Self-Reliance Challenge: Goals and Plans

Have you heard about the Self-Reliance Challenge? It’s all about taking 30 days to become more self-reliant during the month of May! Well, we at 15 Acre Homestead have decided to join the challenge! We have always been trying to find ways to make our homestead more self-reliant and we continue to do so with each passing year on the homestead. Now we are sharing our goals and plans with you for the month of May. We hope that over the next 5 weeks you can take what we do and offer and use that information to become more self-reliant on your homestead.

Self-Reliance Challenge: Goals and Plans

Why We Chose This Challenge

It  matched our goals and plans with our food plans

We have always strived toward a more self-reliant way of living. The very idea of depending on ourselves for most of our food is what started us homesteading in the first place. We want to know where our food comes from and exactly what we are eating. This way we know we are providing ourselves a healthy supply of meat, poultry, dairy, fresh fruit and vegetables, and herbs that are all raised or grown organically. For this reason, we chose this challenge because it will help push us closer to our goals and plans for our homestead.

It matched our goals and plans for power and water sources

Besides providing healthy food, we wanted to depend less on outside and government sources for our electricity and water. We set goals and plans to eventually provide enough solar power to provide all the power we need for our homestead to run comfortably. Therefore not depending on the major electricity providers we currently use. We also set goals and plans to collect water in rain barrels and into a large cistern for future use. We currently have a well, but the water isn’t the greatest and without power it is useless. A cistern and a rainwater catchment will solve the problem.

It matched our goals and plans with our homelife

Being self-reliant means providing most of what you need yourself and not relying on others if possible. Our goals and plans include cooking and baking from scratch, canning, dehydrating, and making our own cleaners, soaps, and candles. We currently make our own laundry soap and liquid body wash. We also dry can and water-bath can. I love to preserve my herbs for use in many things from spice mixes to herbal rubs. Joining this challenge will allow us to continue increasing our skillsets on these projects.

Our Goals and Plans for this Challenge

Over the next four weeks throughout May we have set some goals and plans for our homestead. Each week we will share what we accomplished during the previous week in the hopes it will inspire you to do the same.

Week 1: Gardening

We intend to further our gardening skills by adding some new additions to the current property;

• adding 3 to 5 fruit trees
• planting Millet and Amaranth
• adding more herbs and extending the size of our current herb garden
• adding to and maintaining our compost bins regularly
• planning our fall gardening plans

Week 2: Home Skills

We intend to increase the number of products we make ourselves and eliminate trips to the store;

• making another years batch of laundry soap
• adding DIY cleaners and removing commercial brands we now use.
• replace our paper towels with “unpaper” towels.
• restock our supply of DIY firestarters.
• Make emergency candles made of soy wax.

Week 3: Rain Barrels

We intend to finally make use of heavy rainfalls and start storing water;

• replace our current downspouts with shorter ones leading to a rain barrel.
• research ways of storing large amounts of water for long-term storage in-ground.
• stocking up on bottled water and a water purification kit,
• look into ways of using the well in the absence of electricity long-term.

Week 4: Share my results

On the last week of the challenge, we will share everything we accomplished, what we would change and what the challenge did for us.

Join the Challenge!

If you are interested in joining the challenge let me know in the comments and I’ll show ya how you can be a part! In the meantime, make sure you stop by the other bloggers who are taking part in the challenge! They all will provide some wonderful, how to’s and information that is sure to get you started being more self-reliant in no time.

Click to visit other bloggers taking the Self-Reliance Challenge

Nancy – Nancy On The Homefront

Kathi – Oak Hill Homestead

Robin – A Life in the Wild

Candy – Candy’s Farm House Pantry

Farmgal – Just Another Day on the Farm

Ashley – Practical Self Reliance

ShawnaLee – Homegrown Self Reliance

Frank – My Green Terra

Maria – Maria Zannini

Lisa Lynn  – The Self Sufficient HomeAcre

Are you trying to become more self-reliant on your homestead? What are your goals and plans? Please share them in the comment section below.