This is traditionally the time for introspection, for resolutions, plans, goals, etc. We usually spend what ever quiet moments we find talking, thinking, and planning. This year has been no different except for our focus. That’s been a bit more intense. We find our goals all falling with in a pretty narrow band, and find ourselves already taking action on some of them. The reason for this intensity happened on the 21st. We had great plans for celebrating the solstice and my birthday. Instead we came face to face with how dependant we are on income generated from off the farm. We got the opportunity, the gift of taking a hard look at what would happen if that income suddenly went away. Not a happy place to go, and I know many have had to walk that road recently.
I guess the surprising thing for me was how very dependant we are. We have been developing our homestead for a few years now, and felt we were quite independent. We produce all our eggs, milk, most of our cheese and butter, most of our own vegetables, and about half of our meat. We heat primarily with wood gathered locally, and live pretty frugally. We have a very small mortgage on the house and farm, and no other debt. Sounds pretty independent. Right up until we had to face the prospect of no income. Then we remembered that without money to pay the bills there would be no electricity (including the freezer full of food), no water, no fuel for the car, no winter feed for the livestock, no flour, sugar, yeast, oil, coffee, etc. If very short order the bank would come move us out of our home, and we would be without that as well. Not the independent souls we thought we were.
So our projects for the new year are focusing on increasing our independence. Making our home, and family less dependant on the whims of some company, and more secure in our ability to meet our daily basic needs.
The first thing we are doing is assessing what we have, what we produce, and where the gaps are. We are starting with food, and rather than just making a list of what’s in the pantry, we are just pulling the plug. We are going to try living on what is here for a month. No trips to the store, no eating out, no ordering pizza, etc. That should show us the gaps in a big hurry. We are still discussing other steps we will take. I’ll fill those in as we go. I’ll also update our food experiment each week. Should be interesting.
That is absolutely a good plan!
I can’t wait to see how this all works out! Kim
Very interesting. Mr Chiots and I do this often since trips to the store take a few hours. I love to cook creatively so it’s great to find ways to use up little bits of things in the pantry.
We are not even close to being independent, don’t really want to be. I love my jobs, as does Mr Chiots (we do own our own business so we work for ourselves). I really love being able to support other local people that are working hard to provide good quality food. I’ll probably never have a cow, but by supporting a local farm and getting milk from them, I’ll be ensuring that they can provide good milk for me and others like me.
Can’t wait to hear how this experiment goes.
I’ll eagerly await updates. You make some very good points and I can’t wait to hear how some of those hurdles are overcome. I know a few folks that talk a good game, but if it boiled right down to it would be pretty screwed without some kind of plug-in to the modern economy.
Good luck! I’m interested to hear how it goes. I know we could *survive* if not thrive on the food in the house for a month, but would get a mite cranky without milk and eventually we’d run out of caffeine. Then the killing would commence.
We are in the same boat as you though we don’t yet have our acreage and have to lease a small area to raise stock on. We don’t have the options we’d like to be more independent but each year we figure out a way to move closer to the goal of being self-sufficient. Will we ever make it. Maybe not, but we will continue to try. The thing that scares me the most is those powerful companies who move to tightly control our world gobbling up commercial avenues while politically trying to take away our option of being independent. The writing is on the wall so to speak and some very rough waters are ahead of us before things get straightened out. What I try to focus on is how we can shift ourselves to better weather the brewing storm. I anxiously await your awareness experiments this month as you seek to learn areas to make personal changes in. I’m sure it will also open my eyes to things we need to do in our personal lifestyle. Thanks for sharing.
When we really had to examine what we could produce and what we couldn’t, it surprised us. The info we needed was right before us, although we did not see it. For us cutting out livestock that we couldn’t raise feed for made a huge difference, pocketbook-wise. The surprising thing was that in doing that simple step of mostly eliminating grain eating animals, my husbands health improved. His family wears their food allergies like a badge of honor. Making statements like “Oh we are a sensitive lot, we can’t _______ ” Fill in the blank. “We have allergies you know!” It seems that all this time since his childhood, that he can’t really tolerate all those grains, breads and sugary baked goodies he so craves. Our thinking cleared, and we realized we can grow our food – the grains were the sticking point.
I think for us the big sticking point is electricity – either going without or utilizing an alternative. Definitely living in the modern world requires some modern technology. I would hate to give up lights, computer, and my electric fence. The rest probably wouldn’t matter.
You and your family are very resourceful, and have great ideas – problems have ways of working themselves out
One of the things that helped us feel a bit more secure was making paying off our home morgage a priority. Early in our marriage, we doubled up on the payments whenever we could, knocking down the principle with the second payment each month. Saving up and only paying cash, even for vehicles, means we now have no debt, and we keep whittling down on the standard bills too. We’re not self-sufficient, but we’re in ok shape financially for now (knock on wood!).
I think it will be a wonderful experience. It should do a really good job in in pin pointing your families physical and emotional needs.
One thing I would keep in mind though is that the key to resilient systems is diversity. Diversity means that if one section of the network falls over you have only lost a small percentage of your needs giving you room to adapt and change.
From my pov the problem isn’t that you rely on having a small amount of income, it’s that it was possible for circumstance to wipe out all that income in one fell swoop. Either having diversity in what your farm produces or having multiple sources of income some of which are independent of the farm could be ways to increase resilience in your system.
Kind Regards
Belinda
We all have our “ah ha” moments and sometimes it’s just what we need to refocus. Not some random turning of the calendar page.
My “ah ha moment” was recently too
; http://pamsangleofrepose.blogspot.com/2009/12/jingle-bells.html
I hope your plans work out! Love your blog!