About Common Sense Homesteading
Common Sense Homesteading is about using sound judgement to be more self-reliant. We’ll share stories, recipes, ideas and hopefully a few laughs. Your homestead can be anything from acreage in the country to an apartment in the city – it’s a mindset, not a location. It’s an attitude that says, “I can do that!”
Welcome to our homestead! We look forward to getting to know you. Let’s roll up those sleeves and get to work.
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| Me, at around age one, out in the garden. |
I was raised on a Northwest Wisconsin dairy farm where frugality and providing food for the family were a way a life. My mom was a great inspiration to me. She always cooked and baked from scratch, gardened extensively, and kept the pantry well-stocked with home preserved foods.
I earned my BS in Mathematics at UW Superior, and attended graduate school at UW Madison, where I studied renewable energy. After graduation, I moved to Green Bay, married my college sweetheart, August, and began work at Public Energy Systems (PES).
PES provided repair and installation of solar hot water and solar heating systems for homes and businesses, and operated the world’s largest flat plate collector solar thermal array. Unfortunately, circumstances change, natural gas was cheap for a time, and the giant collector array was torn down. At this point I was also expecting my first child, and so I came home to be a fulltime mom. Baby one was followed by baby two, my beautiful boys, August and Duncan, whom I now homeschool.
We spent nine years in the suburbs of Green Bay where we cultivated large vegetable and flower gardens as well as fruits and culinary herbs. The boys were able to graze their way around the yard.
In 2005, we relocated to 35 acres in Kewaunee County, where we designed and built our Wisconsin Green Built and Energy Star certified home. The home has an array of “green” features, including:
- Solar Water Heating and Passive Solar Design
- Insulated Concrete Form construction
- An Attached Greenhouse
- A Root Cellar
- Handicap Accessibility
- Environmentally Friendly Materials
The large organic gardens contain over 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables, most of which are heirlooms. We freeze, water bath can, pressure can, dry, and ferment to preserve food, and use the root cellar, cool storage, cold frames, and green house to extend the harvest without additional energy inputs. I am also interested in natural health and wellness, including herbalism, wildcrafting, homebrew probiotics and ferments. When I’m not busy with all of that, I enjoy ancient history, science fiction and the LOTR trilogy. (Best movies ever!) I never want to stop learning.
Like many people, we went through some ups and downs when the economy tanked. My husband is now working two hours away, and I say a little prayer each day that he can find a job closer to home soon.
I have written for a number of local and national publications including Taste of Home and Countryside magazines, The Healthy Independent and Healthy Thoughts.
Questions? Contact me at laurie at commonsensehome dot com.
was wondering if you have a newsletter I can sign up for? or if there was some way I could stay connected to your website…etc…so enjoyed looking around….Thank-you…
LaLonnie – I think I’ve got the rss feed transferred and updated. Hopefully this will work! So much to learn on WordPress. just switched over from blogger this week.
Nice job on the new blog! Looking forward to learning more from you in 2012. xo, Annette
Hi Annette! Thanks. Lots done, lots more to do.
whoa, so inspired to find your site today — a friend posted on facebook an article about putting up food. my bf and i are just learning how to make kimchee…. loving that, realizing how much i want to learn ‘old ways’….. thanks for sharing all your learning!!! <3
Welcome! I hope you find the site useful. Let me know if there’s something you’re looking for that you can’t find. I’m always looking for new ides to post about.
It is so awesome reading all of these interesting subjects, etc. here, I would like to know if you have a magazine or something on paper I could subscribe to? my mother likes these things too, but at 82 years doesn’t have computer.
Hi Lou! Glad that you are enjoying the site.
Right now, it’s just me (Laurie) for the most part, squeezing in time between “real life”, so I haven’t given much thought to a print option. As we move forward, it might be something I would be able to do. (I just need a clone!) You are welcome to print out the articles for personal use.
Stumbled upon your site from a post on Pinterest. WOW, you are just what I’m looking for.
I’m diabetic and need to find healthy ways to keep my blood sugar in control, I need to lose weight-the prescribed medications has caused me to gain weight-I’m not real comfortable with the prescribed medication. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I already appreciate you.
Yvonne – are you familiar with cinnamon for regulating blood sugar? A friend of mine has been using it with good results. Also, you may wish to check out the post “Switching on a Healthier You” http://www.commonsensehome.com/switching-on-a-healthier-you/ In the comments, Matt Stone references a post of about insulin resistance and carbohydrate consumption that may be of help to you. Good luck to you on your journey, and thanks for stopping by.
Hi
) I love this blog you have so much useful information. We are trying to live more sustainably on our small city lot. Eventually we’d like to move out of town a little onto a few acres.
I see we are ‘Lake Neighbors’ I live in Michigan in Manistee County which is directly across from you.
Hi Karen! That’s some pretty country over there. Thanks for stopping by and for your kind words.
Well done on the move from Blogger! I still have a blog or two lurking over there that I haven’t figured out how to transfer.
Now that you’re on WordPress, if you do have questions or crises, please feel free to join our new WordPress Help group on Facebook. It’s manned by friendlies – and no promotion allowed. If we can help, we will be honored to do so – and if not, we are a nice safe place to chat over coffee
https://www.facebook.com/groups/249373261832924/
Best,
Casey
Thanks, Casey. I just joined.
Hello, I saw a link to your post over on Frugally Sustainable, My husband and I live in the city where we’ve had a tiny “urban homestead” but we’re growing out of our back yard and our neighborhood has changed so we’re moving to ten acres in the country. I’m adding you to my Google reader and look forward to reading your blog.
Welcome, Jenny. We had a similar motivation for when we moved away from our urban homestead. The neighborhood had changed so much!
Since you’re moving to more land, you may find this new/old book I just rediscovered helpful. It’s called Weeds- Guardians of the Soil.
Oh that’s wonderful!! Thank you so much. For the time being we just mow the front of our property to make it look nice and have let everything else grow. It is cut for hay twice a year (maybe just once this year because of the drought). I’ve started to take notice of the “weeds” though, have identified several and am anxious to start foraging.
Hi! I’ve just stumbled over your site and am really excited to work my way through it. I live in South Africa where our economy and future is best described as seriously unstable, and though I haven’t been a dedicated homesteader (mainly because we’ve moved about 22 times in the past 14 years) – I have always had a keen interest in it. Having moved last week for (hopefully) the last time in a long while, I am really determined to start something properly now and, just from looking through your site, I can see I will get a LOT of wonderful ideas. Thanks so much for sharing your life with the rest of the world!
Kathleen, thank you for your kind words. We don’t get much news about South Africa here, but I have seen snippets about unusually cold weather, which tends to add stress to already difficult times. The US is in a lot of turmoil now, too, with no end in site. Hopefully we can all work together to come up with real solutions.
Hi, Laurie,
I haven’t visited in a while (just read your Facebook updates). Just wanted to tell you that your updated blog looks SO fantastic! Hope you and your family had a great Thanksgiving.
Hi Danielle! Nice to hear from you! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Glad you like the new format. It’s still a work in progress, but I found a WordPress angel to help me do a makeover. The goal is to make everything easier to find. (I knew I needed help when I couldn’t find posts that I knew were on the site.) She runs her main sites over at http://www.lassgroup.com/, but also provides help to wayward bloggers.
We had family over yesterday and will be hosting friends today, so I’d best go get the ham in the oven. It’s windy as can be outside, but otherwise good weather, so that makes traveling easier in the area, which is a blessing.
Just started looking at being more self sustainable, though I’ve raised my own vegetables for many years. With the government and economy in such turmoil, we have begun stocking up and getting ready for unexpected emergencies.
I found you on Pinterest and was pleased to find someone from Wisconsin. I’m near Oshkosh. I’ve been up your way many times.
I keep my carrots in the garden all winter by covering with a 2-3ft layer of leaves. We dig 6-8# at a time and bring them in and cover the rest over again. Many years ago, when I planted too many, I had to give away many buckets of them so I could plant my spring garden. I don’t have that much space at this house, but still raise much of the veggies we eat. Being close to the earth is very rewarding. I’m a nurse and believe we have lost the ability to heal ourselves due to all the medications that people take at the drop of a hat. Give you body a chance to fight it off by eating a balanced diet and staying hydrated.
I’ll be researching your earlier posts and watching for new ones!
Debbie
Welcome, Debbie. At our site here we’re pretty exposed, and everything not nailed down tends to blow away, but maybe one our windbreak trees are taller I could try the deep leaves.
I agree that we’ve lost touch with our own healing capacity in this crazy world we live in, and I’m working to reconnect with that in my own family and share what we learn with others.
We have a large garden and I planted enough potatoes from last year’s crop to feed an army. Now we have a large root celler buried six feet underground. Unfortunately the root celler has been open all summer and only recently closed up, so the surrounding concrete and soil is too warm. Currently I have a small 6″ fan to draw in cold air every night. Problem is, our stored potatoes think its time to start growing, so the sprouting is not good for them. Does anyone know of a way to slow down the sprouting process until the temperature can be brought down into the thirties?
My grandmother used to break off unwanted sprouts as they formed, and I follow the same practice. Anything you might treat them with could inhibit sprouting at planting time. Other them temporary colder storage somewhere else while the root cellar cools down, I haven’t heard of other good suggestions.
Made your sandwich bread. It is wonderful! It has gone inside my cabinet door (where I hang all the best recipes, I may need more doors).
I live in a rural area where gardens and canning are common for us “country folk”. I love the taste of homegrown food, I won’t even buy tomatoes at the store. I wait for my garden. 
Store tomatoes taste so bland compared to homegrown. Glad you enjoyed the bread!
Laurie, most excellent site and value adding info. I’m adding your site to my Resources page, just followed you on Twitter and subscribed to your newsletter.
Saw your article on oil pulling. I’ve been doing some pulling for about two months now with coconut oil and have noticed great improvements in my skin and sensitivity in my teeth has gone. Just a little testimony on my part.
Common Sense Woman indeed
Hey Todd! Thanks for stopping by and taking time to leave a comment. I’ve seen your content around the survival boards. One of the things we’re planning to focus more on the year is preparedness, so I’m sure we’ll be running into each other again. Thanks for your words of support.
Hi Laura
In depth organization! However; with financial/social chaos coming how will you keep your preps when the FE MA goons come to take your stuff under the existing executive order? Might consider some secure hiding places. Extend your root cellar and build a rock-walled circular raised garden over it? So much to learn and do that it interferes with my theoretical physics research.
John
John, not everything gets published on the site… I’ll leave it at that.