Homesteading Life

Notes from the Frontier author's new novel coming soon!

For sound, please click the note icon in the bottom right of the video.

Special thanks to Oscar-Winning Dances with Wolves co-composer Peter Buffett for use of his spectacular music from 500 Nations.

Learn more about Blood to Rubies

Take a wild ride into America’s past.

7 min

Pioneer Survival Guides in the 1800s

The mortality rate of westering pioneers was very high. Perhaps the greatest cause of death was pioneers not knowing the basics of survival.

5 min

1800's Human Hair Funeral Art

As early as the 1400s in Europe, creating hair art to memorialize the dead began, especially because epidemic and plagues took a high toll.

9 min

How Log Cabins Were Built

The log cabin is an American icon. The rough-hewn, squat and humble house has long been lionized in our lore.

8 min

What Pioneers Ate

Pioneer survival depended on harsh realities and there was little room for sentimentality in food production.

5 min

For the Love of Horses (& Mules!)

For those of us who grew up with horses, who know the touch of horses, who love horses, we understand how much we owe to the horse and mule.

6 min

Pig-Malia

Pigs have been maligned and misunderstood throughout history. But the fact is they are smart, clean and do not sweat.

7 min

Frontier Quilts

In frontier America, quilts were a way for women to gain immortality.

7 min

In Praise of Oxen

If patience is a virtue, oxen are saints.

6 min

What Pioneers Packed to Go West

Packing could mean the difference between life and death on the trail and varied wildly depending upon sensibilities.

3 min

Prairie Companions

Because the wilderness was their backyard, many other species of animals were sometimes adopted, usually as babies that could be tamed.

4 min

Outhouses

The little wooden outhouse has been an architectural fixture of America since the 1700s, when it began to replace chamber pots.

2 min

Frontier Tornadoes

The earliest written mention of tornadoes in North America came from explorers in the 1500s.

3 min

1800's Birth Control

Life was hard on the frontier, especially for women.

1 min

Women Homesteaders

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, single women, widows, and divorced or deserted women had the right to claim 160 acres in their own name.

2 min

My Pioneer Mother

Both my mother and my mother-in-law grew up on Iowa farms and attended one-room country schools.