Laura Ingalls Wilder was my best friend growing up and I always wanted to live like they did on Little House on the Prairie®. My mother read every night to me from the Little House on the Prairie® books and when I was older, I read through them on my own. We watched the television show and much of my play time was spent pretending I was with Laura running wild in the big woods or through the “prairie” grass of our back pasture.
As you may have guessed, my love didn't die as I grew into an adult. I'm eager to share Laura's stories with my own children and future generations. In a culture based on instant gratification, smart phones, and drive thru's, I want my children to know the reward of working hard for something. I don't want the traditional skills to be lost or old-fashioned ways forgotten. I believe in knowing how to do things for yourself and teaching others to do the same. You may have guessed I've been called old-fashioned more than once in my life.
So when Little House on the Prairie® offered me the chance to help launch their official website and giveaway some old-fashioned fun, you knew I was in. Can I get a holler from my other Little House fans!
Here are my best 8 tips for living like a little house pioneer.
Living Like Little House on the Prairie®
1.Cook from scratch. It's amazing how many folks don't know how to make things from scratch and I used to be one of them. I used to rely on canned cream of soups, packets of this and that, and pre-made mixes. Until I started researching the ingredients, cutting out processed foods, and realized it is way more frugal and tastier to make it at home. I've got over 40+ of old-fashioned from scratch recipes for you, including some of my great-grandmother's.
Don't be overwhelmed by making things from scratch. Pick one item you usually purchase from the store and focus on making that at home until you've got it down and it's part of your normal routine, then move on. It might be homemade bread (or this no-knead 5 minute bread), homemade yogurt, or a condensed can of soup replacement.
2. Grow a garden. Growing your own food doesn't have to take acres and acres of land. Every one can grow something from basil on a windowsill without any dirt to a full on garden. Fresh food grown at home is not only frugal, but healthier for you. We do an all heirloom garden to avoid GMO's and to allow us to save the seed. Plus, you can't get more pioneerish than heirloom seeds. One of the easiest crops to grow as it requires little space is lettuce. Check out these historical lettuce varieties and how to grow them.
If you're just starting out with a garden, start small. You'll gain confidence and won't overwhelm yourself. Here are some of our favorite crops and how to grow them at your house. How to grow strawberries, how to grow beets, and when and how to plant your own fruit trees and orchard. P.S. there's even container gardening tips for fruit trees. You can see all of our gardening articles here.
3. Preserve your own food. You may not be able to grow it all, but what you do grow and what you get from other sources should be preserved for future eating. There are many ways to preserve food at home from freezing, canning, dehydrating, fermenting, root cellar, and even in alcohol or oil.
My favorite is canning. There's just something about all those pretty jars filled with food sitting on the shelf. Plus, I'm a self-proclaimed-no-shame-in-it admitted canning addict.
Home canned food is frugal, especially when you grow it yourself, and makes cooking from scratch extremely easy because all you have to do is open a jar and heat on those nights you're pressed for time or plain don't feel like cooking.
I preserve my food in many different ways depending upon the way I want to use it later. Are you ready for this? I have a complete 112+ FREE Ultimate Home Food Preservation Guide that covers all of this with equipment guides, recipes, tutorials, and more.
Preserving your own food at home will also help you build up a food storage.
4. Stock the basics. When Laura and Pa went to town for supplies, they didn't grab this or that and have aisle upon aisles of food to pick from (thought I'm not convinced all the “food” on store shelves today is really food with all of the chemicals in it). They stocked basic items they could make multiple meals from like salt, oats, sugar, and coffee. Here are 8 foods everyone should be storing and how.
If you have the basics in stock it will be much easier to make your meals from scratch. You won't have to run to the store every time you want to cook. That can get costly and make you less likely to cook due to the hassle.
5. Dry your clothes the old-fashioned way. One of my most favorite ways to dry clothes is on the line. It relaxes me, saves money on our power bill, cuts own the wear on our dryer, and also helps the wear of your clothes. You know that dryer lint you clean out? That's your clothes wearing out faster than they should. You can also use a drying rack if a line isn't something you want in your yard, HOA's prohibit it or weather doesn't permit you to drying clothes outside.
A drying rack is the most versatile way to dry clothes because you can move it from room to room, outside, and even take it camping with you to hold swimsuits and towels. But, I have to advise you against the cheaper models. I've went through two as the wood when wet can stain clothes and they also seem to come apart. I'd rather invest in a model that holds more clothes and won't break easily like this stainless steel fold out rack.
6. Raise your own chickens. Chickens are a small enough animal that even many urban residences can keep laying hens. You'll want to check with your city ordinances to be sure. Having a fresh egg source is wonderful. Here's our tips for backyard chickens.
Chickens are also a great way to raise your own meat. We had our first batch of meat chickens last year and are doubling our numbers this year. Here's how to raise meat chickens and how to butcher chickens.
7. Learn to cook without power. Laura, Mary, and Ma all cooked on a wood stove or open camp fire while traveling over the prairie. Having these skills is essential during a power outage and brings your variety of foods around the campfire to a whole new level. Plus, you'll never feel more like a pioneer when cooking over a fire. Here's 11 Ways to Cook without Electricity.
8. Wear an apron. Seriously, all pioneer woman wore an apron. One, to use as a built in pot holder while moving hot dishes from ovens or over open fires. Two, they usually only had two or three dresses and an apron helped keep them cleaner and made them last longer. Three, an apron served as a second set of hands with its pockets.
I love that these aprons aren't just the little half ones that cover your waist because maybe I”m just the messiest cook around, but I always managed to get flour or grease or whatever I'm making splattered up my front... these have you covered.
If you're looking for a simpler dish cloth apron you can sew at home check out this easy homemade Dishcloth apron tutorial.
8 Ways to Live Like Little House on the Prairie® Resources
These tools will help you implement Little House on the Prairie in your own home and kitchen. Vintage and modern style aprons for mom and daughter alike. Ultimate Home Food Preservation Guide… it's totally free!
Can I tell you how much I love Amazon. I know Laura didn't have it, but it kind of reminds me of the catalogs they could order items from, except we get it in two days and free shipping!
Learn how to implement these tips with this simple living book The Made-From-Scratch Life, recipes, heirloom gardening, homemade natural cleaning products and more!
A pioneer woman knows how to take advantage of a deal that saves her time, gas money, and tromping through stores. Stainless steel drying rack to save you money, save power, and allows you to dry clothes no matter what the weather or bossy rules say.
The complete Little House on the Prairie® boxed book set. Because every pioneer knows books are a treasured item. I think my favorite of the books was Little House in the Big Woods… but I loved them all.
Need more tips? Check out 8 Tips to Live Like Pa Ingalls and the Pioneers from the Little House Books. Did you read Little House on the Prairie® books as a child? What was your favorite part?
Wish there was a book w boys! I have grandsons, too
There is, Farmer Boy is all about her husband as a child.
I’m looking forward to reading your website! I’ve been feeling my way towards a conversion to the Little House way of life for some time now, and am reading the books with my daughter. Thank you for providing the information I’ve been searching for.
I LOVE the Little House series and even found a cookbook about 26 years ago with all the foods they made,between the Wilder and Ingalls families I and refer to it often and learned how to make soap
to cheese to Jonny cakes!
Melissa, love this post (and LHOP!). But I can’t do Number 6 – not allowed to keep chickens in town! And I need to wear an apron more often – I have several, but rarely use them, as if I *prefer* to splatter up my clothes! 🙂
The Long winter was my favourite.. I still read it almost every winter. If Laura and the rest could get through what they di without much heat or food, i can hamdle my-30*c winters with modern day amenities. Great tips. Going to hop over to the little house website now.
I do all of the above, except chickens. We had chickens for six years, but too many critters around here like to eat them. We even had a hawk fly under the netting! The final straw was the bear who knocked down the fence and ripped the door off the coop to get the last two chickens. My husband spends the winter months planning the garden layout – we can’t wait to get into the garden!
Hello! I’m new to your blog and absolutely love it! I’m so glad to know that I’m not the only one out there who wants to live more like Laura Ingalls. 🙂 Great blog with wonderful posts!
Thanks so much and welcome AJ!
Hi, i want thank you for wrote this text , its amazing know which more people remember this moments so incredible from this series,here in my country Brazil seems nobody care,i’ve seem every epidose from this serie,they pass so much important messages.
Again THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ,you make me so happy with every single word.
ps: sorry for my english,much time without pratice.
Hug
I remember my mom having calico dresses and bonnets made for my sister and I for Easter, in the little house style.
Ronda,
What a sweet memory! Do you still have those dresses?
I loved “Little House on the Prarie” so much that I named my daughter, Laura Elizabeth.
Thanks, Great article, we lived this way when we wre young and when our kids were young and now we are in our 60s and we are doing it again. We only eat true organic or as close as we can come, local famers markets. We freeze and can everything, no more plastics or packaging. The garden and animals will wait until we find a home in the country again.
Hi Melissa,thank you so much.I’m just like you,i used to play like laura,till now i like to tell my children how this film was so beautiful.God bless you
I loved little house also and everybody I know says I should have been born a century ago. I find satisfaction in growing my food crocheting and canning. I’m glad there’s someonelse like me
I so agree with everything that you’re saying here! I, too, am often called old-fashioned, behind the times, etc. But I’ll be the one who has the skills when the skills are needed. Of your eight suggestions, I am already proficient at six. I still need to learn more about cooking on a wood stove, and I don’t dry my clothes on a rack, but I do all of the other things that you suggested, and they’re all a joy to me. It’s a way to love my family by feeding them healthy, home grown food, and by saving on bills. I wish that there were more people like us in the world. I think that it would be a better place.
Eeeek I love your site so much! I always felt I was born in the wrong era… SO not a fan of the hustle and bustle these days. Great tips! I try to do some of these but I would love to learn canning!
Mary
http://simplynatureplusturture.com
Hey, Mary,
Thanks! I’m going to be doing a canning course this spring. If you subscribed to the newsletter you’ll get all the details.
I also grew up with the Little house on the prairie. When you first noted the book series a while ago, I purchased the book set and had a mini-marathon with my two granddaughters who live with me. My 7 year old was so intrigued with Laura, that she started reading the books also with minimal help. She has discovered a world in reading and understands much that she reads. I am hoping all of the areas I also partake in, including much of what you listed and my love for the fiber arts including spinning, knitting, weaving, etc. will be passed on to future generations.
Thank you for helping encourage our family.
I love Laura and how they lived and we live that way to we grow our and meat and canned lots from the garden. We cook at home I don’t like eating out
Michelle,
Same here. It’s so nice to know exactly went into your meet and how the animal was cared for.
I found your blog via Pinterest and had to read it since I’m an avid Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. I’m blessed to be able to live in the country, where I raise chickens and a pig! I can a bit of everything from venison to jam all year. It’s so nice to be able to do for yourself instead of buying everything at a store. Now if we could just move farther into the mountains we’d be happy! Haha! I’m ready to go off the grid just a bit!
Wonderful article! Have you read “A Little House Sampler”? It’s a great book with Rose Wilder Lane and Laura Ingalls Wilder both. I have it and a Little House Cookbook that I found on a trip to Missouri.
Hi, Beth!
I haven’t read “A Little House Sampler”… how did I miss that one. I’ll have to check it out. And you’re talking my language, I’m a mountain girl through and through. We’ve got three pigs right now and butchering one of our steers Tuesday for our beef. Sounds like we’re both two peas in a pod.
Thanks for a wonderful post! I found out that I too live like Laura…good to know!
Janelle,
Us Ingall type girls have to stick together!
Only thing I don’t do are cook without power or line dry. Thank you for the ideas on how to further this say of life. It is wonderful and frugal and allowed me to be a stayat home mom. Love this post.
Melissa,
What a blessing to be at home with your babies. So glad you enjoyed it!
Great site Melissa. I’m quite a bit older than you but was blessed to have a wonderful 3rd grade teacher that would read the Little House books to us at the end of the school day, with our heads down on our desks. I fell in love instantly. I was already a mom when the show came on. Michael Landon always had the gift of making the audience “feel”. I’m glad you get to live your dreams…….wish we could too!! I know my husband would be all for it if we didn’t have to work in the city.
Thanks, Kathy. We’re lucky enough to be able to commute to our jobs and still be able to live in the country. I hope you get to do that some day, too!
I’m really enjoying your site and the wealth of information that you have posted. 🙂
Just his past year I have been working towards living a more self-sustainable life and one of the things that I have been more intentional about is air drying our cloths. The problem is that I cannot figure out how to get rid of the excess lint that’s on the cloths when they come out of the washer. Do you have any suggestions that might help?
Interesting your comments about drying clothes on a line. Here in England, that’s viewed as normal and I agree, it’s so satisfying to bring in your clothes and linens all fresh-smelling from outside. I use my dryer to fluff up towels or to just finish off line-dried clothes that I want to avoid having to iron! x x
[…] Did you miss part 1? Check it out here and be sure to enter the giveaway–> 8 Ways to Live Like Little House on the Prairie® […]
I would absolutely love to win this giveaway! I think all 8 of your ideas from Laura Ingalls are spot-on!! We are so blessed to have her writings to learn from and enjoy. Living on anything close to 40 acres is a dream of mine.
A few coats of polyurethane render a wooden clothes drying rack much more useful. They are nice for indoor drying, or for small clothes on a day when you do more wash than your clothesline can handle. We are making a homestead on 40 acres of a Montana mountain, 10 miles from pavement or power lines
how do you enter the drawing
Click inside the giveaway box where it says unlock more ways to enter. The first entry is entering in your email for the official Little House on the Prairie website newsletter.
I think you missed the boat on the aprons. Instead of a link where they can buy an apron how about endorsing the old fashioned skill of sewing them – that’s how ma would have gotten hers. Good beginner project as well!
Audrey
I can’t purchase all the fabric and notions for the price of the aprons I linked too. But sewing is definitely a Little House way of living. Thanks for the suggestion and I’ll find a tutorial to link too.
Larene,
I sent you an email but in case you didn’t get it, just enter in your email (in the giveaway box) and click the check box button and then hit enter. That should unlock the other ways for extra entries as well.
Now that was a good find!
I loved the Little House series as a kid. I used the books for homeschool curriculum with my daughter in the third grade, and now my grandchildren are enjoying them. My oldest grand daughter particularly loves them. She has read her mother’s copies so many times they have fallen apart. I’m sure she has read the whole series at least fifteen times!
Hi, Love your site & Little House on the Prairie . I’m trying to enter the contest and I can’t figure out how to do it. Would you give me info as to HOW?? Thanks, LaRene
I love all the Little House books, and have read and reread multiple times. I’m really looking forward to the new book, but I’ve been on an Amazon waiting list for months!
I liked Caroline but also Laura. I cook from scratch and have a garden. I believe the best way to save money is to cook from scratch.
LOVED the Little House books when growing up and have read most of them with my children. I’m happy to say I do 6 of the 8. I don’t have much opportunity to cook over an open fire or wood stove (but would love to), and I am terrible about wearing an apron. I need to find one I love – most of what I have don’t fit right. I can’t wait for the snow to melt so I can get to my clothes line and hang out laundry. I have an old rack we found last summer at a garage sale but I haven’t used it yet because I just don’t know where I can set it up. 🙂
Your free download is not working again. It brings up a box that tells you to click on the Download button, but all that does is brings up a screen that says Thank you. Then the download box comes up again over your site. It just keeps repeating.
Thank you
Doris
Thanks for the heads up. You should get the free e-books and Ultimate Home Food Preservation Resource Guide links in an email.
Dee,
You made me choke up. Prayers for you and what a tribute. It sounds like your daughter was an amazing girl.
Yay!
I didn’t know about the cookbook! I’ll have to check it out.
I too grew up on Little House and Laura Ingels. I introduced my daughters to her and the books and shows and movies. My youngest especially LOVED them ALL! She watched every video in the Little House video library we collected, and every show on tv, over and over and over again. She and I cooked and baked things from the stories. She was so inspired by Laura and her writing that my daughter also aspired to become a writer, “just like Laura”. At 13 one of her poems was used in an American Poetry book and she won an award. My daughter was 14 when she went to Heaven, watching Little House and reading her books. Her 17th birthday is this month. I miss her more than ever. She has been sending me “signs” that she is still with me from time to time. I believe your blog today is another that she made sure I found. Thank you for writing it – and the memories. Blessings to you >
This post made me smile! 🙂 I loved LHOTP as a kid, and you reminded me to read them to my kids.
I also read the Little House books sooo many times over that I lost count. My favorite parts were the descriptions of Ma’s wonderful meals, and how she could make a feast out of the humblest ingredients.
I recommend the Little House cookbook, as it compiles snippets of the all the books, along with the recipe to recreate Ma’s dishes from that chapter in the book.
I wore out two sets of the Laura Ingalls books when I was growing up. I dreamed of being a mom like Ma. I have to say I’ve been able to fulfill a lot of that goal. I was even able to keep chickens for a short while when we were living in the country. We had a wood stove as a supplemental heating system, and in the winter I did almost all of my cooking on it. I learned how to start a fire and keep it going, how to build it up to boil something and then let it cool a little for a simmer.
Thank you for reminding me that even with modern conveniences I can have a simple “Laura Ingalls” life.
Jennifer,
You’re so right we can do “Laura Ingalls” life anywhere. While I love being able to “homestead” anyone can experience the simple life. I adore cooking on our wood stove and it takes a few changes to learn how to regulate the heat instead of turning or down a knob, but it’s so worth it. So glad you got to experience some of that.
If you went to my middle school/high school library where I went over 30 years ago and looked up the digital check out records of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books you would find my name over and over in each book. From about 5th grade through 12th grade I continually checked out every single book and read them over and over in order. There was one other book I found called The Root Cellar. It was similar and I threw that one in every once in a while. And now even as a single mom, my one dream in life is to have a tiny converted shed cabin on no more than 2 acres or so and of course, wi-fi 🙂 So, that’s what I’m blogging, working, writing, and saving for. LOVE this!!!
April,
I love it! The library was and is still one of my favorite places. I haven’t heard of The Root Cellar so I’ll check it out. Thanks.
April, i want that too. But my house will need to be a bit bigger than a cabin because there are lots of us.
I just bought The Root Cellar from kindle and finished it in one afternoon. Today actually. Very good read. I will have to look for the hawthorn series now.
Thanks for the recommendation. Just what the momma needed while ill.
Who is the author of the root cellar?
The link to the aprons is not working.
Thanks Gretchen! I got it fixed. 🙂
Rhonda,
Thank you. It truly is one of my favorite series and inspired my way of life.
Melissa, I like the way you pulled the simplicity of the Ingalls’ way of life out and gave it us in warm and thoughtful ways. Thanks for sharing such a genuine article.
Giveaway link isn’t working 🙁
Dayna,
Sorry about that! It’s fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.
Yay – thank you!