Lady Henevere: Year in review

[Lady Henevere]

I came home from work to find this on the counter, and it cracked me up. (It's a Harry Potter reference, for those of you who don't know.)

Nice to know the raspberries don't actually need a trellis -- that makes things easier. I do need to trellis some boysenberries that are sprawling everywhere. They looked so pathetic last year that I thought they weren't going to do well in this heat, but this year they have proved me wrong -- they are huge!

I woke up yesterday thinking, "It's August. You have squash seedlings that aren't even in the ground yet. You're never getting anything out of those." Whoops. Maybe it's too late, but I planted six of them anyway. We have no frost here, but the annuals die off when the days get shorter and cooler in October/November. Maybe I'll get a squash or two out of them. If I remember to water, that is -- it's going to be hot and dry here for a few months still.

Other than that, it's busy busy busy with back-to-school (I can't believe DD is starting high school -- I feel so old!). My 15-year-old cousin is now living with us, and I have agreed to be her learning coach for online school. Not sure what to expect for that, but I hope I can do a good job and not have it create tension between us.

That's it for today. Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

 

[Farmfresh]

The easiest way I came up with for growing berries was to basically box them.

I put a row of tall T-posts about 12 to 18 inches out from the base of the plants on EACH SIDE of the row, about the same distance as you would for a fence. Then I installed three rows of heavy smooth wire, starting about 2 feet from the ground and ending at the top of the posts. This basically formed a wire box with the berries growing freely in the middle of it. You can also add a wire or two here and there where you need it most between the rows.

When I first took over my old garden their were berries that were trellised on woven wire stock fencing. What a HUGE mess! The vines would get all wound up together and viney weeds would wind in as well. Hard to pick and hard to prune. The box them up method works FAR better.

 

[Henrietta23]

Oh, I am soooo stealing that idea and leaving DH a message while DS and I are away!!

 

[framing fowl]

That is hilarious!

 

[Lady Henevere]

Got into an interesting discussion the other day over on this thread, when I asked why some people are stocking up on food. I learned something, because for months now I was thinking that "TSHTF" was some sort of event--nuclear war, Y2K computer system disaster, China invading, sudden zombie apocalypse. Turns out it's not, it's the same old stuff on the news every day: the economy, people losing jobs, wacky weather events, life being hard. Life is hard for a lot of people in a lot of different ways right now, and many people here see stocking up on food as a wise way to prepare for the proverbial rainy day, with the knowledge that the rainy day, this time around, might be more like a major storm, and it might last a long time.

I understand this. I have been poor, scrounging change from my car to buy a burrito at a fast food place down the street, driving a car that only partly worked only part of the time, wondering whether I would be able to pay the rent month after month. It's tough. Putting food by then would have been great, but I wasn't anywhere near the self-sufficient mindset I have now.

But I didn't stay poor. Being poor--and more importantly, being powerless--made me mad. At one point two different things happened that really pissed me off: First, I got fired. A boss who had a crush on me got mad when I started dating someone else and fired me for a completely false reason. Second, I was staying at my mom's apartment since I couldn't pay my own rent after I lost my job, and a load of my laundry was stolen out of the community laundry room. I was furious. I hadn't really had anything stolen from me before and I felt so violated, like someone had intruded on my personal life and stolen part of me. These two things made me really mad, and I wanted a solution; some sort of fix to ensure that it would never happen again.

I decided what I needed was an education. To me, an education was power--the power to leave a job I didn't like, the power to have a needed skill so I wouldn't be fired on a whim, the power of an income high enough that I could have my own washer and dryer and not worry about thugs stealing my things from it.

So I went to school. Still working full time, I went to community college then transferred to a university. I stopped working full time when I had DD (still at the university), and I graduated a year later. I wasn't sure what to do next. I had spent my time in school working in the same industry I was fired from, but I didn't like it and didn't want to pursue a lifelong career in it. But more importantly, I wanted a skill that was clear, defined, and marketable, so I could do my best to never again be financially powerless. I went to graduate school for a very specific degree in a specific field, and today I am working in that field.

On the down side, my industry is tough and requires a lot of work. I spend much of my time inside an office, and I have to answer to other people. I have very little freedom. On the up side I am employed, and my career it is what I make of it: if I put in a lot of time and effort, I get paid better and I get better opportunities. But that leaves little time, and self-sufficiency requires time--time to raise chickens, time to tend the garden, time to can food, time to shop for sales, time to turn the compost, time to check all the watering systems. Between the job and the family, I don't have the kind of time I need to do it right. If I take the time to do it right, I am distracted from my job, I don't do my work well, I become expendable, and things get very hard. TSHTF, so to speak. I don't want to open myself up for that if I can help it.

I make decent money, but not enough that I don't have to worry about it. Economic issues have been weighing heavily on my mind lately. We invited my 15-year-old cousin to stay with us for the summer since she doesn't really have a good home situation. She has been a joy, and when her school situation for this coming semester fell through, we invited her to continue staying with us and she happily accepted. Raising a teenager is expensive, and suddenly I have two. Also, DD is starting high school, which makes me realize that college is right around the corner. I have always wanted to give her a college education and not have her incur debt from student loans like I did (starting adulthood with a big debt burden is the pits). It's not going to be easy, but I will do it if I am able, even if it means I have to retire later.

So when I was reading all those posts about people putting food by to save money as times get harder I was thinking, Is that something I should do? Is saving food important for me? And I think the answer is no. Doing such things is not the best way to spend my time. I think the best way to protect my family (barring a total social meltdown) is to spend my spare time working, saving money for the future or that very long rainy day, and not spending time growing food, canning, and stocking a pantry beyond what's needed to be prepared for a short-term disaster. If I can keep my job by being valuable to my company, I can help my family succeed to the best of my ability, even when times are hard.

So for now I will keep my little fruit trees alive, feed the chickens and hope they don't get sick, and leave the few annual veggies in the garden to nature. If I get something out of the garden this year, fine. If I don't, that's fine too. I just have to live with that for now, and re-assess my plan whenever the situation changes.

And if the zombie apocalypse happens tomorrow, well......I'm just going to have to go hungry.

 

[sunsaver]

I was rolling in cash, once upon a time. Fortunately, i invested in self sufficiency, instead of the stock market. My Solar panels and vegetable beds keep the lights on and food on the table. I haven't had a real job in two years, and i wonder how anyone can afford to NOT be self sufficient. It seems to me that buying stuff every day or every month, is much more expensive than never going anywhere or ever buying anything. If one stays at home for weeks at a time, never buying anything or having any bills to pay, that seems much more affordable than the normal, fast food, bill paying, American lifestyle. How can you afford to Not be self sufficient, unless you have a high paying job?

 

[savingdogs]

I'm from where you live (near LAX actually). We could not be self sufficient when we lived in Los Angeles County. It is just a different lifestyle there. Teenagers will be VERY expensive to raise there. And the societal pressure to have a nice home, a nice car, a type of lifestyle, is very different from where we live now. We didn't want our children to have to live their life at such a pace, such a race.....we really felt like that Eagles song Hotel California was about us, it felt real. We had lived there over 30 years so it was very hard to cut the ties, but now we are very glad we did, we left excellent jobs. After the Northridge earthquake and the Rodney King riots, I did not feel that Los Angeles was a place that would be survivable after TSHTF, and even the threatened San Andreas fault "big one" terrified me. Even if you are along the coast or in a nicer area, you will be surrounded by the other communities and they will move west and take what you have, it is just too easy to find every single house. There are too many people without honor there.

We have "escaped" to the mountains to carve out a lifestyle here, but I'm not sure what it bought us, a couple months? Here at least people could hunt for a few meals before we deplete the wildlife and/or the local bad people hunt down our food sources.

Do I sound pessimistic? sorry, I probably do. I sure hope none of this happens. But if I were you, I would not stockpile food either. I'd have an escape plan and bags you could quickly pack to leave. Where you are at is not the place to hunker down. Maybe access to a boat that would take you to Catalina island or one of those others would be my choice if I were you.

 

[Lady Henevere]

sunsaver, that's just it -- I do have a job. I can either use my time to do my job and make money or I can use my time to grow my own food. I do buy stuff (not fast food) and it is more expensive, but I don't spend my whole income. I have read your journal and I think your efforts are awesome--your stuff is really inspiring. But that's not where I am in life. Years ago I made the choice to go to school, incur loans, and buy a house. Today I choose to continue on that path, pay back what I owe, and help my kid get a good start in life. The more in-depth self sufficiency efforts are going to have to wait. Not that such efforts are not wise and good and wonderful and awesomely freeing (oh how I envy that part!), but it's just not where I am right now.

And also, what about when something happens? What about sudden, unexpected medical costs? What about an injury or illness that keeps you from gardening or mending a solar panel or whatever? I worry about that stuff on the true self-sufficiency path. It's part of what keeps me chained to a desk!

savingdogs, what you said about L.A. is true. In the event of widespread civil unrest, staying in L.A. would probably not be an option. We do have a small sailboat, and I have often thought it would be a good way to get out if needed.

 

[abifae]

Lady H, I'm in a similar boat. I'm in the middle of Denver so there isn't any way (or point) in doing much other than making sure I have enough stored up to get through a small emergency and money to run. Now, once I move out of Denver this winter, things will be different. It will make more sense to start gardening (we'll only have space for container gardens, because it will be a duplex, but we might be able to talk our neighbors into letting us encroach on their bit of lawn) and doing a LOT more canning (no where to store it in my apartment).

SS is all well and good, but part of it is knowing where you are and how to get where you need to be. LA County isn't a safe place to hunker down, so you shouldn't invest a lot in that part. Invest in bolting.

 

[savingdogs]

Perfect! I'd stock it with ways to fish, bait, frying pan, fish batter, and lotsa tartar sauce! Pack your parkas and sleeping bags! You could live on a boat.

There is plenty of food right there in the pacific ocean if you have a way to get it. I'm so glad to hear you have a boat.