Gardentree
Sustainable Newbie
- Joined
- May 9, 2011
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 7
Hello there Sufficient-Self world! A fellow goat enthusiast recommended this site for connecting with folks who are passionate about Homesteading. My fiancee and I recently left the hustle-and-bustle life of the city for 5 acres of paradise in Southwestern Washington state. For her it was a return to country living, as she grew up on 40 acres. For me however, it is something quite different. As a "city-boy" my whole life, I've had a certain amount of curiosity, interest, wonder, and perhaps a bit of fear of leaving it all behind for the rural life. So far -- all one month of it -- it's been paradise!
For now there's just the three of us: she, I, and Samson the dog. It took him the longest to adjust to country living, but it seems he's accepted it nicely. There's been one run-in with the neighbor horse that will probably leave him scarred for life but he's quite lucky. Unfortunately he didn't learn his lesson the first time, and so the challenges of adjusting begin...
We're here to network with other folks across the country / world who appreciate the wonder of nature, and recognize how blessed we are as humans to be able to understand how things work. It's sad that as a culture the farming industry is so frowned upon. Large "food" corporations are pushing out the little guy, and children of the most recent generation are absolutely clueless as to where things come from. I read in a book recently that one thing this homesteader found an appreciation for was enjoying certain crops during their harvest season. As a former city-boy, to me getting raspberries in the winter was perfectly natural. At a local restaurant this weekend I saw on the wall a quote, "once I had a ripe tomato from my garden late-summer, I could never appreciate a tomato in January ever again".
Our goal is to get as close to "off-grid" living as possible. We're vegetarians who eat eggs and drink milk, so no meat animals. We'd like to add solar where possible, and unfortunately we aren't in a good spot for wind power. We would like to get goats for milk, ducks for eggs, and possibly rabbits for manure.
...and so that is a little about us. Any Clark County, WA neighbors out there?
For now there's just the three of us: she, I, and Samson the dog. It took him the longest to adjust to country living, but it seems he's accepted it nicely. There's been one run-in with the neighbor horse that will probably leave him scarred for life but he's quite lucky. Unfortunately he didn't learn his lesson the first time, and so the challenges of adjusting begin...
We're here to network with other folks across the country / world who appreciate the wonder of nature, and recognize how blessed we are as humans to be able to understand how things work. It's sad that as a culture the farming industry is so frowned upon. Large "food" corporations are pushing out the little guy, and children of the most recent generation are absolutely clueless as to where things come from. I read in a book recently that one thing this homesteader found an appreciation for was enjoying certain crops during their harvest season. As a former city-boy, to me getting raspberries in the winter was perfectly natural. At a local restaurant this weekend I saw on the wall a quote, "once I had a ripe tomato from my garden late-summer, I could never appreciate a tomato in January ever again".
Our goal is to get as close to "off-grid" living as possible. We're vegetarians who eat eggs and drink milk, so no meat animals. We'd like to add solar where possible, and unfortunately we aren't in a good spot for wind power. We would like to get goats for milk, ducks for eggs, and possibly rabbits for manure.
...and so that is a little about us. Any Clark County, WA neighbors out there?
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