The same with the need to wear clothes. Learning to sew your own garments takes you ahead of the pack because you can make what you need in the colors and fabrics that you want and you can size it to fit.

During my lifetime, before I got to disabled to do them, I could grow vegatable and can and freeze them at the end of summer, made my own jams and jellies, baked all my bread from scratch. I still make most of my own clothes and my husbands pajamas (the rest of his things are bought at yard sales). He built the house we live in so when something breaks he usually can problem solve how to fix things.

Many of the so called pioneering spirits thing to do are enjoyable activities. When I was in 6th grade (in the 60′s) I was already baking up a storm every Saturday. I could make anything I wanted as long as I cleaned up afterwards. I made bread and coffee cakes and cookies and cakes. By the time I graduated high school I could pull off cooking dinner for a crowd with ease. You never hear of young girls doing things like that anymore.

I think it is sad that kids today do not seem to have any idea how to maintain a home, cook, sew, be frugal, care for a car, etc.

My aunts and grandmother could and did bottle ‘can’ fruit, salt beans, make jams, make pickles, make cheese. knit and sew all their clothes – including underwear – make ham and bacon, make wine and beer as well as mend clothes.

It somehow skipped my mother, but I too can do all of these things.

I’m in my 50′s and remember when home ec and woodshop were required courses. I think it’s a shame that those don’t seem to exist in schools any more. Kids don’t seem to be exposed to the pleasures of making something themselves from scratch… though I might be wrong!

All the emphasis is on “team” but there’s a lot to be said for pride in individual accomplishment. Are we training this out of the next generation? Where will innovations come from, if people don’t learn how to explore individual accomplishment and make what they imagine come to life?

Maybe I’m all wet, but just a thought. To me, it’s part and parcel of the pioneer spirit.

My mother was appalled when I purchased my 100 year old house in St. Charles. I referred to it as my slum reclamation project.

Many times I wished my dad was still alive to walk me through how to do something, but I learned how to repair lathe and plaster, do basic electrical and plumbing work, strip and refinish windows and floors, paint, lay tile, and a bunch of other things.

I grew up knowing how to sew, knit, crochet and do fine needlework — as a matter of fact, my imagination was first let loose designing clothes for my dolls (the only thing I liked to do with dolls) and creating my own needlework designs. I still repair tears, sew on buttons and use needlework (needlepoint, crewel, crossstitch, etc.) to keep my hands busy when I’m not carving or sculpting.

I’ve gotten great pleasure from refinishing tables whose surfaces were marred, repairing an antique needlepoint cushion for a chair that was my grandparents’, laying a path through my garden and building a brick/stone wall and am currently planning on building some structures — possibly an arch, definitely an obelisk — for my current garden.

Seeing something being done and doing it yourself gives you a greater appreciation of what it really takes to accomplish something.

That doesn’t mean that I haven’t hired painters, cabinet makers, plumbers, electricians, seamstresses, etc. Sometimes it’s worth the money to either have an expert do it or use my time to do something else, but I have a greater appreciation and understanding of how such things are done … and a sense of pride when I do it myself and it turns out well. And all of that is priceless.