Homestead Fair

Mississippi is lucky to have a place called the Mississippi Modern Homestead Center (Click here for the website). This center holds a lot of classes every week. This year was their first annual Homestead Fair – and it was a sensation!

The whole crew from J&J Acres, as well as our friends at Alderman Farms (Click here for the website), and what seemed like more than 100 other attendees converged on the center to attend the Homestead Fair. It was a day-long event that had demonstrations covering a wide range of skills and abilities.

Homesteading Events:

The event took place all over the 5 acre property, though much of it was centered around the house. From lessons in the kitchen to some in the garden or the herbal nature walk, there was something for everybody.

Here is what was available:

4-H Demonstrations

Herbal Medicine

Art of Fermentation

Fiber Arts

Keeping Chickens

Blacksmithing

Soap Making

Gun Safety

Banjo Playing

Chicken Beauty Contest

Bucket Making

Solar Panels

Rabbit Keeping

Herbal Walk

Line Dancing

Acoustic Guitar

Homesteading Classes:

We tried to attend as many of those as we could, but we would easily get caught up on something and end up being late for the next class. That, combined with a dead camera battery, led to very little being recorded.

We enjoyed everything we attended, but since herbal medicine is something that is on our minds right now, we particularly enjoyed the Herbal Medicine and Herb Walk, which were both given by Sweet Gum Springs Apothecary (Click here for the website).

And, as it happens, the herbal medicine class was the first course we attended, so the camera was still working just fine 🙂 (See the videos below). And, to be fair, we did buy some of their tinctures and have been quite happy with them.

Another interesting tidbit is that the rabbits being shown are from Polyface Farms (Joel Salatin). Just a neat little factoid for you.

Homestead Herb Walk:

Can you tell yet how much I was looking forward to the herbal stuff? Anyhow – we went on a guided tour around a garden and through the property learning about medicinal herbs – some that are cultivated and some that are naturally growing around the area.

If you have never had the “Toothache Plant” (Acmella oleracea), let me tell you know, that is a very unique sensation that it gives your mouth. Not bad, just unique, strange perhaps.

Also, these ladies are growing some Roselle that is so, so sweet. I really just wanted to make an infusion out of it alone.

Which brings up another point – I learned that a “tea” is an “infusion” of tea leaves. As I understood it, the tea leaf was just so widely used that the general act of adding herbs to boiling water became known by the general population as a “tea”, whether tea leaf was involved or not.

My simplistic mind likens it to calling an adhesive bandage a Band-Aid, whether it is that brand or not. But I digress.

Sharing Homesteading Knowledge:

I do find myself enjoying the idea of the Homestead Fair. The concept that a group of people can be assembled with various skills and abilities and gather for the purpose of sharing those skills. That is community. We came together, we conversed, we observed, we inquired, we were instructed.

And we look forward to more of it in the future.

Herbal Medicine Videos: