How many have actually made the change?

[Joel_BC]

A couple of years after that, we got the opportunity to purchase the empty lot next door...and the next one over. When combined with the rental property that we owned on the other side of us, it gave us 3/4 of an acre to turn into an urban homestead. Since that time, we've invested in the tools, training and know how to be able to do the things that we do. We have chickens and quail for eggs and have the potential for raising the quail for meat, too. We've installed a lot of permaculture into the property in the form of asparagus, raspberries, herbs, mulberries, lambsquarters and potatoes. Yep...around here, potatoes are permaculture since I get lots of volunteers from spuds that I failed to harvest.

While we consider ourselves to be urban farmers and homesteaders because of our frugal ways, we just aren't finished yet. We plan to move to a farm once the kids are out of college. That means a couple more years of city living. When we move, we'll carry our skills, knowledge and plant starts with us. One more thing that we'll take with us is the ability to earn a living without relying on a job. This area of NY has lost a lot of jobs over the years. That didn't start in 2008. Our city is an old rust belt city and it has been shedding manufacturing jobs since the 1970's. Since getting married over 20 years ago, Hubby and I have purchased rental properties to provide a supplemental income. Houses can be quite inexpensive in this area. Over the past 10 years, I've counseled a lot of small business owners in the course of my career and have built a nice little side business to supplement my paycheck. I've also been writing for agricultural magazines and now, I'm writing novels. I can work from anywhere, but once we have our farm, I don't want to have to commute a long distance to get to an office each day.

You've got a great plan, and obviously have admirable commitment and persistence. I gather real-estate was originally a sideline of yours. You don't have to go any deeper into explanation thatn you care to, of course... If you're comfortable discussing it, I'd be curious to know whether your current "office" job is connected with your real-estate (rental property, etc) business - or whether you've still got some other mainstay business. I've gotten the point that you've also done some counselling/teaching and writing, and that writing your novels is now a chief interest.

 

[Old Sew'n'Sew]

I didn't know what WTSHTF or TEOTWAWKI was until I joined this forum. I had to ask somebody very sheepishly to explain the terms.
I have lived "back to the land" or "off grid" so to speak about 29 yrs. ago, but the land wasn't mine so I couldn't stay there.

I am more in agreement with Bee, in that I have been preparing spiritually for the past 26 years, however that we choose to prepare in a material way will be of no consequence sp? if a really big level event occurred. For instance on 9-!! when my DH called me and said turn on the TV, I was safe in my own living room but I am sure my prayers went all the way to NYC instantly. The one thing that never occured to me while I was watching and trying to understand what was happening, obtaining food, land or chickens, etc. was the farthest thing from my mind.

In 2008 when I saw the stock market start to plunge it was very interesting, but we have never had an income that allowed us to gamble, oops I mean "invest" in that game. I have wondered all my life why anyone with a drop of common sense would want to give away their hard earned money to the already wealthy.( It reminds me of when my sister said "lets put our allowance together then we will have more money, and I will hold it for you, and since I'm the one that is holding it I get a new pair of jeans first and then the next time we get some money then it's your turn."

The fall out from that and the housing bubble have definately affected us in a trickle down kind of way. Some friends of ours lost their home to forclosure and had to move away for jobs. Higher prices for food and gas. That is the reason that I used prepping methods and couponing and so forth because it is a more frugal way to live and pushes the inflation a little further down the road for us anyway. This is the only change that we have made in our lifestyle because we already reduce reuse and recycle plus we burn wood for heat and all that we can but complete and perfect SS is a fools errand, because we can't get there from here on our own strength.

As for land and homesteading that has always been a lifelong dream for me and is in my blood. I want my own land because I want to have a rooster for my flock without somebody calling animal control, I want to sit on my porch on a starry night and gaze without obstruction or street light glare, I want to go into a real garden barefoot and sink my toes into warm earth and pick a sweet ripe tomato and put salt on it from the shaker I keep hidden there, I want to help a newborn kid find it mothers teet for the first time, smell fresh mown hay, lay in bed at night under a handmade quilt and listen to the crickets and a distant train whistle, I want to drink crystal clear spring water from my own water source....I could go on but you get the picture.

For the time being I am growing where I have been planted and have faith that in time the meek will inherit the earth.

edited for spelling errors by me

 

[moolie]

Well, since Moolie lives in Canada I do understand her approach. I have visited Canada and the cities I was able to experience certainly did make me much more comfortable than what I experienced in the cities in the USA. I only hope that quality of life continues to be true for all Canadians.

Just thought I'd comment on this part. Canada is a big country, geographically, and pretty varied economically, socially, and even philosophically. Something that concerns me is a complacency that can easily come - especially during affluent periods - from convenience and technology. I mean, we have plenty of young people who have become aimless, but who are able to get fed, clothed, and sheltered (perhaps in Mom's basement suite?). They can get frozen supermarket quick food, so long as someone in the house can afford to buy it for them. They can be sufficiently entertained with TV and the internet. No particular career path. Outside of digital fun (entertainment, and possibly a bit of hacking ), their skills are few.

That can be a pattern that can somehow seem socially affordable during normal economic times. But (since jobs are harder to get when times are tough) the likelihood of young people like that vigorously hunting down and getting jobs these days has become slimmer.

This doesn't describe young people in general, these days... it's hard to generalize. In my wife's and my extended family in the western part of the country, we have some younger relatives like that, and some who are much more committed, trained, and vigorous.

There's lots that's good about Canada, but our hardy pioneer days are a couple generations behind us... further behinds us, in some regions.

I certainly didn't mean to speak for everyone in Canada, or even my city. We volunteer with the homeless and know the score there.

Nor do I want to give the impression that we're (by any stretch of the imagination) rich or well-to-do. We're not. We live frugally because we have to. And we're fortunate that our grandparents did belong to a more pioneering generation, simply because they were mostly immigrants who had to start over with very little.

Interesting that Joel brings up the younger generation that is coming into adulthood. We ourselves have teens, and our friends all have kids ranging from early teens to late 20s. I see a wide range of attitudes in that group of young people, but I'm generally pleased to find that most of the young people that I know are not airheaded moochers. They have jobs, many of the teens (part time) as well as the older ones, and they have concrete plans regarding education and work. This is an expensive city to live in, so most do live at home while going to school, but I don't see that many staying home once they graduate and get jobs. We're unique in our circle of friends when it comes to how far we've taken our "ss" lifestyle, but we've piqued the interest of a few here and there who now grow vegetable gardens, do some canning etc.

But I do see the news reports about the generation they're labeling as the "millennials" and I have great concerns for the bulk of that young generation coming up. They are complacent (and don't get me wrong, so are many in my generation as well as that of my parents) but they also seem to feel incredibly entitled. They've never been taught how to deal with failure, because that wasn't allowed to happen in school, in sport etc. Kids don't repeat grades in school anymore, everyone gets a prize just for showing up so no one feels left out. And they are incredibly plugged in. Communication, entertainment--there doesn't seem to be any dividing line anymore between the two. I do wonder what the future looks like for these young people and how they'll cope "in the real world".

 

[Beekissed]

As for land and homesteading that has always been a lifelong dream for me and is in my blood. I want my own land because I want to have a rooster for my flock without somebody calling animal control, I want to sit on my porch on a starry night and gaze without obstruction or street light glare, I want to go into a real garden barefoot and sink my toes into warm earth and pick a sweet ripe tomato and put salt on it from the shaker I keep hidden there, I want to help a newborn kid find it mothers teet for the first time, smell fresh mown hay, lay in bed at night under a handmade quilt and listen to the crickets and a distant train whistle, I want to drink crystal clear spring water from my own water source....I could go on but you get the picture.

Beautiful! Eloquently written!

 

[Lady Henevere]

This is an interesting post I've been watching from the beginning, but I rarely have time to post replies.

To answer the OP's question, I have lived on 1/3 acre in the city since the late 90s and I have not turned it into an urban homestead. It is not worth my time and money to do so, since I have a day job and the time it would take me to make and tend an urban homestead would take away from work and family. Besides, there are at least 20 fabulous farmers' markets around here to choose from, and they often provide better and more varied produce than I could grow myself. I have some fruit trees, chickens, herbs, and tomatoes, but it's certainly not enough to feed my family.

I think part of the original question came from the premise that most on here are preparing for some major societal change. Like Old Sew'n'Sew, I didn't know what TSHTF or TEOTWAWKI was until I came to this forum (and I was attacked for asking for an explanation). But now that I know what it is, I don't believe TEOTWAWKI is anywhere close, I don't fear change, and I am not a prepper. I think society will evolve and change just like always, and I seriously doubt I will ever regret not stocking up for more than a run-of-the-mill disaster like an earthquake or windstorm or fire (the typical disasters around here). So I feel no need to "escape" to the country, since I like the city and its people. (And to clear up a misconception I often hear repeated here, not everyone in a city is shallow, debt-ridden, and pathetic -- even here in L.A. There are tons of creative, intelligent, very down-to-earth people all over the city. We even have the dreaded immigrants someone a few posts back lamented, and they are appreciated as part of the culture of this city.)

I have remained a member here since I have chickens and a small garden, I can some food now and then, and I like living in a way that isn't all about consumption and waste. So I may not fit what most assume is the "typical" SS-er on here, but I enjoy the information here about those topics, and I especially enjoy hearing different viewpoints on life, as in this thread, even if I have not "made the change," so to speak.

As for the cause of the current trend toward self-sufficiency, at least in the city, it seems like an attempt to escape "corporate food." People don't like factory-farmed meat, they don't like battery-cage hens, they don't like the processed junk in grocery stores, they want the fresh, delicious produce available from the garden or the farmers' markets (which come with the added bonus of knowing where your food comes from and removing the corporate middle man from the sale of food). I think this was largely fueled by "Food, Inc.," "King Corn," "The Omnivore's Dilemma," etc. To get away from corporate food, you have to get some hens, plant a garden, learn to preserve fresh food by canning or dehydrating, etc. And while you're at it, maybe you start to get interested in making your own soap or brewing your own beer, etc. I think it's also driven some by the trend away from the corporate everything, the frustration with big business, the anger of the 99%, so to speak, which came later but has similar roots. The whole thing may also be influenced by the growing individualization of our world, where you can find whatever you're interested on the internet (or on the downside, affirmation of whatever belief you have already chosen). As a result you're not stuck doing what your parents or family have done, you're not limited to the skills you learned where you grew up, because you can easily find a group with similar interests online and learn from them -- even if they are scattered across the globe. (For me, canning is a good example since I learned it here; my cousin learned to knit from YouTube, etc.) Anyway, I suspect all of that has caused at least some people to trend toward self-sufficiency type stuff.

Anyway, that's one humble view from the city.

 

[Icu4dzs]

So it does appear that each of us has some underlying reasons and some practical reasons for what we do. I find this so interesting because if you think about it, we are a subset of a very interesting group of People. Yes, we are all individuals and come from somewhat different backgrounds and different surroundings, but the beauty is that we do in some grand way, share some very interesting commonality. We love the land and how it makes us feel. We love to have some control and input as to what we eat and where it comes from. We tend to be independent minded, both politically and spiritually. We care about the husbandry of animals that help us provide our sustenance as well as contribute to our survival as mortal beings. We appreciate the beauty of the earth and sky and what wisdom it provides us with when we study it in earnest.

We also admit that we have some concerns. Some may resort to calling them fears but the in the end analysis, they are essentially the same issue. We are not very trusting of all the folks who have managed to gain control of the system we call "The Economy".

While I was not a Bill Clinton fan during his tenure in the White House, there was at least one thing that he seemed to have learned and it was emblazoned on a sign that he kept near him which said "It's the Economy, Stupid". I don't know who said that to him or where it came from but the value of that statement cannot be underestimated. Back then some folks were already working toward being SS because there were signs that the economy was faltering. They also had very little with which to work and so they looked for ways to back away from a system that was becoming more difficult to "trust". They also looked for ways to feed themselves well and shelter themselves and their family using the rather meager resources they possessed. They as did we, learn from their parents and grandparents about "The Great Depression" where every thing had value because you never knew when you would need that again. The Second World War caused people to sacrifice and "make do" with things because so much material and natural resources were needed for the 'war effort'.

Now, we spend and spend at the "economy management level" because everyone wants things that are brand new and not misused by someone else before they got it. We don't all buy new cars but some do. We don't all buy used things because we want something that is ours and not someone else's. Where we got that (and I use WE in the global sense rather than a more personal sense of the readers here) mentality may have come from some of our ancestors who came here from other countries and wanted to "BE Americans" and start all over with everything new. I know that many folks came to this side of the world (and please don't think I am not including Canada in this discussion because that isn't the point here) carrying very little of anything; sometimes nothing. They may have been forced out of their homes or villages and managed to escape with the clothes on their back and their lives. They escaped persecution as well as physical threat. Some were able to bring "steamer chests" with some mementos of their lives in the "old country" but only after they felt safe did they bring those things out to let others see. But in any case, they decided that they wanted to integrate and be part of the NEW world, having left the "old country behind. Some did it for economic opportunity. One of my favorite movies was "Far and Away" with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman because the purpose of the entire story was to come to a new place and have land to own and work and be for all intents and purposes, Free and self-sufficient.

Then we come to the generation after the Second World War to which many of us belong. Young men came home from a war in a place they knew nothing about and fought hard to help folks remain free of the most horrible oppression the world had seen in a very long time. Each generation which is given new technology seems to also generate a group of folks who believe they are in some way superior to the rest of the souls on this planet and find some way to attempt to "cleanse" the earth of the ones that these folks decide are "undesirable". Hence we have seen the results of that cause war in many locations.

Now these young men who went away, came home, started families and worked hard, hoping I am sure, that the generation they bring to the earth will NOT have to endure the trials they did in war. Did that work? Nope. We are still doing it. Nothing has changed in a sense except that now with the advent of so much greater technology on the earth, we have once again seen the rise of some form of "elite" group of folks who because of extreme wealth and arrogance, have decided that the earth has too many "undesirables" on it once again and the only solution for that is war. The other solutions known well in history were pestilence, disease and famine. In my country, we appear to have conquered much of those three so war is the only remaining method for "reducing the population". Malthus described this long ago.

So where do we go with this? One of the more interesting questions is "how did WE, the folks on this Forum" become "associated? Is it by chance or is there some other force that brings us together and binds us in a group of like-mindedness? We all have our reasons and we all have our methods, but the "prime directive" deep in our consciousness is to in some way, revert to a form of living that will NOT be disturbed by any change in the overarching control of the technological world in which we currently live.

I read some posts where folks want to learn to render fat to make candles. I know plenty of folks (including myself) who have bees that will make wax for candles. But the question that I keep asking and admit that I am obviously NOT getting worded well seems to be, "to what extent are we able to revert to a less technologically intense life style, without giving it up completely?" Many of us know that the advent of electricity separates us from the age when energy was almost unheard of at the individual level. People did things with HUMAN POWER rather than ELECTRIC power. The gasoline engine seemed to take over our world and now we appear to find ourselves almost enslaved by it. We spend huge amounts of our resources simply to support our "car habit"...cost of car, cost of maintenance, cost of insurance, cost of fuel (which keeps changing), cost of human life by misuse of the car, cost of time and cost of nearly everything because it is related to our dependence on the gasoline engine.

Currently, there is a "revolution" going on to preserve the gasoline engine as "KING" by the folks who benefit most from that huge group of "costs" that they manage to REAP. The oil companies are at the top of that list. The knowledge of how to use a reciprocating engine with some other energy source has existed for many years, but the patents had been purchased by the owners of the oil companies who realized that such competition would put them out of business, and very quickly. One of the things I noticed was the sudden significant increase in the cost of fuel, (diesel being the most egregious of offenders) coincided with a very interesting date. That date was the end of the patent protection for the things that the oil companies had worked so hard to suppress. They also knew that the original explanation for the decision NOT to use hydrogen as a fuel was faulty and only recently proven completely erroneous. The story of the Hindenburg was shown to be caused by the paint that covered the aircraft which is now used as rocket fuel, RATHER than the hydrogen with which the aircraft was lifted. By claiming that hydrogen was dangerous because it was "explosive" tended to negate the properties of gasoline when atomized, mixed with air and compressed inside a gas tight cylinder. OK, so that explosion is DIFFERENT from putting hydrogen in the same place? Not to my way of thinking. (But I digress).

Given those issues, what then can we do to minimize having our resources drained by magnitudes of order? (And I mean that quite literally when we talk about the cost of goods and services that we have experienced in this country since I was a boy). What are we willing to give up, but still maintain our sense of "self-control" and self-sufficiency" in the grand scheme of things? This then is our true basic question. Many of us have made a multitude of attempts to get along with either less of one thing or another but the truth is we want to get along with less dependence on not only foreign oil, but also other people outside our immediate environment.

We don't want to go back to the stone age and realistically can't given the population and the effect of that many people and the small amounts of space left on the earth for nature to dominate. We keep killing off populations of living things because their habitat interferes with "progress". Quite frankly, I think we have made way more progress than we really need to be healthy and happy and not destroy any more of the earth to make room for MORE progress which translates to MORE PROGRESS USING PEOPLE.

How are we going to do this? No one really knows. But the first thing is we as a subset of the human race, further divided into the subset that understands these inconsistencies, have to decide what OUR personal threshold for living on the earth truly is without adding to the already huge demand for things we don't have but WANT. A trip to town to get a bottle of milk just doesn't make sense. A trip to town to buy a month's supplies, however, does make sense. The difference is how we manage our resources and that appears to be the deep question to all of the questions I have been examining.

We SS'ers are doing what we can to diminish our "carbon footprint" and demand for things that are produced at great expense to the earth. We all are hoping to avoid the fact that with an economy that is forever increasing in demand and decreasing in reward for our efforts, the time will come when we will not be able to afford to have anything to eat because we won't have the cash to buy it. How do we respond?

We grow gardens. We live on plots of land (regardless of how large) and make every effort to produce the human needs we have on our own so that the cost of them will not exceed our resources. Anyone who has a "yard" in this world can actually grow almost enough food to supply themselves for an entire year, given proper management. While many do not possess the knowledge to do it currently, the truth is that this knowledge is available and can be learned, assuming the desire to learn it exists in the individual.

That knowledge alone would go a long way to diminish the demand on the resources of the world in general and provide for increased peace and happiness EVERYWHERE in the world. There are really only very few places that will NOT sustain some form of agriculture and even that is being conquered by research. The real issue is do we as a "HUMAN RACE" have the will to do our own work and be self-sufficient" rather than expect others to work and we just buy what they produce? That is an answer many folks really don't want to give because they are not willing to do the work to survive. They have been acculturated to think that our form of gubmint is responsible to provide for them in every way. The end result of that is that the number of that type of mentality is growing to such a degree that we can see changes in our chances for comfortable survival till the end of our lives because of the cost of contributing to the "common good" by the folks who WILL work to feed and clothe and supply those who WON'T work.

I think the time has come to examine our Constitution and realize that it has been so mis-interpreted and mis-used as to become in no way the document it truly is. People have always been poor in society regardless of what society. People have always been unable to do for themselves. It is well documented in the Bible and elsewhere in written history. But, the number of people who claim to be this way is so staggering and unmanageable as to cause everyone and everything to be harder to obtain and more difficult to manage.

I believe we need to allow the Constitution to do its job and stop being misused by those who profit by that misuse. Controlling the entire country and its people from one central location has destroyed the purpose of the structure of the Constitution which in article 10 clearly indicates that the central governing body needs to do the job called for by the Constitution and leave the rest of the management of life to the individual states.

Boy, this one has really gotten long but it appears to me that this is something we as SS'ers need to feel that we are "in control" of our destiny and stop letting a few, ill-mannered, greedy and weak individuals make decisions for our lives without our consent. While I am NOT a member of any "political party" and do NOT subscribe to any specific political "platform" I do believe in my country and what it stands for and what its founding fathers were doing when they set it up. They were certainly SS'ers in the most concrete form of the words and gave us a document that provided the ability for us to be SS'ers for the entire span of our natural lives.

I for one, would like that privilege returned to me because presently, it has been taken away in so many ways as to make me deeply concerned for the lives of my unborn grandchildren.

YMMV
Trim sends

//BT//

 

[meriruka]

nevermind.

 

[GhostRider65]

So it does appear that each of us has some underlying reasons and some practical reasons for what we do. I find this so interesting because if you think about it, we are a subset of a very interesting group of People. Yes, we are all individuals and come from somewhat different backgrounds and different surroundings, but the beauty is that we do in some grand way, share some very interesting commonality. We love the land and how it makes us feel. We love to have some control and input as to what we eat and where it comes from. We tend to be independent minded, both politically and spiritually. We care about the husbandry of animals that help us provide our sustenance as well as contribute to our survival as mortal beings. We appreciate the beauty of the earth and sky and what wisdom it provides us with when we study it in earnest.

We also admit that we have some concerns. Some may resort to calling them fears but the in the end analysis, they are essentially the same issue. We are not very trusting of all the folks who have managed to gain control of the system we call "The Economy".

While I was not a Bill Clinton fan during his tenure in the White House, there was at least one thing that he seemed to have learned and it was emblazoned on a sign that he kept near him which said "It's the Economy, Stupid". I don't know who said that to him or where it came from but the value of that statement cannot be underestimated. Back then some folks were already working toward being SS because there were signs that the economy was faltering. They also had very little with which to work and so they looked for ways to back away from a system that was becoming more difficult to "trust". They also looked for ways to feed themselves well and shelter themselves and their family using the rather meager resources they possessed. They as did we, learn from their parents and grandparents about "The Great Depression" where every thing had value because you never knew when you would need that again. The Second World War caused people to sacrifice and "make do" with things because so much material and natural resources were needed for the 'war effort'.

Now, we spend and spend at the "economy management level" because everyone wants things that are brand new and not misused by someone else before they got it. We don't all buy new cars but some do. We don't all buy used things because we want something that is ours and not someone else's. Where we got that (and I use WE in the global sense rather than a more personal sense of the readers here) mentality may have come from some of our ancestors who came here from other countries and wanted to "BE Americans" and start all over with everything new. I know that many folks came to this side of the world (and please don't think I am not including Canada in this discussion because that isn't the point here) carrying very little of anything; sometimes nothing. They may have been forced out of their homes or villages and managed to escape with the clothes on their back and their lives. They escaped persecution as well as physical threat. Some were able to bring "steamer chests" with some mementos of their lives in the "old country" but only after they felt safe did they bring those things out to let others see. But in any case, they decided that they wanted to integrate and be part of the NEW world, having left the "old country behind. Some did it for economic opportunity. One of my favorite movies was "Far and Away" with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman because the purpose of the entire story was to come to a new place and have land to own and work and be for all intents and purposes, Free and self-sufficient.

Then we come to the generation after the Second World War to which many of us belong. Young men came home from a war in a place they knew nothing about and fought hard to help folks remain free of the most horrible oppression the world had seen in a very long time. Each generation which is given new technology seems to also generate a group of folks who believe they are in some way superior to the rest of the souls on this planet and find some way to attempt to "cleanse" the earth of the ones that these folks decide are "undesirable". Hence we have seen the results of that cause war in many locations.

Now these young men who went away, came home, started families and worked hard, hoping I am sure, that the generation they bring to the earth will NOT have to endure the trials they did in war. Did that work? Nope. We are still doing it. Nothing has changed in a sense except that now with the advent of so much greater technology on the earth, we have once again seen the rise of some form of "elite" group of folks who because of extreme wealth and arrogance, have decided that the earth has too many "undesirables" on it once again and the only solution for that is war. The other solutions known well in history were pestilence, disease and famine. In my country, we appear to have conquered much of those three so war is the only remaining method for "reducing the population". Malthus described this long ago.

So where do we go with this? One of the more interesting questions is "how did WE, the folks on this Forum" become "associated? Is it by chance or is there some other force that brings us together and binds us in a group of like-mindedness? We all have our reasons and we all have our methods, but the "prime directive" deep in our consciousness is to in some way, revert to a form of living that will NOT be disturbed by any change in the overarching control of the technological world in which we currently live.

I read some posts where folks want to learn to render fat to make candles. I know plenty of folks (including myself) who have bees that will make wax for candles. But the question that I keep asking and admit that I am obviously NOT getting worded well seems to be, "to what extent are we able to revert to a less technologically intense life style, without giving it up completely?" Many of us know that the advent of electricity separates us from the age when energy was almost unheard of at the individual level. People did things with HUMAN POWER rather than ELECTRIC power. The gasoline engine seemed to take over our world and now we appear to find ourselves almost enslaved by it. We spend huge amounts of our resources simply to support our "car habit"...cost of car, cost of maintenance, cost of insurance, cost of fuel (which keeps changing), cost of human life by misuse of the car, cost of time and cost of nearly everything because it is related to our dependence on the gasoline engine.

Currently, there is a "revolution" going on to preserve the gasoline engine as "KING" by the folks who benefit most from that huge group of "costs" that they manage to REAP. The oil companies are at the top of that list. The knowledge of how to use a reciprocating engine with some other energy source has existed for many years, but the patents had been purchased by the owners of the oil companies who realized that such competition would put them out of business, and very quickly. One of the things I noticed was the sudden significant increase in the cost of fuel, (diesel being the most egregious of offenders) coincided with a very interesting date. That date was the end of the patent protection for the things that the oil companies had worked so hard to suppress. They also knew that the original explanation for the decision NOT to use hydrogen as a fuel was faulty and only recently proven completely erroneous. The story of the Hindenburg was shown to be caused by the paint that covered the aircraft which is now used as rocket fuel, RATHER than the hydrogen with which the aircraft was lifted. By claiming that hydrogen was dangerous because it was "explosive" tended to negate the properties of gasoline when atomized, mixed with air and compressed inside a gas tight cylinder. OK, so that explosion is DIFFERENT from putting hydrogen in the same place? Not to my way of thinking. (But I digress).

Given those issues, what then can we do to minimize having our resources drained by magnitudes of order? (And I mean that quite literally when we talk about the cost of goods and services that we have experienced in this country since I was a boy). What are we willing to give up, but still maintain our sense of "self-control" and self-sufficiency" in the grand scheme of things? This then is our true basic question. Many of us have made a multitude of attempts to get along with either less of one thing or another but the truth is we want to get along with less dependence on not only foreign oil, but also other people outside our immediate environment.

We don't want to go back to the stone age and realistically can't given the population and the effect of that many people and the small amounts of space left on the earth for nature to dominate. We keep killing off populations of living things because their habitat interferes with "progress". Quite frankly, I think we have made way more progress than we really need to be healthy and happy and not destroy any more of the earth to make room for MORE progress which translates to MORE PROGRESS USING PEOPLE.

How are we going to do this? No one really knows. But the first thing is we as a subset of the human race, further divided into the subset that understands these inconsistencies, have to decide what OUR personal threshold for living on the earth truly is without adding to the already huge demand for things we don't have but WANT. A trip to town to get a bottle of milk just doesn't make sense. A trip to town to buy a month's supplies, however, does make sense. The difference is how we manage our resources and that appears to be the deep question to all of the questions I have been examining.

We SS'ers are doing what we can to diminish our "carbon footprint" and demand for things that are produced at great expense to the earth. We all are hoping to avoid the fact that with an economy that is forever increasing in demand and decreasing in reward for our efforts, the time will come when we will not be able to afford to have anything to eat because we won't have the cash to buy it. How do we respond?

We grow gardens. We live on plots of land (regardless of how large) and make every effort to produce the human needs we have on our own so that the cost of them will not exceed our resources. Anyone who has a "yard" in this world can actually grow almost enough food to supply themselves for an entire year, given proper management. While many do not possess the knowledge to do it currently, the truth is that this knowledge is available and can be learned, assuming the desire to learn it exists in the individual.

That knowledge alone would go a long way to diminish the demand on the resources of the world in general and provide for increased peace and happiness EVERYWHERE in the world. There are really only very few places that will NOT sustain some form of agriculture and even that is being conquered by research. The real issue is do we as a "HUMAN RACE" have the will to do our own work and be self-sufficient" rather than expect others to work and we just buy what they produce? That is an answer many folks really don't want to give because they are not willing to do the work to survive. They have been acculturated to think that our form of gubmint is responsible to provide for them in every way. The end result of that is that the number of that type of mentality is growing to such a degree that we can see changes in our chances for comfortable survival till the end of our lives because of the cost of contributing to the "common good" by the folks who WILL work to feed and clothe and supply those who WON'T work.

I think the time has come to examine our Constitution and realize that it has been so mis-interpreted and mis-used as to become in no way the document it truly is. People have always been poor in society regardless of what society. People have always been unable to do for themselves. It is well documented in the Bible and elsewhere in written history. But, the number of people who claim to be this way is so staggering and unmanageable as to cause everyone and everything to be harder to obtain and more difficult to manage.

I believe we need to allow the Constitution to do its job and stop being misused by those who profit by that misuse. Controlling the entire country and its people from one central location has destroyed the purpose of the structure of the Constitution which in article 10 clearly indicates that the central governing body needs to do the job called for by the Constitution and leave the rest of the management of life to the individual states.

Boy, this one has really gotten long but it appears to me that this is something we as SS'ers need to feel that we are "in control" of our destiny and stop letting a few, ill-mannered, greedy and weak individuals make decisions for our lives without our consent. While I am NOT a member of any "political party" and do NOT subscribe to any specific political "platform" I do believe in my country and what it stands for and what its founding fathers were doing when they set it up. They were certainly SS'ers in the most concrete form of the words and gave us a document that provided the ability for us to be SS'ers for the entire span of our natural lives.

I for one, would like that privilege returned to me because presently, it has been taken away in so many ways as to make me deeply concerned for the lives of my unborn grandchildren.

YMMV
Trim sendshttp://www.sufficientself.com/forum/uploads/1808_images.jpeg
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I really like your posts.... they sound so much like my thoughts I almost double take what I have been thinking, I so totally agree with you about giving our rights back, I think the common people do not even realize just how many are actually gone already, way past gone even , and we loose more ground each day, with every new bill passed part of our future and the future of kids and grand kids is taken away in such a way that most never even question it...Every law seems to have it's own agenda of greedy jerks behind it with their hands in everyones pockets before we even get our paychecks.... It's quite a sad constitution today compared to what it once was. Ty for your thoughts Kim

 

[Icu4dzs]

I have been asking a lot of questions about "who we are?" and "what we think" and "Why we do what we do" and "How did we get that way" and "Why do some of us have serious concerns about the future, either soon or remotely?"

Frankly, it seems that some folks do get kind of defensive because they have wants and desires but there are extenuating circumstances that prevent them from attaining the goals that either THEY want or perhaps there is a bit of envy because others may have done so. (not sure which and it really doesn't matter). We are ALL in our own SCRIPT and on our own timeline. Some simply just CAN'T pick up and leave though they might really want to do so.

Some have done it. Some are doing what might be called "Shelter in place" and feeling the same level of satisfaction as some others who may have made other decisions.

Regardless of what your current resources are, the questions that I ask are simply posed to attempt to identify what we as SS'ers have in common, either "by thought, word or deed." One post by a fellow in Canada said that he had not ever seen any stated philosophy as to what the SS ideals are. That made a great deal of sense to me and I think it got me to write something to stimulate that very discussion. This is NOT to say I want to put us into "pigeon holes" but it is clear to me that we share some very basic and important philosophical concepts and ideals that drive us as human beings in our struggle to live/survive in this mortal plane.
Since there is NO right or wrong in any of this please don't assume that because you do something differently from others that there is any right way to do it.
Hopefully, the more questions we ask ourselves and each other, the better we will be able to know what it is that makes us alike rather than different.
Certainly, if you have followed some of the posts here you'll find that Bel and I think more alike in some very important areas than differ. How many of us have explored our thought processes with each other to do this?
Not a sermon, just a thought.
Trim sends
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[rhoda_bruce]

Let me see where to start. Well, in my early childhood I was raised in my mother's childhood home neighborhood, with her family and they were all farmers......not big farmer; just your SS type, with small herds of cows and fairly big gardens, which would take care of the family and extended family + maybe a few customers. Then we moved furthur up the bayou and bought a much larger piece of virgin land. Mom and Dad used part of the property for a trailer park and eventually made one small apartment and a bunkhouse (which is now my home). The woods stayed the woods and we got lots of deer, rabbits, pigs and such from it. We made a log cabin out of cypress from our own trees.....strickly for enjoyment, but it aroused the imagination of all us kids....I'm the oldest of 3.
We continued to go to Grampa's garden when it was time to pick greenbeans or potatoes and we always had our corn from his garden.
I was so impressed when the family cleaned up my great-grandmother's house (she had died when I was 4) and someone decided to give my mom the mason jars.....some of them still had food. The wild thing for me was when Mom found a jar of figs her grand had canned the year I was born and I was already 18. She opened it and we ate it. It was very good. I was sitting there eating my dead great-grandmother's produce, which she had canned herself. It somehow stayed with me.
I got married when I was almost 20, 26 years ago and shortly after, Mom and Mawmaw (her mom) really taught me all the basics of home canning. Not that I asked, but it was like a woman class thing.....like a home-ec to the max class. Hurricane Juan wasn't too much of a bad storm for us, except for the high water. Well the log cabin was destroyed, but the logs were still fine (I mean we talking about cypress), so DH and I took whatever we wanted and started making raised beds, which is all we can really have here. Well God blessed us in our ignorance, because whatever we planted that first year grew, even stuff that isn't supposed to grow here. We used some of the logs to construct a compost bin and I threw in some potatoes, I must have peeled too thickly, because before you knew it, we had potatoes growing.....I'm serious, we were stupid and made every mistake we could make, but not in the garden....we couldn't go wrong that year. And all the while, we knew we were somehow doing good, so we 'borrowed' all Mom's used Organic Gardening Mags and ate each article.
Also, for some reason my mother-in-law decided to give me 5 hens and a rooster. It was more than we needed. They lived on table scraps, grass, weeds and a little cracked corn. My mom made a deal with someone and traded one of my hens for a banty, which quickly got broody and there went me with chicken raising. Guineas also showed up and eventually ducks. We ate. Eventually we needed to set traps for racoons, which we also ate. DH would go hunting rabbits with his father and brothers. FIL was a trawler and sometimes I would get an ice chest of bi-catch.....my favorite was the squids.
Eventually there were lay offs with some of the oil companies which affected everything here, but even if we had to cut corners and do whatever work we could, we had these skills and the coop and garden did a lot to keep us fed and provide a small amt of money. I was scared sometimes, but we managed. And then the children started showing up.
For a long time the gardening and chickens were done, but just because we liked the taste and felt connected to the land, but I must admit that for a long time DH and I have been extra conservative and probably about 2008, we began to be very concerned for the whole country and our own security. I was making pretty good money as a nurse and was quickly paying off our Katrina problem, while DH had the benefit job. We couldn't get homeowner's insurance we could justify because the ins co.s sure don't wanna run the risk of losing anything, so we found out what we were supposed to be paying and started paying ourselves. We had a special account in mutual funds, until we got scared that everything would collapse. So we sold out and invested in a huge coop, barn, retaining wall blocks for a big raised garden, beekeeping equipment, seeds, chickens and the like. We felt that we still had money to invest, but we were investing our money into ourselves. If we got a poor return it was our own fault. So we dove in to SS, with a passion.
I lost both my grandmothers this summer, including the one who taught me so much and its still hard. Its like I lost my mother. Well I already have hundreds of masons and I am to get hers. So I just turned my tv room into a big pantry. Mawmaw would be so proud. Bought 8 metal shelves on sale with NorthernTool to set it up. I love it. I try to do something SS every week I'm off.
So you see, I've always had my roots in farming and its always been part of me, but fear is a great motivator too. It is a popular thing now. I can almost advertise and offer classes in various SS type topics to make extra $. I have people who come here asking me how to do this and that all the time. We do have generators but only for temporary outages.....to tell the truth, we always plan on the day when all that is worthless. Otherwise I'd just put everything in the freezer. No.....I put what I can in masons or dry it. Mawmaw talks about when Betsy passed thru (which I might say was worse in my area than in New Orleans, contrary to popular belief). She said people were giving away food because no power for 3 weeks, but she claimed she pulled stuff outta her freezer and put them straight into masons and only lost a little squash, then got free food from friends who didn't want their food being wasted.
Its been a long time that we have talked about TSHTF type problems, but only the past couple of years that it seems to be popular with lots of people. Its catching on here. Lots of people making small gardens and coops.