Bradley Kirsten - Milkwood: real skills for down-to-earth living

Welcome to Milkwood

This book is a gathering of skills and knowledge five subjects to get you started on a hand-made, home-made life. It doesnt matter where you live, or what you already know or dont know. What matters is that youd like to get started, and to dive in deep.

But, where do you start? So many skills and new ideas its all a little daunting...

Wed recommend that you start with one single, simple, doable thing. It might be learning to grow tomatoes on your windowsill, or learning which green leaves are edible in your local wild space. It might be planting a bee-friendly garden. Or gathering blackberries from the laneway, or seaweed from the beach.

Learn how to do that one thing, and make it a habit. Because what we habitualise, we take into the heart of everyday life. This is how life works, and its how creating a home-made life works also. Once that one skill is mastered, choose one more thing. And then another. And then another.

Over time, youll find that your newfound skills complement each other, and inform other skills and knowledge. As your confidence grows, things get interesting. You realise that it really is possible to do it yourself, or that we can do it together, and create abundance for many. Skills create strong communities, as well as tasty dinners and beehives and full cupboards of home-made goodness.

The skills in this book belong to us all, and to our grandparents, and to our grandchildren. After the screens are put away, and the busyness of modern life is paused, what are we made from? Recipes, stories, methods. Love, effort, possibilities. We are our relationships with the animals and plants that we steward, and the landscapes that we live in. The paths to the gully where we forage, the junk that we repurpose, the recipes we teach our children, the music that we make around the fire, and the food that we share across the table.