Have you ever considered giving up on being SS?...Spoke too soon???

[sunsaver]

Not on your life. As much trouble as it was to get here, and to be so SS that i don't even have to work unless i want to buy a toy! There's no way i'd give up my freedom willingly! It sucked being a corporate slave!

 

[Wannabefree]

I'm getting close. I have days where I don't even want to think about SS, especially lately with DH's job situation, the finances are just looking more bleak and we may evetually lose what little we have, so yeah, I've thought about it. I have thought about putting this stupid lump of debt up for sale for a little over payoff, buying another travel trailer with the excess, loading up, and seeing this broken country before things get too hard to be able to do even that. Then...I go gather eggs, work in the garden, do a little canning, make some laundry soap, maybe go fishing, and forget all about it No way of life is particulalry easy, but I like the pace we're going most days, just wish I could find more ways to make it pay better so I don't have to worry about losing it all I get very frustrated with these darn bills, and every forward step I take...seems it isn't long before we take two back. Barely treading water sometimes, and I resent that. I never throw my hands up and scream at it for more than a day though Well...animals gotta be fed and tended!!

 

[sunsaver]

Y'all just need to learn what to plant and when, learn organic techniques, save your own heirloom seeds. You need fresh seeds every year. Old seeds often won't sprout. Nobody can jump in and be 100% SS all at once. It took me many years to learn all the SS stuff i know. A warm climate helps. I grow cool season crops in winter, warm season crops in summer. There's always something to eat. Almost every type of fruit and vegetable known will grow well here. You need good soil and good drainage, and a love of the outdoors if you want to be SS. When your hens quit laying, make chicken soup and get new chicks. Pretty soon we might all have to be SS whether we like it not, so it's best to learn how now.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Not on your life. As much trouble as it was to get here, and to be so SS that i don't even have to work unless i want to buy a toy! There's no way i'd give up my freedom willingly! It sucked being a corporate slave!

word. and like k0xxx said - there are always going to be setbacks. but the pay off is better. we think of it as a lifestyle, not a goal. could we go back? probably but we kinda like what we are doing. is it frustrating? sure. but so is having a scharmy boss who steals your work and takes the credit for it. or having to be nice to someone you hate just so you can keep your job. here you can send unruly 'co workers' to the grill.

 

[Denim Deb]

There are days when I feel frustrated, but it's more because of my lack of time, not anything else. I KNOW how much I can get out of my garden when I have the time I need for it. This year, it just ain't happening the way I want. So, I've put stuff on hold for now. I have 7 more weeks of work, then watch out!

 

[Marianne]

Never! When I get tired of blanching, peeling, cooking and canning tomatoes, I remind myself that all these things I do keep me from going back to a lousy job and being under somebody's thumb. I'd rather live on less, be satisfied with what I have instead of working for someone else so I can buy 'stuff'.

Yes, it's frustrating and defeating to do a lot of garden planning and work...and then it's a lousy garden year. I've had that more than once. I have never had any fruit from my trees, other than a few mulberries. But there's always hope!

Each year I learn what will grow here and what's not worth planting. It sure isn't the utopia I had dreamed of, lots of hard work, but overall I'm happier with this lifestyle than the high heels and painted nails type of jobs that I had years ago.

It's not just the money we save by being SS. It's a satisfaction that we have, knowing we can do whatever needs to be done in the worst of situations.

BTW, every hen that comes to my house has a forever home. Even if they don't lay often, they still earn their keep by the bugs they eat, the light tilling and fertilizing in my garden and the compost material from the coop litter. So far I haven't had one last longer than 3 years but then I get chicks and the cycle starts again.

 

[Neko-chan]

I haven't learned enough to give up on it. But, because I enjoy learning about it, I guess it'll be a long time before I consider giving up.

It's important to me.

 

[GOOGLE NIKOLA TESLA]

never give up guys! it looks serious now,i know everyones had the losses, but you guys are alot better off than people who have never even tried(all of you have strong work ethic and knowing what to expect and thats good). the debt ceiling and continous borrowing from china and the collapse of european economy, they tied all the economys globally so if one part fails the others will too, bad stuff, but its possible. last year was my first year trying a small garden, it was alot of work but was a total failure, i was creeped out that if there was no economy tomorow that this would be the end. this year we have taken down more trees for sun, fertilized and added peat and some of the farming soil used by the local farms, and really i am soo excited with the changes. this year the corn is kind of failing sort of, some collapsed from rain after all the planting i did by hand, but i still have a ton left. the wild raspberrys me and my bro planted like 2 yrs ago finally are being productive, we had like a thousand of them, but years before i was thinking whats the point! lol. the fruit trees were always losing fruits because i let the worms eat them, now i found alternatives to make it work(suc em off lol), and now i got some fresh fruit comming. these trees were also less productive in general last year because they were young, the apples produce nothing lol.. the field that some have seen in my pics, was a 20 ft ditch off of that road, the fields were man made by me and my family over atleast 2 yrs of filling and stuff, all that work and now it pays off, the field has enough sun and nutrients to support crops which i have never grown before. if we didnt try this, we would still have the 20 ft ditch and i would be alot less in the sustainable range, and still we are not sustainable lol.. all of this so far is experimental, the horticulture techniques, the crop planting and spacing, take the losses as part of the experiment that you improve on for next year.

 

[TanksHill]

Never!
It's not just the money we save by being SS. It's a satisfaction that we have, knowing we can do whatever needs to be done in the worst of situations.

That's the whole point isn't it??

 

[Marianne]

That's right, Tesla! Never give up! Never surrender!

We have been here 5 years now, and although things are far from ideal, this property looks so much better than what it was when we bought it. It's taken a lot of hard work but things are perking up here, too. I finally have a few grapes on the vines (very few, but some), raspberry bushes actually bloomed this year, garden soil is getting better each year. We have repaired wells so there's no more contamination in the well water, planted gobs of trees and still don't spray weeds (except the sticker plants!!! I spot sprayed this year as I can NOT hand weed those bas***ds any more!)

Usually our property has some of whatever crop is planted in the fields next to us, and I'm okay with that. We just need to focus on the positives!