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

[Beekissed]

Have you ever considered giving up on being SS?

I wouldn't know HOW to give it up!

Being SS is just ingrained into my being at this point. Even now when things have gone from hard to occasionally impossible with my health issues, I never think about giving it up. Instead I work on streamlining. Making the impossible be simply hard. I STILL have dreams of a larger place ... even as I am sizing down.

Every failure is a lesson. Every little success is a joy!

Besides that, what is the other choice? Somehow I just can't imagine living like those other folks do. How would I ever forget the taste of my own fresh grown tomato eaten warm in the garden, the joy of baby chicks, the humor of a spring lamb or the satisfaction of making a meal that I completely grew?

Exactly my own experience. I never looked at "going SS" as a goal or race...it has slowly but surely become the only way I know how to live. My folks started it when they went backwoods and off-grid in the 70s and 80s. My grandma was the seed that started the whole idea growing, if I want to explore the roots of it all. It always fascinated me that someone actually could be the source of food...up until then food came in cans and boxes from the store!

I remember being completely enthralled when we would come for a visit and she would go out and kill a chicken for our dinner. Out from her cellar house and pantry would spill jars of food, from her freezer would come more and her yard was always a source of fresh food for the taking. To the youngest of nine children, this abundance of a large variety of foods was like magic! We picked rhubarb, peeled, salted and ate it~juice running down our chins~right there as we stood in the warm sun (my mouth is watering as I type this!). She had chickens, cattle, a grape harbor, crocks of pickled corn, cabbage, beans, etc. , rows of fresh veggies and apple trees. Her paring knives were Old Hickory and filed as thin as a fillet knife from years of use...and they were razor sharp! Even into her 80s she was building oak swings, up on ladders painting, building, doing. She had a hard life growing up and she didn't sit around in misery about it~she worked to make things easier, better, simpler.

Every time I try something new with my gardening, animal husbandry or food preservation it is an exploration...and each time it is with the knowledge that it may not work in my circumstance, in my soils, in my weather conditions, in my life. When it does I feel such triumph and satisfaction, when it doesn't, I feel the urge to study on and find something that does work, something that makes life simpler, better, easier, cheaper.

Do I feel defeated sometimes? Yes. What farmer doesn't feel like rock bottom as drought withers the crops? What farmer doesn't learn that a particular cattle breed just isn't going to serve his purpose~after investing in and working with the breed for the past 5 years?

To the OP, I've got to ask "Why heirloom seeds?" I know it's nice to be able to grow heirloom varieties but other veggies were developed for a good reason and they reproduce themselves very well, if not entirely true to form. Just see how easily volunteer tomatoes, cucumbers and squash spring up from your compost pile! My advice is to grow what produces and has viable, fertile seeds, save the seeds from that. As someone else stated, cull the chickens that do not produce...one cannot live frugally on sympathy and mushy hearts. Yes, they are beautiful and yes, they have quirky and fun personalities...but they are food first and foremost and they become expensive food if not managed well.

The biggest mantra that will keep you living SS even when things don't work out is this.."Do I really need it?" If not, cut it loose. Get in the habit of cutting the strings of things that burden, waste money, take up space, take up too much time. Pretty soon it comes easily and the choices aren't so difficult to make~they become sort of natural then, like FarmFresh said. It just becomes a way of life and you can't imagine any other way.

 

[MorelCabin]

Go ahead, try giving it up...move to town...you'll be back in a year...LOL! From experience...

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

YES! but only because I'm in third trimester, sweat my booty off just walking from house to pens and back - and it's so hard to bend down to pick veggies, get waterers, etc.

but.

I make the kids do it and I just supervise while sweating my booty off.

 

[Wifezilla]

Go ahead, try giving it up...move to town...you'll be back in a year...LOL! From experience

 

[GOOGLE NIKOLA TESLA]

Yea i only did the heirloom to feel safer about no gmo. But i do let the different heirlooms cross so thoeretically i made a hybrid i guess but it seems good if they are a stronger plant. The following yrs i will try to go for stronger plants but they all seem strong anyways lol. Ive had no pests maybe there are none around here or maybe the plants are healthy!??

 

[ksalvagno]

There is certainly no harm in taking a break. This year DH has been working on a project at work that is causing him to work a lot. I also got a part time job and working on shutting down the alpaca business. So we had to scale back majorly and take a year that stuff was just not going to be "SS". Nothing wrong with that. We know things are going to lighten up next year, so we will probably do a few more things next year. Don't do it to the point that it takes over your life to the point that you hate it. Cut back when you need to.

 

[Icu4dzs]

"Never, Never, Never Give UP!"
Winston Churchill

 

[Pirtykitty]

Heirlooms always get better each time you save seed from them and replant each season.. They have to get used to your soil and climate...

 

[lorihadams]

Okay, I'll chime in here. We have had successes and failures along the way. Will I stop trying to be SS, no?

I have tried to try one new thing every year. This year we added two things, our goats and bees but in my defense we have tried to get our goats now for 2 years so I'm due that one

We had chickens first, then added rabbits, then added meat chickens and ducks, then planted a garden, then started planning for goats and moved. Everything had to be redone which in a way was good cause we started with a clean slate. Got rid of the rabbits, got new chicks to replace some of our old layers, and now have gotten new ducks to replace my old flock of runners. Then we added fruit trees and bushes, then we added a second tilled garden in addition to our raised bed garden (which was a collossal failure this year), and we are looking at breeding our goats for the first time so next spring we'll be birthing babies for the first time.

Now we are thinking of getting back into rabbits, meat rabbits this time. Last time we had "pet" rabbits and only females. If we were to get back into it we would start over with all new hutches and breeding pairs of larger meat rabbits.

Sometimes you have to know when to call it quits on something. If you don't like to garden then don't, buy all your produce from a farmer's market locally and can or freeze everything. It may cost you more money but you'll get it back in time spent doing something else you enjoy better. I will only buy chickens or ducks that tend to go broody ever again. I can usually hatch out enough ducklings each year to pay for a substantial portion of my feed bill for the birds for the year and I don't have to watch and worry over the dang incubator temps. We have experimented with different breeds every year and I think we are settling on standard brahmas. Love them.

I am also sold on indian runner ducks and over the years I have found that the blacks sell really well in my area and I am the only one around here that sells them so I am increasing my hens to 4 this year and adding a new male to the flock for some new bloodlines.

I will never buy chicken from the store again. Building a chicken tractor was pretty easy and raising the meat birds has been very profitable for us and now we are raising another breed of ducks as well to sell to my husband's hunting clients for their propertys. We have sold enough each year on the meat birds to pay for the cost of the birds and feed and ended up paying like 31-35 cents a pound for chicken. This year we will up our prices some and put at least 10 more birds in the freezer for ourselves.

The other thing I have found is that with so many people getting into SS I have lots of people to barter with. I don't have any tomatoes or cucumbers this year, they just didn't produce so I'm trading eggs for produce to the neighbors down the street. This morning we got canned spaghetti sauce and pickles from another friend in exchange for goat cheese and eggs. It works out. I didn't plant any zucchini or squash this year cause I know my aunt always plants too much and gives me some, and she didn't dissappoint me this year.

Go to farmer's markets and make some connections with people and offer to barter goods and focus on doing what you like. If you don't like green beans would you plant a garden full of them? No. So if you don't like working with chickens then find someone that does and barter for eggs. If you don't have the space for a cow or goat then look into buying a milk share. Want to have grass fed meat but don't have the space, find another family or two that would be willing to go in on buying a cow or pig together and split it up. You can be creative and find ways around some things you aren't good at or don't like but don't give up!!!

 

[old fashioned]

Thanks to everyone for all the encouragement and you are right about not giving up. It has been a tough year (or longer :/ ) and it seems the more we try the farther behind we get. I do know we'll never be 100% SS especially living in the suburbs.

Yes we live in Washington state AKA The Land That Summer Forgot (two years now) so yes gardening has been a real challenge. I've been gardening and canning for years and for about the last 5 years have been learning about saving all my own seeds-the main reason for heirlooms with the purpose of being able to share those seeds with others if none were available elsewhere in some SHTF situation. That's not to say I expect to save the world or anything, but since pure, viable, non-gmo seed keeps getting more difficult to obtain I'd like to have enough on hand to know my family and others will be able to eat.
This year I did have to resort to buying alot of seeds/starts but still keeping an eye out for seed savables because of our cool wet weather (has yet to get over 85 for more than a day or two). I just can't figure out how in the world lettuce & parsnips didn't sprout or grow???? Overall the garden isn't doing too bad and we should have a bumper crop of taters & onions anyway and those both are from starts/sets since I've never been able to grow onions from seed. Raspberries have been loaded and have gotten a few good pickings from. My one mistake here is that I picked a ton of them with the intent to make some jam & a pie but had to work for the next few days & they ended up going bad before I could get to them. Note to self--don't harvest until day off
The strawberries have done wonderful also, but we had to share the bounty with the chickens, rats, bugs, slugs & possibly the dog that got to them first :/

As for the hens....where do I start? Arnie & Misty we've had for about a year and are older, we did get atleast one egg a day maybe two. Then in Feb/Mar I wormed them (first some PigSwig in the water & about a week later a dab of Ivermectin-it had worked well for our other hens before that) Arnie stopped laying altogether but still went thru the motions just no results and Misty decided her eggs were for 'self-serve' purposes. To get her to stop eating them, I gave extra protein as in worms, catfood, leftovers, etc plus I switched from recycled egg shells to oyster shell, not to mention cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, acv, polyvisol, electrolytes, boss and everything else I could think of all to no avail. When I checked the few she didn't break into I seen that there was like a ring around it with it being lighter colored on one end and the whole shell was weak even with the extra calcium supps. I came to the conclusion she's just an "old" egg eater. I've been more than ready to wring both their necks for some time now. Even the boys want to use them as target practice. So of all the people in the house around here that want to keep these feathered birdbrains is DH. He apparently feels sorry for them because "you did it to yourself by giving them recycled egg shell...it serves you right" WHAT?????
Then the other two we got a month or two ago, they are a smaller mixed breed. Weeone has sat but not laid yet that I can tell and Littlebit started laying about a week after we got them up until July 4th (ish) and I haven't seen an egg anywhere since from any of them. That is until last night the boys called me at work to tell me they found a nest behind a board on the other side of the garage (opposite end of the yard from the coop) that has 5 eggs in it. It's got to be from one of these new hens, we just don't know for sure which one. Right now we're leaving the eggs alone to see if one of the hens will maybe go broody. Probably not, but it's worth a try.

Then of course we've been having a rat-war. I've lost count of how many the dog, DH and the boys have gotten but it seems as if they still keep coming. It didn't help that when I went to check on & pick some peas that I found that half of them had been munched on with definate 'bite' marks
And of course the neighbor cats have been using my garden as a litterbox and they won't do it in open areas but right next to plants that end up being dug up or broken

Since I work nights & weekends and hubby works days m-f, most meals are up to him to fix and he of course will take the quick & easy way out for himself & the boys. I can't really blame him for that. I do try to do alot of the 'prep' work before I have to leave, but time, effort and inclination only goes so far.

We are in a similar situation with Wannabefree......teetering on the financial edge. I had been a SAHM for 10+years and had already cut as much fat as possible and our dollar had been stretched to the breaking point. We were 'just' making it on DH's income before the recession hit and as prices began to soar I started job hunting. But after being out of work for so long and my office/tech skills had become obsolete it near impossible to get a decent job. So I applied everywhere/anywhere hiring, got a few interviews and finally landed a job.....at Walmart of all places I figure if they are dumb enough to hire me, I'll be smart enough to take their money. My hours are flexible anywhere from 16-40 hours a week and right now they've been cutting back hours in our store. About a month after starting, DH's hours were cut back so we're not really any farther ahead on that score, plus the extra expense that goes with it all. Then of course his company stopped providing medical and has now stopped participating in 401k (they had stopped paying into it along time ago, but now they aren't even maintaining the accounts & its up to the employees to either roll them over, withdraw funds or pay upkeep fees) and now the business is up for sale. It's not a matter of IF dh will loose his job, but WHEN. Either the business will be sold or the company files bankruptcy/shuts down. What really sucks is knowing its coming but unable to really prepare for it. I don't know how feasible it is, but am thinking when DH does loose the job & we can't make the payments anymore, maybe we could 'squat' here for awhile. Atleast thru the winter.

All frustrations aside, I guess it's not all sooo bad. It's true enough I'm learning all the things NOT to do. Like starting out with 'old' hens, but I don't want to do eggs in a bater or even young chicks under heat. I don't want to have that hassle. I'd rather start with young pullets that are more prone to broodiness and let nature take it's course. Build a better coop system like maybe solid steel & concrete and move to a warmer climate. Most of which right now are not possible. I guess when life gets so ridiculously out of sync, it's time to laugh at it. It's been said 'someday you'll laugh at all this'......I say why wait, I'll laugh now. I've got to, or else I'll cry.

okay, I'll stop whining now. Thanks for hearing me out.