Is becoming Self Sufficient the new fad?

[savingdogs]

Neck and back broken are pretty severe injuries. I am glad she can get around, but I wish she did not have the pain. Poor thing. It is probably hard on you, too.

 

[Dirk Chesterfield]

Is becoming Self Sufficient the new fad?

I think the answer to that question is going to be on an individual basis. For some planting a garden, raising livestock, buying in bulk, canning / dehydrating / laying away a food cache, reducing energy consumption and inventive reusefulness are an economic necessity which will be abandoned in short order after any economic uptick. Many, whether they admit it or not, are addicted to the lure of factory food and gluttonous consumption.

Those of us lucky enough to be grounded in survival skills learned from our parents, grandparents and mentors instead of sound bites, glossy magazines and TV, will most likely continue along the self sufficiency path. The key to making this a permanent change is whether this knowledge and wisdom is successfully passed to the next generation.

When your children and grandchildren envision through gleeful remembrances the simple pleasures of scratch baked bread, luscious meals prepared entirely from the backyard or holding a newborn life in their hands then this knowledge has been placed in a vault that no thief can penetrate.
When they understand that the opposite of self sufficiency is slavery then your job is well done.

 

[chickenone]

Dirk- I think there are many different ways to do life. There is no wrong or right way. Each person has a personal preference, and that is a good thing. I don't believe that people who don't want to grow every morsel of their food are "slaves". They simply have other interests.

 

[Marianne]

I'd like to be more "Green" but it takes too much $ green to do it. So I'll have to make stuff myself. Oops that's a cheap locavore and it's green too. Guess there is more than one way to manage it. . The marketing dept bigwigs will hate me.

Seriously- I don't have the budget for much organic produce, so I got 100 sq ft at the community garden last year. I was a beginner at growing lots of them, and still did pretty good. Saved plenty, and I'm still eating home made pickles. They were harsh (too vinegar-y) at first but are mellowing nicely.

Going green will put green in your wallet. Making non toxic cleaners, bug sprays, etc costs pennies vs dollars spent for different items. Hanging clothes to dry instead of using the dryer all the time will lower your bill. Anything you grow is one thing that you don't have to buy, so pat yourself on the back even if you don't buy organic vegetables at the market.

We all have different levels of SS. Will the trend keep up? Hard to say. We have a friend that now rather looks down his nose at me because of the SS choices I make today. He thinks gardening is beneath him, too much like farming, which is also beneath him. He thinks I act like poor people. Oh har, little does he know!

I read that people born before 1950 are less likely to make 'green' choices or have a SS lifestyle. All three of our kids make green choices, one is very SS in his own unusual lifestyle, another is getting more SS as time goes on. But if TSHTF, I want all three of them here! They all have useful skills and knowledge! They were raised by parents that had no choice but to learn how to do it. Now, we do most everything because we know we can and most of the time, do a better job.

 

[lwheelr]

Naw, more like hostages.

That is what I've felt like for the last two years, having to buy organic food, in a place where I could not grow my own, having to pay whatever price the store nearby chose to charge for it, and only being able to buy what they had available at the time. There were only a few kinds of food I could tolerate when I was at my worst, and I had to have all of those kinds of foods just to get enough balance.

I cannot use canned or dried foods, and organic frozen foods are costly and difficult to find as well. So I need a large amount of fresh produce every week.

I am restricted again, just because there are very few organic items available in this area which I can eat now. So I need to find enough variety every week, even when it costs $4 for a head of lettuce, or when potatoes are $2 per lb.

It has been so nice this week to not have to buy lettuce, and to go down to the garden each day and pick my greens.

What a small thing, but one less cord binding me to being forced to pay whatever the store wants to charge.

That is what self sufficiency means to me now. Never having to buy it because it is the only option.

Of course, I've had food storage, a wheat mill, a Kitchenaid Mixer, a food deyhdrator, and a meat grinder for ages... and used them hard. So this is just the next step - moving where we can grow more.

 

[me&thegals]

I appreciate Dirk's perspective. While I love being as SS as possible, I have to admit that my non-SS friends have a LOT more free time. To them, I probably look like the slave. As with most things in life, there are pros and cons to everything.

 

[Farmfresh]

Free time usually spent in front of the TV if my work friends are any indicator. :/

I get so sick and tired of the conversations that go ... "Did you see ____ on TV last night?!"

Give me muddy fingernails and chicken poo any day!

 

[big brown horse]

I appreciate Dirk's perspective. While I love being as SS as possible, I have to admit that my non-SS friends have a LOT more free time. To them, I probably look like the slave. As with most things in life, there are pros and cons to everything.

Aint that right???

 

[Marianne]

Ya, no kidding! But that's okay! I'm happy with my lifestyle now!

 

[savingdogs]

Free time usually spent in front of the TV if my work friends are any indicator. :/

I get so sick and tired of the conversations that go ... "Did you see ____ on TV last night?!"

Give me muddy fingernails and chicken poo any day!

I'm with you on this one. When I was working and hearing about how other people spent their day off (watching Oprah, soap operas and reality shows like Who wants to Marry a Millionaire?). I do watch a few select television shows and follow the news, but if we no longer had TV at all at my house it would not change my life very much. I could not believe what some women spend on their fingernails alone, or their hair color.

A few times I have looked at the cup-and-a-half of milk from my FF doe and think, "All this work for a cup and a half of milk?" and then I have to remember this is the first step in a long term goal and the beginning of a learning curve for my new way of life. Because this lifestyle isn't something I plan to discard when things get better. I may buy "convenience" items, but the ones I really covet are things that would make my SS life more convenient, ie, a generator, a pole barn, a greenhouse, a giant goat barn, and lots and lots of fencing. When I hear my old girlfriends talk, they discuss coveting being able to eat out in fancy restaurants, get expensive spa treatments such as pedicures and shop altogether more than they need to and hate their life so much all they want is their next vacation or their evening cocktail.

Even if I HAD the money, I would not spend it that way. That is part of why we left Los Angeles. I refused to buy 100 dollar outfits every day for my children for them to fit in to the upper middle class white neighborhood we lived in. Tain't right! And I've never been a keep-up-with-the Joneses type. I've always preferred blue jeans to nylons and a dog friendly jeep to a fancy sports car.

And if I won the lotto I'd build a cool SS house right here and put a boarding kennel/shelter right here with the money, maybe take a vacation to the beach.....or Ohio to visit all my SS friends. But those would be my goals and aspirations, and they were BEFORE we saw soapmaking demos on the morning news and backyard chicken articles in the Sunday paper.

Why did everyone COPY me? But the other day a veterinarian friend of mine asked if she could come up and check out my meat rabbit operation.....I almost fell over onto the floor. I feel like such a novice at all this, I've been a rabbit breeder all of five months! But I guess raising rabbits for meat is part of the "fad" too.