What influenced you on your path to self sufficiency?

[delia_peterson]

I know now that if I am meant to be with someone I have faith that the Good Lord will have him bump into me at the feedstore! lol!

Excellent! I feel exactly the same way! Until then I will ride my broom in my front yard whenever I please! Er...um...I meant "wave" my broom.....

LOL!! Hey...my neighbors are probaly on pins and needles waiting for that to happen next! Sigh...today they will just have to be happy with watching me muck out the chicken coop!

 

[valmom]

If you don't meet "your" person in a feed store, how do you know you would get along with them?? What more important criteria is there as far as making the first cut?

 

[Beekissed]

Yes! Must have farm truck smeared with poo and have an established account at the feed store.....check!

 

[delia_peterson]

Now hey! If he has a farm truck smeared with poo....I will make sure that I bump into him! Because more then likely I am always smeared with chicken poo! LOL!!!!!

 

[FarmerDenise]

 

[tommywalnuts]

I grew up in the country across the road from my papaw. He was a serious gardener and SS person(my mom also). So I kinda grew up with it. When I turned 18, I started hanging out with the so called cool crowd. I spent a lot of years running from who I really was, trying to play the "elite" game. I got married at 30, and shortly after we took her 4 nieces and 1 nephew. That was going on 7 years ago. The kids were street wild, and kind of reflected what I had become. So, in order to try to instill values, as well as grow into the man my papaw would be proud of....thats how and why.

 

[Puck-Puck]

I think it's something that I'm "meant to" do, being interested in various ways since a child. Not that there was much call in my childhood environment for self-sufficiency, as we were in the city and definitely were of adequate means. I got my financially conservative outlook from both my parents, who were kids during the Depression. But my Mom's memories of the Depression, poverty, and hard necessity were/are quite unpleasant, and she is quite fond of her modern conveniences, thank you very much. Not that I hold that against her. But in my life, the story is about simplifying and becoming ever more self-reliant: not just with physical things, but emotionally and intellectually as well. Mom is horrified about the run-down place I got CHEAP, with its busted plumbing. I'm delighted that I was able to replumb it myself. She was aghast that the roof leaked. I was thrilled that I was able to re-roof it all by myself. She offered funds for a furnace, not grasping that there's a wood furnace in the basement that works fine since my friend made a door for it, and I amazed myself by learning to run a chainsaw. She raised her eyebrow at my keeping chickens, saying that's what people did in the Depression...yeah? and I'm surprised at how undemanding and amusing they are. Etc.

But the "self"-sufficient term is a little misleading. I probably wouldn't be where I am today without the encouragement of friends, both in casting off an "if only", "I wish", "I can't" mentality by saying "let me help", "let me teach you", and "dream a little!".

ETA: I've always been interested in lots of practical things, and never could settle one any one "career path" as meaningful and fulfilling. But I've dabbled at lots of things, and learned. So here I am, only intermittently working for other people, but for someone who "doesn't work", I'm awfully busy! The tax department considers me low income, but the welfare and unemployment insurance departments have never heard of me and I plan to keep it that way. I have a house that's paid for, a vehicle that's paid for that I insure and maintain, good food in the pantry, good health, good air, good water, good friends, thousands of interests, and enough money left over in my "below poverty line" existence to keep two dogs for pleasure, and chickens for eggs, feeding all of the animals well; I also foster a child overseas. And own a laptop and pay for internet service, which fuels my imagination and puts me in contact with more like-minded people...very buoying and inspiring. If I say so myself, I think I have a far more fulfilling life being "poor" than those "rich" people I see who look bored, unhappy, and filling their lives with things that even they don't seem to find important. Go figure....

 

[FarmerDenise]

Puck-Puck wrote

If I say so myself, I think I have a far more fulfilling life being "poor" than those "rich" people I see who look bored, unhappy, and filling their lives with things that even they don't seem to find important. Go figure....

Hear, hear! That is exactly how I feel.

 

[millie]

I am new here, and I have not admit I am not exactly SS like all of you, but, I am on a path to simplicity. I may not be able to block out the outside world, but I am trying to limit its pull. I have been influenced by prayer and knowing people who live simply. I truely try to be in the world and not of the world.

 

[keljonma]

millie!