Dealing with discouragement

[CrealCritter]

You wernt lying about them putting some food in the cabinet! I think im done with all the other pole beans. No need.


I planted some of the butterbeans last week. They are up. Idk if i will get a harvest before the frost but i wanted to try.

Butter beans are delicious! Story... When I lived in North Carolina the town mechanic went by the name Butter Bean. If you remember Andy Griffith they had goober well we had Butter Bean. He was tounge tied plus he had one heck of an southern accent. My wife nor my kids or most anyone I knew couldn't understand him when he talked to them. But I had an uncle who was tounge tied also so I could have a conversation with him and I understood him just fine. Plus Butter Bean was like one of the most generous men i've ever met. He didnt make it past the 7 grade but he was one heck of a mechanic. So what this story all about anyways? Heck if I know but when you said you planted butter beans it's what came to mind. I guess it's a story about overcoming obsticles dispite ones short comings. By the way Butter Bean used to call me the richest man in town. Not because I had a barrel full of money, but because I raised 11 kids with the same wife. Now if that ain't someone who doesn't have their head in the right place, I don't know who does.

Your doing great man keep it up... A wise man once told me if your not making mistakes your not doing anything. Yep you guessed it that wise man was Butter Bean.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

I'm soooo there! We've got half started projects all over the place! We're half way through building a real chicken coop, were behind on garden plans, and we never got some things planted last year that we wanted to plant before we got bees, which we planned for this spring. Now we'll probably hold off on the bees. We still don't have our rabbit hutches built (something else we want to add this year). And we're still working on raised garden beds. My garden was a big bust last year (our first on this property).
@Chic Rustler, from where I stand, you've passed us up this year! I enjoy reading all you've been doing. I think on a site like this it's awfully easy to try to do too much too soon because we see what everyone else has been doing for years. I'm impressed with what you've done this year.

 

[sumi]

Considering you have a job and a family and all the responsibilities that comes with those, you are doing pretty well, even if it doesn't feel that way. It's easy to look at what others have achieved and go WOW! But remember for most it took some time to get as self-reliant as they are. Baby steps!

But maybe I need to bounce around some. Divide the projects into different tasks. Like if I can just get one more raised bed done next week and then maybe buy one fruit tree. Then maybe build one trellis the week after and so forth.

This is a good idea. Look at your time and finances as they are available and then assign them to getting things done. For example, you have a few hours, build that pig pen. You have an hour, plant a fruit tree. Don't just look at the big picture, look at it in bits, every tree planted and critter in the freezer is a step closer to your goal. You'll get there

 

[treerooted]

I think it's incredibly more complicated then just mettle and toughness: societal structure and norms, family background, opportunities, constraints, knowledge, etc etc etc, are all influences on how "easy" a self-sufficient type lifestyle may be.
Don't forget, people have been living in cities for thousands of years. You could just as easily taken a 1800's city dweller from New York who would starve their first year of rural living as someone in a similar circumstance today. The difference is that more people live in cities now so there's been a huge shift in knowledge and lifestyle overall. (along with the changes brought about by mechanization, technology, business, globalization and such). I think the past tends to be romanticized. People have generally always strove to make their lives easier and sought contentment. People endure true hardships not because they want to but because they have to.

I don't want anyone here to think that the reason they may not succeed in a self-sufficient endeavour is simply because they're not tough enough!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

When a lower income lifestyle equals a BETTER lifestyle - for yourself and/or your kiddos - it's a pretty smart decision!

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

HUGS to EVERYONE!!! When I start getting discouraged and overwhelmed I come to sites like this one and talk/read with others who are doing what Im doing/dreaming of doing and remember that Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will my homestead. Hope everyone has a Great Heart Day and hoping you are having nice weather today too...(here in KS they are calling for weather to be a wonderful 56 degree and while its overcast and dark looking I will take the warm with the rain.)

 

[milkmansdaughter]

I'm soooo excited! You're where I want to be in a few years.


We've only had this property for 17 months, but many years ago someone must have thought like we do. Much of what we have was here before we came but was wildly overgrown. We're trying to bring some of it back to it's former glory.

This is what we have so far:
Trees: walnut, pecan, oak, pine, apple (4 kinds), Asian pear, fig, peach, lime (3kinds), olive, pawpaw, flowering pear, redbud, tulip, magnolia, dogwood, Japanese Maple, and a few others. 1 more peach, plum, tart cherry and maybe one or two more fruit trees planned for late this year or early next... Adding sweet shrub soon.

Berries: black (5) and blue (16 bushes). Hoping to add strawberry and raspberry this spring. And we have 2 kinds of grapes on very very old grapevines and rotting trellises, with more planned for this spring.

Oregano and mint are growing. Onion, garlic, dill, basil, celery are always around. I'm adding more herbs this spring. We always plant lots of different peppers. Rhubarb is planned for this year. I'm adding several more flowers this week (all perennial). A partial list of flowers (either growing or I have the seed) are iris, wisteria, tiger lilies, canna lilies, tulips, daffodils, amaryllis, angel trumpets (this week), four o'clock, daisies, moon flowers, morning glories, cone flowers, marigolds, hollyhocks, clematis, Cyprus vines, sunflowers, day lilies, roses, azaleas, camellia. I might have killed my honeysuckle when I pulled it out of the overgrown grapevines when we pruned them. We plan on adding a LOT more flowers this spring because we want to add bees next spring and want something flowering all year. Much of our back yard is planted with white clover.
We have dandelions and nettles, but I haven't fully identified everything else growing here yet (I'm not from here, so I'm learning as I go.) I'm hoping to get involved with a local master gardener club here to meet others who can help in that department.

Our chickens free range, and get Fermented Feed. We hope to add rabbits this spring. We compost. We hope to add bees next spring, and a possible fish tank next fall (tilapia or catfish, then water and guts would be added to the garden, and fish to the freezer.) If we plan it out right, we'd raise rabbits for about 6 months (not during the summer here) and fish for about 6 months each year (probably spring to fall). Then the fish water, and the rabbit and chicken poop would all be composted into the garden as fertilizer while the bees pollinate everything.
Besides all that, we'll be planting a vegetable garden soon, and I have a few small greenhouses.


@Britesea is a really good source for medicinal plants. I've learned a lot from her posts. I think she's also really knowledgeable about mushrooms. I've grown mushrooms before, but not extensively, and not here.

I'm looking forward to more of your posts!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

What everybody else said! Sometimes life just gets in the way...sigh. But, every step you take gets you closer to the goal.

@sumi had a good plan...do a little here - a little here. When you have an hour do a smaller chore. Have more time - do more work.

Like @NH Homesteader said - prioritize. At my house that changes occasionally. I think I need to work on one thing and then something happens - like the dog jumping the fence - and my focus changes. I do what HAS to be done and then do the rest when I can.

Now - having said all that - does anybody EVER think they've done enough? I think it's in our nature to want to do more and more and more. Give yourself a break and look back and see the progress that you've made. You're really doing great!

 

[baymule]

I always pile more on myself than I will ever get done. Look at my Feed and Tack Room thread. The barn was built in 2015! The feed room has had THREE starts, and not finished. But we are on a roll and maybe, just maybe, it will get done this time.

I have all kinds of projects. I like it that way. Chaos and confusion is how I roll!

 

[Britesea]

Sometimes, when I'm feeling depressed about how slowly my projects are going, I will go back and either look at pictures of how things used to look, or I'll just go look at my most recently completed project - even if it was only clearing out the junk drawer in the kitchen- and that makes me feel better because I can see that I am still moving forward.