Official Poll: What is your motivation to be more self-sufficient?

[Joel_BC]

We fit into the stated answers in certain ways. Motivation? My family wanted to live in the country. Unless you're wealthy and you hire many of the essentials done for you, then you do an awful lot for yourself. You meet opportunities and rise to challenges, and learn new skills.

An SS lifestyle is where you learn to multiply the value of your money. One household might be able to live as satisfyingly on $30K/year as another on double or triple that. Homesteading, as my wife and I see it, is about enjoying a satisfying life from our own efforts. Growing the salad veggies and also corn, onions, potatoes, tree fruits, berries, grapes, etc. We love the fresh food! Hence, big outdoor gardens and a greenhouse.

We've had chickens in the past and may keep them again in the future. Because we also worked at off-farm jobs, we're part of the local economy and we support our friends and neighbors who raise livestock. We also exchange time and services on a kind of barter basis. We don't feel we have to do everything for ourselves.

Many other aspects also grew naturally from our desire to live in the countryside without a huge bank income - summed up by saying you acquire a lot of practical and manual skills!

 

[Wannabefree]

I'm frugal, always have been. I couldn't narrow it down. It's mostly just a way of life here. However, I NEVER set out to do anything specifically to "save the environment" from whatever.....and especially not global warming..it's 12 degrees here right now. My part of the globe could use a little warming!!!

 

[CrealCritter]

I mentor and teach every chance I get. Anyone who wants to learn, I gladly take the time to teach what I know. What good does it do to have a lifetime of experience and knowledge if you die and take it all with you?

We have a friend named Sarah. I've know her since she was 11 years old. She lived with me and DH for awhile, some 10 years ago. She still tells the story how I dragged her out of bed at 6 AM on a Saturday morning to go with me to the local hardware store for FREE TOMATO DAY!! They gave away a six pack of tomato plants and I need her to go with me so I could get 2 six packs! I had her digging in the garden, helping me plant them, going with me to the horse pasture, shoveling manure and working it into the garden. She ate fresh vegetables from the garden and never forgot it. Since then, twice she has had a garden, growing her own vegetables. She closes on 4 acres and a doublewide in the Houston area in February and will be planting a garden. I planted the seed and she will harvest the increase.

Just this evening a young couple with a 9 year old girl and 5 month old twins came over for a free pair of Silkies I gave away. They just bought a house and 2 acres less than a mile from us. His parents run a vegetable stand in town and we buy from them. He was very interested in the sheep and I let his little girl feed them from her hand and hold a 2 week old lamb. She was thrilled. So here is a great opportunity for exchange of information on both our parts.

These are but 2 examples of people who want to learn. Yes, they are out there, few, but they are out there.

Maybe it's my age but I also teach/mentor.

 

[Beekissed]

I try to teach but really have no one interested in learning it around here. So, mostly it's sharing things I've tried and found good to folks on forums such as this.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I think it's important to keep trying. Maybe just a hint here, or a suggestion there. Some free zucchini or fresh corn. You never know when you're going to plant that seed. I've gotten several of my neighbors involved in gardening. Both of my children grow a few things every year. We all know how demanding gardens are - not everyone has the time. But, if we can help just one or two then perhaps the gardening itch will grow within them.

 

[flowerbug]

...
It's a tiny little seed that they've latched on to. I have no doubt that they will branch out and grow more when the time is right for them.

i've always been interested in gardening, house plants, biology, etc. so it wasn't a stretch for me at all to get back to gardening, but it was a long spell in between when i went away to college and when i got back to where i could grow things again other than a few house plants.

you just have to keep your eyes open for the small chances with kids and see if they have any inclination at all. i have a few distant relatives that are more into it than the immediate family, but i have hopes and sometime perhaps there will be more direct chances. in the meantime, seed swaps, the seed library and on-line are my main things to do. the last two of those i've only started this past few years.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Oh bother... I voted, then read... and see I should have stuck to only 2..

And I don't see how to change my vote.

Well... my top 2

Are 1. cost reduction and 2. producing quality highly nutritious food.

Is this Alaskan from BYC? Glad to have you among us.

 

[Britesea]

Since we don't have a lot of money, cutting and reducing cost has always been important. Having lived through bouts of unemployment, and in areas where power could be knocked out for hours or a day, we've learned to be prepared for emergencies. Also, we live quite a ways from town and I don't like going in to shop more than once a week, lol.

 

[desertcat]

I like knowing where my food comes from and what is (or isn't) in it. When I was little, my sister & I used to play 'pioneer woman'. She outgrew it, and I grew into it! Loved it when DH looked at the last few grocery lists and realized that they were 95% nonfood

 

[baymule]

I want to know that my food is not drenched with glyphosate or 2-4-D or what ever the "safe" poison of the week is. My Daddy always had a garden, my earliest memories are of toddling behind him in his garden. I have gardened off and on through my life and picked it back up about 8 years ago. There is nothing that compare with fresh vegetables, raised without chemicals or pesticides. A small investment in a pack of seeds or a 6-pack of plants brings large rewards, both in food and satisfaction that I am feeding my family with good food.

I can, freeze and dehydrate the extra and I buy what I don't have room to grow. I pick blueberries and blackberries for yummy cobblers all winter. Friends give me figs and pears which I turn into jam and preserves, and give them jars of each in a "thank you". My pantry is packed with gleaming jars.........ok......maybe a little dusty. I have Food-Saver bags of dehydrated vegetables. I have stored beans, rice, wheat, quinoa and sugar in quantity that would feed us for awhile.

We live in hurricane country and when we take a hard hit, the power can be off for weeks. I can walk in the darkness to where I keep a box of kitchen matches and down below in the cabinet, I can lay hands on a kerosene glass lantern. We have a generator for the freezer, but finding gas for it can be an ordeal in and of itself. A bar-b-cue pit cooks what we need to eat when power is off. We have warning when a hurricane is coming, so I bake brownies (need comfort food lol ) I store water in every available pot, plus in big plastic trashcans with lids.

I would hate to pay the bill for the fresh vegetables I grow. There is no way we could eat as healthy as we do if we had to buy it all. I cannot fathom why anybody with a bit of a yard does not grow a garden. Lazy, I guess.

Even thought we are in the center of our small town, I have chickens in the backyard. BYC-RIGHT??? The hens provide us with fresh eggs and the old hens are good in the soup pot. I am contemplating ordering some Pekin ducks to raise for the freezer. DH used to think I was nuts, now when I voice "I'm thinking about......" he just grins. He's a good sport and piles in to help me in whatever madness I have concocted.