What kind of SS are you?

[Wifezilla]

It's all about the lumens baby!



Someone posted a while back (either here or on TheEasyGarden) about the amount of lumens required by plants to get them to grow properly indoors. Most grow lights DO NOT have enough. I have tried them in the past and had really crappy results. Good news is you do not need expensive grow lights, you just need the highest wattage CFL's you can find. 175w equivalent are great, but 2 100w equivalent bulbs will work too. I have about 5 lights with CFL bulbs and an old sign with florescent tubes all on an old dresser. The lights are all connected to one timer. So far so good

 

[Yaklady]

I'm new at this, but eagerly reading and learning. My husband and I got married a year ago. I was raised on a cattle ranch in OK, and he's a yuppie, high level executive who was living in a pristine condo on a golfcourse. I talked him into buying a small, ten acre farm this past Summer. We are absolutely lovin' our life here. He still works, but I'm home all day. I've become a huge fan of sourdough breads, and make dark rye and Italian once a week. I make Amish Friendship Bread once a week, too, and that's breakfast during the week. We had a garden this past Summer, but since we moved in in May, it was hurriedly thrown out there. This Summer, we plan to make it bigger and better, and I will be canning. Right now, the yak hay bin is plopped down in the middle of the garden so that they have to go in there to eat hay. Thus, they are pooping all over the garden. Fertilizer. I've begun raising meat ducks, and we also use their eggs for baking. They're great poached, too. I have 25 hens, and I sell some of their eggs to pay for their feed. I'm also raising some sheep so that we will have our own lamb in the freezer. Soon, our freezer will be full of yak beef, chicken, ducks and lamb that we produced ourselves. Our cupboard will be full of canned goods. One of these days, I might even learn to spin yak wool. We do heat our house with wood that we bring up from the fallen trees on our property. even though we have a fully functioning heater, it's much more fun to use the woodburning stove. And it's free!

 

[patandchickens]

There probably *is* sort of a spectrum or continuum, but I am not sure how well living off-grid marks the far end of it.

There are an awful lot of people living off-grid but only by virtue of having bought a whole lotta technology, leading lifestyles that are not especially different from people with comparable (big, inefficient-to-heat, foolishly-trendy-architectural) houses that *are* on the grid.

And at the same time, there are an awful lot of people living on-grid (including many living in cities) but really being pretty self-sufficient in the sense of growing/bartering/scrounging their own food, making/repairing their own stuff from resources freely available around them, etc.

(I do know what the o.p. is talking about, obviously extreme hardcore rural self-sufficiency does involve being off the grid, I'm just not sure how well off-grid is a meaningful milepost for people overall)

Also, many ways of living off the grid are not necessarily as self-sufficient or self-sufficiently-sustainable as they might look, as they depend on complex technology that, when it breaks down and wears out, the owner is not going to be able to repair easily and may, depending on what society does, not be able to *replace* either. So, there are important different *kinds* of off-grid-ness.

As for the overall continuum, I'd say I'm somewhere to the less-primitive less-do-it-all-myself side of the middle, but not too far from the middle. I do not look at it (for me personally) as trying to be "self sufficient" so much as just trying 1) to be capable of doing whatever's necessary, 2) doing only what's reasonably necessary not stupid fripperies especially trend-driven ones, 3) and doing things for myself and simply, as much as seems reasonable to me. I'm pretty happy with how things stand, although it's important to me to keep learning/trying new stuff and in particular I would really like to acquire more (er, "any" LOL) skill with metal and engines. I'd love to live off the grid someday if a convenient opportunity came along and the family could be talked into it but it is not like a goal of mine or anything.

Pat

 

[me&thegals]

Exactly. The more SS you are, the more choices and freedoms you have. Even if you never make it off grid, the more you can do yourself, the better off you are.

Exactly! We won't try to go off grid but just be more SS than we used to be. It would be cool to get some solar panels, though.

Pat's response brought something up in my own mind. I think I will keep doing new things because I love to read and learn, and it makes more sense to me to read about and learn things that actually have some value to my life as opposed to, for example, taking up golf.

 

[FarmerChick]

only solar panel I can afford is one for the water heater

working on that cause it is about $800 to install per my neighbor contractor. can't find that $800 right now

let alone $8-10-12,000 for a whole house setup

 

[hikerchick]

Very informative post, P&C. I am new to all of this and have much to learn about the concepts and the practice of the concepts.

Whether or not I will ever actually do any of these things is another matter. But stranger things have happened.

 

[FarmerChick]

good thing is SS does not have a tried and true and defined definition of HOW to accomplish it.

thank goodness cause we all come at it from every angle imaginable..LOL

 

[patandchickens]

Pat's response brought something up in my own mind. I think I will keep doing new things because I love to read and learn, and it makes more sense to me to read about and learn things that actually have some value to my life

Me too! Very well put!

as opposed to, for example, taking up golf.

Yeah, I tell you though, last night I was chasing a rat around in the chicken building (got it! Score now stands at Pat 2, Rattus norvegicus 0, and I *think* that's all of 'em that had gotten inside) and could really have benefitted from a caddy standing there to hand me a good heavy club


Pat

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Thank you Wifezilla!

good thing is SS does not have a tried and true and defined definition of HOW to accomplish it.

thank goodness cause we all come at it from every angle imaginable..LOL

Necessity is the mother of invention! And man, can some SS folk be inventive

 

[TanksHill]

I was rolling this thread around in my head while prepping a roast for the oven. I was not sure how I wanted to respond. Like others above I agree that being SS is not a cut and dry thing or only black and white.

I remember about 10 years ago I was on some Homesteading forum and I made a comment like "I was practicing to be". They did not like it and I think I received flack for my lack of commitment. I guess that why I am here now.

Anyways, all my life I wanted to be a Mom. yes other things as well but Mom was my main goal. I learned to cook, sew, crochet, garden, and can with the hopes of someday using these skills for a productive family life.

One of my best friends growing up was Mormon. I loved to see how her mom did things. A full pantry and sewing clothes for her kids. They did not have a life of luxury but were never left wanting. Now that I think of it her dad even raised rabbits for food and skins in their back yard. Right in the middle of suburbia!!

When my husband and I got married and decided to move to North County I talked him into a bit more than normal size lot. At that time I had been reading Country Living magazine for several years. Wishing for something a bit more rural. I have slowly planted a family orchard, always had a garden and several years ago added chickens.

The only way this has been possible has been because of my dh working hard and having a normal 9 to 5. We have a mortgage, and we rely on city water and electricity for our too large inefficient home.

But at the same time, I have learned many new skills and rely less and less on the big box stores for my needs.

Yes some day I would love to have enough land to free range a couple cows and raise goats. But for now I am practicing my skills right where I am. The balance seems to be working.

In light of the current economic crisis for the government as well as our own we are doing pretty well. I have plenty of canned goods, I know how to bake and sprout and make my own laundry soap. Lots of things I have learned from friends right here.

My dh Grandma used to always say "Many hands make light work" I think of all the information and wealth of knowledge I find here as my extra hands. People helping and encouraging each other.

Ok not trying to get all sappy but I think we all have different reasons for trying to rely less on others and provide more for ourselves. Whether it be a smaller imprint on our earth or a matter of economics.

We do what works best for "us".

JMO gina