When we moved from a 16,000-square-foot lot to a 6-acre piece of property several years ago, one of the first things we decided to do was keep pigs. We raise seasonal pigs, meaning we buy feeder piglets from a farmer and raise them for meat. We get H

I love summer. I even enjoy the heat—bit of a necessity, being that I live in deep East Texas and it’s pretty much always hot and humid. Some of the best parts of summer are the moments when I get to escape my normal day-to-day stuff and go fishing,

As a natural sweetener with flavor notes that go way beyond sugar, honey is a great partner with herbs, juices, and spirits. Whether you opt for a traditional pairing of honey with lemon (as in the old Prohibition classic the Bee’s Knees) in your dri

I’m not one of those people who fishes for sport. When I fish, it’s usually to put food on the table. If you’re of like mind, you’ll find that fly-fishing isn’t exactly the most efficient way to make that happen. But, I’ve found there’s something mys

It’s my least favorite phone call of the year. After that first call about maggots, all I’ll see for the next month are maggots, maggots, and more maggots. “Doc, I didn’t even realize there was a wound there. But now that I’m really looking at it, th

The concept of growing plants in vertical tiers has been around since the famously hanging gardens of Babylon. In the modern world, indoor urban farms have expanded on this concept to capitalize on limited space using a system of racks, towers, or sh

Share your visual perspective! Post your photos at www.Facebook.com/GritMagazine, tag us on Instagram (@Grit1882), or email us at Letters@Grit.com. Share your best shots, and we just might select one of your photos for a future issue of the magazine.

It’s on your calendar—that hike. And whether it’s a short, full-day, or multi-day trek, you’ll want it to be safe and enjoyable. Here to provide survival and emergency essentials is Royce Jones, a wilderness patroller of the Mount San Jacinto State P

Working with nature is the easiest way to plant a garden. Even a small garden has shady corners and sunny ones. On a larger site, there’s every likelihood you’ll find patches of dry soil and damp areas, slopes, ditches, or poor stony soil. There’s fa

Some chicken enthusiasts don’t particularly care for roosters, especially their penchant for crowing at odd times throughout the day and night. But the reality is that your roo has much to communicate when he belts out his signature cock-a-doodle-do.

Every farmer wants to get away once in a while. But leaving tender garden crops, valuable livestock animals, and intricate daily routines can make a vacation from farming almost impossible. While some farmers, particularly vegetable and flower garden

Beyond the convenient boxes, jars, and jugs at the grocery store is an unseen world of food transport on a massive scale. Enormous amounts of food are freighted from growers to packers to factories and distributors, and they don’t come in cutesy litt

Most conventional dairy farms separate newborn calves from their dams shortly after birth. A few of the reasons for this arrangement include disease control within the herd, ease of calf management for the farmer, and greater profit margins for the d

Growing up, I always heard people say “it takes a village” when raising children. As an adult, I’ve come to realize it doesn’t just take a village to raise babies — it takes a village to raise up a quality community full of homesteads and farms. And

The modern era of blogs, websites, and glossy magazines have given us an unending, indefatigable supply of information, photos, and opinions about gardening. Never has more information been so widely available. A side effect of this visual onslaught,

It’s funny how the simplest things can trigger indelible memories. I was grocery shopping recently and passed neatly packaged, shucked corn on the cob in the produce section and immediately thought about the part corn played during my childhood on ou

My grandmother has been receiving GRIT for many years and has been very kind in passing it on to my family. I enjoy looking at the pictures and reading the articles. I’m 11 years old and am in sixth grade and was inspired to write this poem by my own

Meteorologists will tell you that weather radar is the best tool you can use to predict rain or snow in the next few hours—and they’re not the only ones who can use it. It’s not that hard to understand, and the internet gives you access to weather ra

In this book, mushroom experts Lorraine and Jodie Caley provide more than 30 projects so you can grow mushrooms at home. This guide takes out the technical jargon, provides fascinating inspiration and answers all your burning questions. With so many

Refreshing mint has so many uses and qualities, and it deserves a place in every garden. Mint is medicinal, culinary, and ornamental. Even better, it’s a pollinator favorite in the garden. The problem is that mint usually forgets its place. Literally

Nostalgia, thy name is “drive-in theater.” This iconic pastime is no longer a standard part of America’s landscape. Oh, sure, some remain, but it’s certainly not the way it was when I grew up. My family didn’t go to the drive-in often, but when we di

I remember visiting local farms as a child and being amazed by the bustling activity: colorful varieties of vegetables, ducks and chickens scuttling around, and herds of roaming cattle. The farmers made a living selling produce, meat, and eggs to nea

With the increasing attention being given to specialized floral plantings tailored to target groups, such as native bees, butterflies, and garden pest predators, it’s no surprise honeybees should get their turn with honeybee pastures. Texts on the hi

• Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke, duh!• We’ll have to have a day we’re not roosting to fix it.• Then forget it. Put it off until it falls over, then replace it.• Second that.• New, longer, heavier, nicer art-deco hinges. They look so European.• Heavy

Keeping metal and wooden gates in good repair is an important part of homesteading. A sagging or broken gate can be a chore to open and shut. It might also tempt an animal to jump, lean over, or crawl through, potentially injuring itself in the proce

Y’all, nothing beats homemade bread. Homemade anything can’t be beat. Bread is the center of many meals, unless you’ve eliminated it from your menu. For me, bread is a joy to make and a cultural lesson to be learned, not to mention the flavor it adds

Few things ring truer to me recently than the Creole quote “One rain does not make a crop.” It reminds me, particularly lately, that many of the changes we wish to see don’t happen instantly, but through time and good work. Often, we get so busy tryi

In the continental U.S., a significant amount of the land area has been disturbed to varying degrees by urbanization, suburbanization, agriculture, roadway construction, invasive species, and resource extraction. Notably, approximately 50,000 square