The Made From Scratch Life

Simple Ways to Create a Natural Home

Do you long for a simple life, one that follows the ebb and flow of seasons? Perhaps homesteading on acreage sounds fine in theory, but you’re not sure you could actually pull it off.  Melissa K Norris does it every day and her new book, The Made from Scratch Life, will give you the inspiration to do it too.

Melissa has a lot of knowledge about homesteading and has been sharing ideas weekly on her website www.melissaknorris.com for many years. When I went over there today I found posts about How to Make Homemade Crackers in 5 Minutes, 10 Ways to Keep Warm Without Electricity, and even a Podcast with 5 Life Lessons from the Great-Depression. She’s living the life!

You can expect these same kinds of pioneering ideas in her book, The Made from Scratch Life. Chapter headings include Grow, Harvest, Preserve, Cook, Clean, Prepare, Livestock, and Traditions.

Here Are Some of the Highlights I Enjoyed From the Made From Scratch Life:

• In the Cook chapter – 18 time-tested recipes from the Norris family. These recipes really are from scratch and can be made just as our ancestors did it. Melissa even cooks on a wood stove, but that’s completely optional for the rest of us!
• In the Clean chapter – Melissa shares several homemade cleaning product recipes and tells the story of her teenage self at her first paid housecleaning gig. She was tasked with cleaning the oven, had never done it before, and didn’t want to tell the housewife she was inexperienced. I’m sure we’ve all done something similar. Winging it to keep up appearances and pretend we’re more knowledgeable than we really are. Melissa cleaned that oven without gloves, got awful chemical burns, and learned this valuable lesson:
  

  “In our homes and lives, there are so many dangerous things – and we don’t realize the harm until the damage is done. We can wear gloves and hope we’re protected, but we’d really be better off if we never came into contact with it at all.”

• In the Prepare chapter – Melissa discusses the difference between frugal and cheap. She talks about the importance of food storage and living like the pioneers. I completely identified with her discussion of dreams –vs –reality in a made from scratch life.
  

  “My gaze roves over my home. Wouldn’t marble or granite look better than the tile-wrapped Formica I have? …Everywhere we turn, we can find ideas and ways to change our homes. I gaze at pictures worthy of gracing a magazine with…surfaces gleaming, and my heart begins to yearn for things beyond what I have.” She says, “I felt God whisper to me, why do you long for these things? These are nothing compared with the mansion I’m building for you in heaven.”

 

Who will enjoy The Made-from-Scratch Life: Simple Ways to Create a Natural Home?

Anyone looking for old-fashioned, from scratch recipes and old-time know-how.

Anyone looking for evidence that a simple – from scratch life – is a life well lived.

Anyone that appreciates seeing the hand of God at work in their daily life.

This book is as much about how God makes you from scratch as it is about how you create your own life. I found this book to be a refreshing look at one person’s simple, made from scratch life and above all, it was a wonderful reminder to be happy with the life that’s been created for my family.

About the author: Melissa K Norris inspires people’s faith and pioneer roots with her books, podcast, and blog. Melissa lives with her husband and two children in their own little house in the big woods in the foothills of the North Cascade Mountains. When she’s not wrangling chickens and cattle, you can find her stuffing Mason jars with homegrown food and playing with flour and sugar in the kitchen.

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