Is self sufficiency sustainability?

[pioneergirl]

Every evening I think about what I will do the next day for my self. Things I don't have to pay for to get done, or to attain. The tools I use to do these things are at a price, yes, because I can't build my own circular saw. But just like the stove, I have it, so I use it.

As with my canning supplies. Yes, the upfront cost was there, but I reuse most everything! Jars, rings, pressure canner, ladle, pots, stove, etc. I also reuse my stove. Therefore, to me, the initial cost is nothing when spread out over all of the times I've reused it. If I purchase a pack of heirloom seeds for $2.75, and plant each one. Then, from each seed I get, say, 100 more seeds, then to me, although I've purchase one pack, I now have 100's more seeds to plant for my own use. I can also barter with those seeds, or even give them to someone who actually NEEDS them! Where is the loss, or inefficiency in that?

I believe its highly inefficient to take my laundry to the laundro-mat when I can use my own washer. Between gas, time, and paying of the machine at the facility or someone to do it for me, it doesn't pay me back. By using my own machine, I can regulate the water, the soap, and not use the dryer, and not even leave the house!

You get the point.....I'm just saying that you can't compare being SS to being pregnant. There is no finite equation here....there are degrees of SS, depending on the individual and their abilities or time/space. And even if someone were to become completely SS, does NOT mean they are out of society. Why can't they go to the movie? Or visit friends for a beer and camp fire? Who dictates the isolation? Not me! I choose not to use lights in the daytime....that is me not relying on the electric company to help me see in the house during the day. I use the sun. That, to a degree, is SS.

Just sayin'.

 

[Farmfresh]

So, what would happen if the people with the means to buy some land and begin living SS did just that. What happens to the people in the cities with no land who rely on their jobs at the Walmart, Lowes, or the canning factories or groceries and other retail stores?

Well ... since I have been SS for the last 25+ years and have lived in townhouses or a single family urban home with a 40x120 foot lot the ENTIRE time... I say they should get SS and live a better life as well!

Sure I still live on grid, and need more money to live on than if I owned many acres, but I live on significantly less money than my other city neighbors do! Just sayin'.

 

[freemotion]

It's been a looooooong day, and this is a looooooong thread. Sorry, Buster. Not completely typical. What were we talking about?

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Sorry, Buster.

yep.

come on over to the meat chickens thread or over to my journal where i'm blaming you for turning to the dark side.

 

[Buster]

Bartering and local economies would have been a much better tact for you to take to make your "not necessarily" point. Instead, you took the worst possible possibility (energy canned and shipped factory farmed mega-monocrop vegetables coated in fossil fuel).

Very bad idea.

If you're gonna put a theory to the test, put it to the worst possible test you can find. If it holds up under that -- which you ceded that it did -- it'll hold up under anything.

I give you credit for being much smarter than that. I think we both know better.

 

[Buster]

Bartering and local economies would have been a much better tack for you to take to make your "not necessarily" point. Instead, you took the worst possible possibility (energy canned and shipped factory farmed mega-monocrop vegetables coated in fossil fuel).

Very bad idea.

ROTFLMAO.

+100 style points to Buster

Thanks. I've been reading too much Salatin, I think.

 

[redux]

this could have been such an interesting thread.

 

[Buster]

I look to John Jeavons biointensive gardening as my model for the type of self sufficiency that is sustainable.

Under that system (experts in that system can correct me if I'm wrong), if properly executed, an individual can be fed a complete vegetarian diet for an entire year on 4,000 square feet of soil without any outside inputs. You grow food along with compost crops, which are grown specifically for compost. It obviously requires some outside inputs originally until your soil is sufficiently built up, and the original seeds you use will need to be obtained elsewhere, but once it is going, the system requires nothing but sunshine, work, and water.

His idea being that anything you have to bring in from the outside makes the system less sustainable, because you are robbing nutrients from elsewhere. You are depleting the planet's resources. Your footprint for food is reduced to 4,000 square feet. The folks at the Ecology Action posit this system is 99% sustainable (nothing can be 100% due to entropy).

That system is both self sufficient and sustainable.

I take this example as the ideal for all areas of my life. In general, the fewer inputs I have to import (take from somwhere or someone else), in any part of my living, the more sustainable my living, the smaller my ecological footprint.

 

[freemotion]

I just got Holy Cows and Heavenly Hogs from the library! Can't wait to start it! Also a big huge manual for starting an organic farm. Salatin does it so much better. The organic rules are interesting to read, though. SOOOOO many exceptions to the rules! I harrumph at the "unless composted" exceptions. You can't use certain non-organic wastes......"unless composted." Like composting gets rid of all chemicals. Yeah, right. Plus they import these wastes. Yikes. Interesting read.

I'm on a waiting list for Salad Bar Beef. It is encouraging that there is a waiting list, here in the suburbs of MA.

 

[Farmfresh]

if and when TS really does HTF -- where would you get...... Nails. Just for instance.

Well MY neighbor is a blacksmith so I would probably walk down the street and buy some from him.