I am in my 50's now and living on the outskirts of Nashville, TN, it seems fewer and fewer people are cooking from "scratch" or raising anything on their own, except flowers and shrubs. Some may dabble with tomatoes, corn and peppers but nothing like the homestead I grew up on.
We had a little over 30 acres, sixty percent pasture and garden and forty percent woods. We were on grid as far as water and electricity, there was a pond for the animals with additional troughs spread about with water in them, and we had a septic system. We literally grew everything we ate as far as meat and vegetables. Condiments, along with sugar, flour, and meal were purchased. We hunted squirrel, rabbit, and deer, fished and went frog gigging. We grew strawberries and melons, had a peach tree, a mulberry tree and picked blackberries. We bought apples from the Mennonites. We raised chickens, goats, pigs and cows. Dad kept the goat herd just big enough to sell a few to those that wanted one on the 4th of July, we did not eat them. We kept a beef in the freezer and killed a hog every winter as soon as it got cold enough. We made our own lard, saved our bacon grease, made our own sausage, and made lye soap.
We were prepared for SHTF. We froze or canned everything we needed and our grocery was right there with us. We had a wood stove, camping stove, oil lanterns, candles, and a huge outdoor cast iron pot. The old well was hidden right out our front door underneath a decorative fountain, ready to use if need be. We had all the camping gear, a couple of handguns, shotguns and rifles and all the ammo, hunting and fishing supplies and, catch this, everything that was a hunting implement or garden implement was taught to be used as a self defense tool. A shovel, hoe, tobacco knife and sickle, along with guns and knives, all weapons. It's not that it was taught to be used against humans. Being in a rural setting, you never knew when you were going to come across a bobcat, any rabid animal trying to attack, snake, or the bull or boar deciding to be ornery and packs of wild dogs. We were also prepared for mother natures worst, in our area being storms, tornadoes, and the occasional ice storm.
Our garden was enough corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, onion, garlic, sage, zucchini, beans, cabbage, melons, peas, broccoli, and carrots to last us for over a year and the extra was sold or given to family that did not have farms, and finally to the livestock. There many varieties of each. Corn was frozen on the cob or creamed and frozen, potatoes stored under the house, tomatoes and peppers canned, cucumbers pickled, squash and zucchini canned and frozen, beans were dried, canned and frozen, cabbage became sour kraut, melons enjoyed seasonally, peas same as beans, broccoli frozen and carrots canned, peaches were frozen and canned, the berries were also frozen or became jams and jellies. Along with freezing most of our meat, some would get smoked, salt cured or sugar cured. I always enjoyed cooking up the lard because of the cracklings, one of my favorite snacks and love the crackling corn bread. I started cooking and learning to drive when I was eight. By the time I was twelve I could get a meal on the table and was driving down to our country store by myself, it was about a mile away but I learned well from plenty of practice driving a go-cart, farm truck and tractor on the farm. If the deputy showed up I just hung around the store until he left.
Our tobacco barn had four stalls in the back, two on each side, the hen house was in the front right side of the barn and the loading chute was on the left front of the barn, the left and right sides of our barn had lofts. We had water and electricity at the barn also. The barn tools were hung up along the walls of the hall. We used old coffee cans with wire handles to gather the eggs. The chickens would roost way up in the rafters of the barn and we rarely had an issue with any animal like fox, raccoon or opossum getting to them. We would catch the occasional snake eating eggs and since my dad had a phobia of snakes it was my job to catch them and kill them, I preferred the shovel for this. I used the handle to get the snake out of the nest, came down on its head with the shovel, then chopped its head off with the edge of the shovel.
This is my introduction of me, how life began for me. I hope to share many funny stories about my youth and growing up on the farm, home remedies, southern recipes, dealing with egg allergies, eggless recipes, and sewing. God Bless You All!