It’s important to think of “Sustainable Living” as a valuable survival skill. Think of it more like a self-sustaining lifestyle. These skills can help you both survive a crisis and improve your day to day life.

In this episode, I talk about why sustainable living skills are important, and then talk about which ones I think are the most important. If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment with your ideas.

You can either listen to the episode below, or download it to listen whenever you want.

Download: OSI #2: Sustainable Living

Since it’s deer season, I was skimming over the venison section of my copy of Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game, by By John Mettler, Jr., DVM. If you are interested in sustainable living, hunting, or ranch life, you need to read this book.

It covers killing, skinning, quartering, and butchering of several popular livestock and game animals. It does this with detailed instructions and illustrations. Here are some of the meats you can learn to butcher from this book:

• Beef
• Veal
• Pork
• Lamb
• Poultry
• Venison

There’s even a section for less popular (in America) meats such as goat, and over 30 recipes at the end of the book. Basically, this book walks you through taking the animal from the field to the table. This book is a must-have reference for anyone looking to take care of their own meat.

Pick up a copy at Amazon.com:

Well, my tomatoes are starting to grow!! I’ve got three little tomatoes sprouting from my plants (2 plants). I’m pretty excited about them. You see, I love tomatoes, and it seems I’ve got a bit of a green thumb, too. Yes, it is probably too early to make such a bold claim, but I’m going to throw it out there any way.

If I think of it tomorrow, I’ll take a few pictures of it and post them here.

Not much of a gardener? Don’t worry, I’m not either. But that’s not going to stop me! I have — just this afternoon — planted two tomato plants. We love tomatoes at this house, so that’s what I planted. I just took two tomato plants that I bought from Lowes (”patio” tomatoes), and put them in a self-watering container filled with organic potting soil.

Why vegetables? The answer is simple. We need vegetables to be healthy. Even though we get key amino acids from meats, it’s entirely possible to live off of nothing but fresh veggies and water. The survival implications here should be obvious: Gardening should be a skill you have if you are at all interested in survival, homesteading, sustainable living, or anything in between.

This is not my first gardening experience. Two years ago I successfully grew some fresh herbs in my kitchen for cooking. They were great. Now I’m trying my hand at tomatoes to prepare me for having an actual garden in the earth on the land we’re going to acquire sometime this year.

I’ll post pictures of my tomato plant’s progress through life.