old cloth diaper squares into quarters, and use them for wiping any household dirt or dust. When dirty, they go into the wash with the cloth diapers
• Op-shopping (aka thrift shopping)
• Keeping chickens
• Home-made baked goodies

Have you become more frugal in the past 12 months? Please share!

10 reasons to keep hens:

• Eggs
• Daily dose of sunshine while checking for eggs
• Kids’ pets
• Green recycling of food scraps
• insect control
• weed control
• Lawn aeration
• Manure
• compost starter
• talking point with visitors

bonus reason: chicken for dinner (if you’re desperate)