~ Seeking Self-Reliance~

Organic veggies from our garden

My focus homeward began when I was young.  I really shifted my desire  in high school, attempting to drag as many friends as I could into "working a farm" with me.  Long before the CSA was a popular, locally-sustainable way to eat good, organic food I was trying to recruit friends, to no avail.  At that time, my family owned a 40 acre farm, it was to be left to myself and two siblings by my grandfather, who wanted the farm to stay in the family.  I had every intention of farming on that farm, but greed can do bad things to people, and so, off I went in search of another place that I could live self-reliantly. 

  "Today we choose to grow our own food because we prefer quality, and we recognize the tie between good food and good health.  It's hard to buy that kind of quality." ~Harvey Ussery.   I personally just wanted to get my hands in the dirt and raise my own, healthy food.  And so, a big garden went in, I purchased four sheep, brought my chickens with me......and the rest is history. 

I love this life, but one of the biggest misconceptions people have about homesteading & homemaking is that it's tidy, and that every homestead is picture perfect.  The truth is it's a messy, exhausting way to live.  There are always things to do, and you must learn to live with the feeling of not having accomplished all you wanted to on any given day.  For example: today is butter making day, tinctures are brewed and ready to bottle, barn & hen house need cleaning, garden beds still need further amending, wood from the tree limbs need to be stacked..........oh yeah, laundry is piling up and bread needs to be made........will I get to all of them, certainly not, but I'll mark off what I can for today and be satisfied that I did a lot for this one day!  It's a dance, an ebb and flow.

Many people confuse self-reliance with self-sufficiency.  True self-sufficient living is impossible (unless you're Amish maybe).  I can't grow all of my own grain to feed my sheep,  However, I do believe that we can and should, build a community with like-minded people and continuously work toward self-reliance, the ability to make and do things.  Because a self-reliant community builds resilience through networks of shared skills and goods with the goal of sustainable living.

My motto: produce more than I consume.  There are myraid ways to do this, for instance, I play music rather than download it, I knit rather than go to the movies, I grow food rather than buy it from a grocery store, I cook rather than go out to eat.  I love producing for my well-being, it makes my life more interesting, further, I just don't have time to waste money!

  Maybe "progress" means taking a giant step "backward."  The world has become so enarmored with technological solutions that many people don't recognize the efficiency of natural ways.  We need to follow a more cyclical model: Things are produced, they die, and then they are recomposed through natural processes.  In nature, there is no waste.

"Self-sufficient living allows us to experience magic daily, and it's wonderful: the magic of germination, decomposition, the cycling year, the relationship between soil and plants, the diversity of birds and insects, and how they do this great wheeling, complex dance."  Natural processes transform in magical ways.

Start up fees can be exuberant depending on what you desire, but it doesn't have to be.  You can start with a garden and chickens, whatever works for you.  There is a great turning going on in our country, this world.  People are hopeful and being part of a hopeful movement truly is exhilarating.  If you have the dream, desire and work ethic, I say.........FOLLOW THAT DREAM!