What was the deciding factor(s) to become SS?

[baymule]

Sounds like you are having not much fun. Don't you hate it when some does a job and makes more work for you?

 

[treerooted]

So, I haven't been sure how to answer this question.

I grew up in the suburbs, with parents who gardened and spent their free time out in the woods. I decided to go to university and I enrolled in an Environmental Studies program. So my general inclination for self sufficiency maybe comes from a 'live in harmony with "nature"' type thing, though that doesn't quite capture my outlook. I don't know when I decided I wanted to live in the country; maybe I always have.

Halfway through my university education I suffered from a bout of deep depression/anxiety/whatever it was and had to drop out. A couple months later I went to work on my uncles small farm and it was so incredibly restorative for me. I think perhaps with that experience I developed a more concrete desire to farm for myself. (I did finish and get my degree, as well as a post graduate technical course.)

So here I am, 65 acres, husband and son, no clue, but I hope 10 years from now I'll be able to share my knowledge with others as well.


*It helps as well that I have a partner who had 0 desirability to live in a city, so we've always had this shared vision of how we want to share and grow our lives together.

 

[CrealCritter]

Sounds like you are having not much fun. Don't you hate it when some does a job and makes more work for you?

Like about like a hole in the head.
But I serviced the gas pack while I was at it also. It needed a new smart valve ignitior $105.00 and I found two runs of wire with nails that shorted out hot to ground. Coat less than $10.00 in parts but it was tracing and replacing the runs of bad wire was the most time consuming. Anyways their are now ready for the winter.

 

[tortoise]

I've always been inclined toward SS, even as a child. My first husband was not, and I didn't trust him with power tools or animals, so it was well enough. I learned how *not* to garden in those years. After divorce, I promptly acquired chickens, rabbits, and a baby goat, and I was living in a city. I moved in with my then-boyfriend-now-DH and had to rehome the chickens, goat and 2 of my dogs. Rabbits and one dog came with. He lived in a small city in a rural area. He was house shopping when we were dating. The first house we looked at together was a condo in a ritzy lakeside community. (If he bought the house I was going to break up with him! ). He was looking at lake homes, but I kept saying I wanted something agricultural.

[backstory: He had grown up agricultural (and moved a lot as a military family), and his dad raised beef cattle. My parents had a dairy farm but moved to a city when I was two. I'd visited their friend's dairy farm, but never donw farm chores.]

He looks at me with this longsuffering "you are an idiot" look and says that it would be a "lifestyle change". I looked around and thought of our current lifestyle. He got home from work, we watched TV all afternoon and evening, sometimes into late night and ate frozen pizza and doritos most the time. THAT WAS THE MOMENT. "[Lifestyle change] is exactly what I want!" I replied.

We didn't find our farm for a couple years after that. My health restricts how involved I can be with farm chores, but I like the lifestyle. I love the quiet. I love having tame livestock. I love that my kids can play outside with little supervision. I love the panoramic view.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Well I grew up in "the country", but not being SS. I was very much a consumer my whole life, enjoyed farm animals but more because they were cute than anything else.

When I was in college a friend shared with me some horrific videos and articles about the meat-packing industry. I became an immediate vegetarian. Six months later I had to start eating meat again after my iron levels crashed and I passed out, on several occasions in random places. So, not knowing there was another way, I resigned myself to eating grocery store meat again.

When my now-husband and I started dating, he had bees and we started a small garden. By the time we got married and had our daughter, we got a few chickens for eggs. Then I discovered Joel Salatin and Food Inc, and the other well known movies, books, etc about raising your own food... And fell down the rabbit hole.

It's been a progression for sure. My husband grew up on a horse farm but raised some meat animals and always hunted. This was all new to me. Now I can't stand the thought of buying meat and can't wait to be dairy independent(next year if all works out). And we've branched out into non-food SS skills as well. It is fun learning new things all the time, can also be incredibly exhausting and disappointing and frustrating but it makes you appreciate what you have, and the lives you are responsible for. My freezer is full (like, couldn't fit another package in there) of meat that I raised and saw enjoying life every day. My daughter knows what she is eating and thanks the pigs when my husband butchers them. I can pronounce the ingredients in my food.

Since we've been living this lifestyle I notice and embrace things I've never noticed before. You start to live by the seasons, respect mother nature (storms affect me a whole lot more than they used to!), and live according to forces outside yourself (goat heat cycles can really affect your plans for the day!)

I wouldn't raise my kids any other way.

 

[treerooted]

Love hearing everyone's story!

 

[sumi]

Me too! This is a great thread.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Currently reading this book- "Big Chicken" by Maryn McKenna. So amazing, it's about antibiotics in meat, mostly chicken and the history of how chicken became what it is today in our food system. It is definitely a good reminder of why I don't eat store bought meat!!