Starting a homestead can feel really overwhelming. It will feel like there are endless projects to do and things to learn, but don’t worry, there are people who have been in your shoes and have created beautiful and successful homesteads. There are so many resources on starting a homestead and homestead skills that it can be hard to figure out where to start. My suggestion – start with what interests you most! Are you most interested in raising animals, growing a garden, preserving food, making homemade goods or in creating natural remedies?
You can create a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle regardless of where you are – an apartment, a frat house, or on a farm, there are little changes you can make to make a big difference.
Sustainable living describes a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual’s or society’s use of the Earths natural resources, and one’s personal resources.
Wikipedia
Grow Microgreens & Sprouts
Don’t fret, I promise it’s easy! All you need to start growing sprouts is a mason jar, a draining lid, and seeds that work for sprouting! I also like to keep a drain stand and tray so I can keep them on the window seal, but they’re not necessary. Each seed pack will typically have their own variations but typically you soak the seeds for about 12 hours, drain and rinse, and continue to rinse twice a day for a few days until you have a lovely jar of sprouts! Seriously, it’s that easy!
“While their nutrient contents vary slightly, most varieties tend to be rich in potassium, iron, zinc, magnesium and copper”
Grind Your Own Flours (Especially Gluten Free Ones!)
You can save SO much money by making your own flours, especially when you’re making organic, gluten free, or unusual flours. I love using quinoa flour for baking, but it’s usually ten dollars a pound! When I make it myself, it’s usually under three dollars a pound! You can also save money and get a better quality flour by making your own wheat flour. While a larger initial cost, a grain mill is a fantastic investment. While saving money on flours, you also get fresher flour with a higher nutrition content. While store bought flours are typically lacking nutrients, fresh ground flour is actually a super food!
“Grains are the seed-bearing fruits of grasses. The fact that grains are the seeds of the plant as well as the fruit and that life-giving nutrients are contained and perfectly stored within, make grains an incredibly nutritious food. In fact, of the 44 known essential nutrients needed by our bodies and naturally obtained from foods, only 4 are missing from wheat–vitamin A, B12, and C, and the mineral iodine.”
Sue Becker (Source)
Sow A Garden
Even if you don’t have a lot of space, you can have a garden! My first garden was on a table inside my apartment!
Add a small grow light and you can grow a lot of things indoors! Some easy starter plants are basil, rosemary, oregano, lettuce, kale, and radishes. If you have a small patio you can grow all of your own greens and maybe even more! Vertical gardening can extend your usable space to be able to grow more of your own produce.
Make Your Own Teas & Tinctures
Studies have found that some teas may help with cancer, heart disease, and diabetes; encourage weight loss; lower cholesterol; and bring about mental alertness.
Making tea is probably one of the easiest and quickest methods to living healthier while saving money! Teas have endless healthy benefits from lowering anxiety to preventing cancer, but as with all plants the nutritional value is highest when fresh.
What are your favorite ways to practice sustainability?
A quote can take something that seems so difficult to explain and makes it wonderfully simple. Our bodies’ have an innate ability to heal within nature and that can be challenging to explain or understand. This collection of quotes simply and beautifully expresses the physical and mental healing powers that come from our connection with nature.
“Nature itself is the best physician.”
Hippocrates
“The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.”
Paracelsus
“In clinical studies, we have seen that 2 hours of nature sounds a day significantly reduce stress hormones up to 800% and activates 500 to 600 DNA segments known to be responsible for healing and repairing the body.”
Dr. Joe Dispenza
“Walk in nature and feel the healing power of the trees.“
Anthony William
“The body is both a temple and a perfect machine. Our bodies have within them a healing potential, and we nourish this potential with the pure and simple foods found in nature.”
Angela Lindvall
“Place your hands into soil to feel grounded. Wade in water to feel emotionally healed. Fill your lungs with fresh air to feel mentally clear. Raise your face to the heat of the sun and connect with that fire to feel your own immense power.”
Victoria Erickson
“The greener the setting, the more the relief.”
Richard Louv
“I go to nature to be soothed, healed and have my senses put in order.”
John Burrough
“We depend on nature not only for our physical survival, we also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds.”
Eckhart Tolle
“Spare time in the garden, either digging, setting out, or weeding; there is no better way to preserve your health.”
Richard Louv
“Nature has the power to heal because it is where we are from, it is where we belong and it belongs to us as an essential part of our health and our survival.”
Nooshin Razani
“Never underestimate the healing power of these three things – music, the ocean and the stars.”
Unknown
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
Rachael Carson
“‘Healing,’ Papa would tell me, ‘is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'”
W. H. Auden
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
John Muir
Do you relate to these quotes? What are your favorite nature therapy quotes?
