Made Not Bought
Self Sufficiency Is Mostly a Story, and Partly Not
I traced every input in one homemade breakfast back to where it came from and none of it started here. What is…
August 16, 2026Small scale, done by hand.
Our Little Homestead Life
Written by Ruth Vandermeer
Latest
One Thing Was Enough to Start With
A friend sat at my kitchen table with a printed list of thirty things she thought she had to learn first. I told her what my own list…
Seasons
Autumn Is Mostly Putting Things Away
Nobody photographs this part. Autumn on a small lot is dragging dead vines to the compost pile, coiling hoses, and doing the…
August 14, 2026Seasons
All Seasons ›
What Summer Actually Does to This Yard
I left for a week in July and came home to a yard that had given up. Summer…
June 30, 2026
The Changeover Weeks Are the Busiest Part of the Year
The hardest stretches in this yard are not deep summer or deep winter. They are the seams between…
May 18, 2026
I Missed the Spring Window Again
Spring on a small lot does not arrive as a season. It arrives as a narrow opening you…
April 6, 2026Made Not Bought
All Made Not Bought ›
On Giving People Things You Made
Handmade gifts are not free, they are not always welcome, and they put the person receiving them in…
July 12, 2026
When the Batch Goes Wrong
Nobody counts failure when they calculate whether making something at home is worth it. After a few years…
June 14, 2026
What an Hour of Making Actually Costs Me
I tracked my minutes for six weeks to find out which homemade projects were paying me a decent…
May 5, 2026Backyard Chickens
All Backyard Chickens ›
Do Backyard Chickens Save Money? Mine Do Not
I kept a running tally for two years because I wanted the honest number. It is not close,…
August 10, 2026
The Morning After the Raccoon Got In
A spring latch and a roll of chicken wire were what stood between my hens and a raccoon,…
August 5, 2026
Chickens and Neighbors: What Actually Worked on Our Street
Our lots are sixty feet wide and the coop sits closer to the neighbor's patio than to my…
June 22, 2026Preserving
All Preserving ›
The Things I Do Not Preserve, and Why I Stopped
August is when the kitchen fills up and every jar starts to look like a good idea. Here…
August 11, 2026Where I Actually Store the Jars, and Why It Is Not the Pantry
Nobody warns you that storage is the part that decides how much you should make. My first shelf…
July 8, 2026
The Preserving Gear I Actually Kept After Three Years
I emptied the bottom cupboard in June and sorted every piece of preserving equipment into keep, donate and…
June 10, 2026Getting Started
All Getting Started ›
The August I Nearly Stopped
After two weeks away for a family emergency I came home to a yard that had gone feral…
July 16, 2026
The Argument We Had About the Back Lawn
My husband did not want the yard turned into a project, and he said so in the driveway…
June 12, 2026
The Yard Was Smaller Than I Thought
I finally took a tape measure to our lot one evening and found roughly a quarter of the…
May 7, 2026
About
Ruth Vandermeer
Our Little Homestead Life is written by Ruth Vandermeer. Everything here comes from actual use, written up honestly, including the things that did not work.
More about this site ›Recent
- The Things I Do Not Preserve, and Why I Stopped
- Do Backyard Chickens Save Money? Mine Do Not
- The Morning After the Raccoon Got In
- The August I Nearly Stopped
- On Giving People Things You Made
- Where I Actually Store the Jars, and Why It Is Not the Pantry
- What Summer Actually Does to This Yard
- Chickens and Neighbors: What Actually Worked on Our Street