How are you self reliant?

[Beekissed]

I want to know how each and everyone of you provide for yourself. Do you raise licestock? Do you have a garden? Do you bake bread?

Okay....as long as you hate the US-Duh, you're alright by me!

I do raise licestock .... have raised milk cow here but am now down to hair sheep, chickens and bees~very few honeybees, sorry to say they swarmed on me.

I do garden but this one burned up in the severe drought. In the past I've raised some very lovely gardens and love to can up everything I can to put on the cellar shelves.

I do bake bread. Had a great find of about 400# of red turkey wheat that had been sealed for doomsday that a nice man at church gave me. Also gave me a wheat grinder, so now I can grind my own wheat, kneed my own lovely wheat bread and then chow down on it. I feel like the little red hen!

I've got some huge old apple trees, about 13, and the crop was ginormous this year, go figure! :/

Raised meat chickens this past spring and have about 100# of chicken in the freezer, most of it is waiting to be canned into chicken soup stock.

Raised and killed my own bottle calf last year, butchered it here. My sons bowhunt and we process our own deer year after year....then we moved here on my little acre. Still got deer 2 yrs out of 4, so not bad but there won't be any deer this year.

I've been pretty self reliant for a long time and learned a lot of that lifestyle from my mother and my paternal grandmother. As a single parent, self reliance is more the skin you wear than any kind of lifestyle.

Got lots of pics of butchering our own meats and such if anyone wants to see the gore and blood!

P.S. DACE!! How did you know??????

As president and founder member of PISSI(People In Support of Stress-induced Incontinence), it is only natural that I would anoint my chair now and again. Membership is still open for anyone who also must leak now and again.

 

[BarredBuff]

My dad works for the US-duh. And its odd because I despise them.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Sorry to hear about your bees Bee. Mine swarmed too. Haven't got another hive since then.

We have next to no money, so we better be as self reliant as possible.
Then I also just like to learn how to do stuff.

In the past few weeks I have been learning how to tan/cure a deer hide, make wine, make venison stock, gut, skin and butcher a deer. And I am trying to make myself a straw hat using oat hay I saved for the purpose. Those are just the new skill I am working on.

We grow most of our own vegetables and fruit and preserve it by canning, dehydrating, freezing and fermenting.
We have chickens, goats, a rabbit to fertilize and produce food on one form or another. (the goats are only 6 months old, but eventually they will hopefully provide us with milk and offspring)
We rarely buy anything new. We make do most of the time or do without. We barter for stuff we need or want as much as possible.

We have no health insurance and very limited access to health care, so we make sure we take care of ourselves and use herbal remedies.

I know how to sew, knit and crochet. I cook from scratch, know how to bake bread, have lots of herbal knowledge (and books for the stuff I don't know) Can wire a lamp and other basic electrical things, have built a house, put in lots of gardens in all different kind of circumstances, save my own seeds and am willing to try new stuff.

 

[freemotion]

FD, you simply MUST make a thread with pictures when you make your hat! Are you using instructions from anywhere, maybe a site? Start a thread, please!!!! Pretty please?

 

[FarmerDenise]

I just remember Ma on little house on the prairie made hats one year. I am using long oat grasses, soaking the end of the stem in very warm water in a black bucket. The water was heated in the garden hose by the sun. We'll see how it works. I'll try and remember to take pictures and start a thread

 

[BarredBuff]

My bees did not give honey and both hives swarmed making it 4 hives. I have to feed them now.

 

[TTs Chicks]

We raise meat birds a couple time a year. I have chickens for eggs. Got some geese and ducks this year - ducks started laying a couple weeks ago. Guineas for eating ticks and such. Have some meat rabbits - 1st litter growing out now, need to breed other 2 does. Looking into getting dairy goats. Plan to raise a couple of pigs next year for the freezer. I have tried a couple of small gardens, but haven't been successful - need to get dh on board to help and then maybe try again. Make my own laundry detergent.

 

[Beekissed]

I finally figured out the problem with my bees and it makes me sadder than I can say. They have been starving for most of the summer. All the honey they had made and were making became their food source and they consumed it all, leaving empty comb. The small group left are now working on the last of the honey.

This happened so fast and when I was too busy to mark their progress this summer...and who expects that bees would need feeding in the height of summer? There really is no point in feeding the remaining bees as I suspect there are too few to keep themselves warm this winter anyway. There are less in the hive right now than the original package.

They are really eating the rotten apples right now and I am tempted to feed them but I would rather they left altogether and join another hive. Is this something that may happen? I'd rather they didn't die slowly of hunger and cold.

 

[Henrietta23]

I'm not self reliant at all and probably never will be. I'm interested in doing as much as I can, and will get there in baby steps. I don't buy eggs or milk because we have chickens, ducks and goats. I am not up to processing my own meat. We get a lot from a CSA we belong to and purchase much of the rest from the farmers market. Our garden is a struggle in our small backyard with too much shade, which is created by trees on our neighbors' land. We do what we can with it and grow some in containers on the deck that does get lots of sun.
Mostly I'm here to get as much info as I can on what we CAN do in our situation and to hang out with people who think like we do!