Let me tell you something right now—this lifestyle ain’t for dreamers. This ain’t some Pinterest-fueled fantasy with mason jars full of lavender lemonade and backyard goats wearing flower crowns. This is North Dakota. It’s -30°F in January, the wind will skin your face like a rabbit, and the ground freezes so solid you’d swear God himself bolted it shut. And yet… we homestead.
Why? Because we’re stubborn. Because we’re tired of relying on broken systems, poisoned food, and city folks who wouldn’t last five minutes without a Wi-Fi signal. We do it because we remember what it means to live by our own hands. But let me be crystal clear: if you’re not willing to bust your back and bleed for your freedom, you don’t belong out here.
Skill #1: Firewood Management (aka Survival)
If you don’t know how to cut, split, season, stack, and actually burn firewood efficiently, you’re going to freeze to death. No joke. Out here, we don’t talk about “winter vibes.” We talk about keeping the family alive.
Skill #2: Canning and Preserving
If you’ve never pressure-canned 40 quarts of green beans while sweating in a kitchen hotter than hell’s waiting room, don’t talk to me about food prep. We preserve everything. Tomatoes, pickles, meat, even wild game. Come winter, that pantry is our goldmine.
Skill #3: Raising Chickens (Meat & Eggs)
I hear city people cooing over their “pet hens.” Cute. Out here, chickens are tools. You learn to hatch ‘em, butcher ‘em, and fix ‘em when they’re egg-bound. Otherwise, you’re just feeding predators.
DIY Hack #1: Heated Chicken Waterer
Tired of water freezing solid at 3 a.m.? Here’s a trick: take a metal cookie tin, stuff it with a low-wattage bulb and plug it into a thermostat switch. Place your metal waterer on top. Boom—no more frozen water and no $150 Amazon gadget.
Skill #4: Fermenting Foods
We ferment more than just sourdough and kraut. Ever had fermented carrots with garlic? That’s gut health that’ll knock the antibiotics off your shelf.
Skill #5: Composting (The Right Way)
I don’t care what your gardening book says. If you can’t manage hot compost through a North Dakota fall, you’ll just end up with a frozen pile of raccoon buffet. Layer it right, keep it warm, and keep turning.
Skill #6: Winter Gardening
Yes, winter. With a good cold frame and some guts, you can grow spinach, kale, and carrots under the snow. Anyone who says gardening ends in September has already quit.
Skill #7: Livestock Butchering
This ain’t Whole Foods. You learn to kill, skin, gut, and cut. It’s bloody, it’s heavy, and it’s real. When that steer goes down, you better know what you’re doing, or you’re wasting a whole damn year of feed.
Skill #8: Building Fences That Hold
Not cute split rails. I mean real fences. Cattle panels, T-posts, electric lines. If your fence blows down in a blizzard or your goats escape again, you’re wasting time and money—and losing sleep.
Skill #9: Seed Saving
Who’s going to feed your family when the feed store shuts down? Save those heirloom seeds. Learn to dry ‘em, store ‘em, and germinate like your life depends on it—because it does.
Skill #10: Solar Power Basics
We’re not off-grid because it’s trendy. We’re off-grid because the grid fails. Panels, charge controllers, deep cycle batteries—you better know how to rig a solar system, especially when the power company abandons you in February.
DIY Hack #2: Passive Solar Greenhouse Wall
Line the north interior wall of your greenhouse with black-painted water barrels. They absorb heat during the day and radiate it at night. It’s a poor man’s heater, but it works, and it keeps the greens alive.
Skill #11: Making Tallow and Lard
You ain’t lived until you’ve rendered beef tallow over a wood stove in January. Throw away your Crisco. We cook and preserve with the fat our animals gave us. It’s ancestral, it’s nutritious, and it works.
Skill #12: Water Collection & Storage
If your only plan for water is a rural well pump, you’re asking to suffer. We harvest rain, melt snow, and store in food-grade barrels. Every drop counts when it’s -40° and your lines are frozen solid.
Skill #13: Breadmaking Without a Machine
It’s not “cute” or “rustic.” It’s necessity. Your solar might not run a breadmaker, and the propane might run out. You better be able to make a perfect loaf with nothing but flour, water, salt, a fire, and your two hands.
Skill #14: Making Herbal Remedies
I’ve watched neighbors drive 50 miles for cough syrup. Out here, we make our own. Elderberry syrup, comfrey salve, calendula tincture—we grow our medicine in the backyard, not some CVS shelf.
Skill #15: Hunting and Trapping
If you can’t drop a whitetail in one shot or snare a rabbit in the dead of winter, you’re not homesteading—you’re camping. We fill freezers with game, and we know how to process every bit of it, nose to tail.
DIY Hack #3: Rocket Mass Heater
Want real heat without burning a cord a week? Build a rocket mass heater out of clay, brick, and a steel drum. Burns hot, uses a fraction of the wood, and radiates heat for hours after the fire’s dead. Best damn invention since fire itself.
Here’s the truth—if you’re not learning these skills, you’re just pretending. This isn’t a “lifestyle.” It’s war against dependence, laziness, and apathy. It’s the refusal to be controlled by grocery stores, gas lines, and corporate nonsense. And no, it doesn’t always feel good.
Your fingers will crack until they bleed. Your animals will die sometimes, even when you’ve done everything right. You’ll get up at 4 a.m. to shovel snow just so you can reach the barn, only to find the water line frozen anyway. But when you sit down to a meal grown with your own hands, lit by a lamp powered by your own system, warmed by a fire you built yourself—it all makes sense.
I don’t want your pity or your praise. I want you to wake up. Start learning. Get uncomfortable. And if you’re gonna homestead in North Dakota, drop the fantasy and pick up a shovel.
Because out here, comfort is a weakness. And self-reliance? That’s the only luxury we can afford.
TheDailyChristian 