Let's talk!!!! :D

In what ways are you self-reliant........sew your own clothes? grow your own food? can/preserve food yourself? have animals for food/food sources?

Is anyone here a homesteader?? Also, what books are good for a beginner??

someday we will be most of the way there.

I make many of our clothes and gifts, we have a huge garden and I put up a few hundred qts of food from it a year plus I also put up pear sauce from our pear tree, grape jelly and juice from our vines, and since our apple trees are not mature I buy enough apples to put up about 75 or more qts of applesauce from an organic orchard. I also cook everything from scratch (well 95% that is) and I do much of my shopping through a co-op that I order from bi-monthly, milk, eggs, and cheese from local farmers, and only buy our fruits and veggies I can't grow from the store.

The plans for next year are to get meat and egg chickens and also a couple of hogs. We will sell some of the eggs and a couple of the hogs to raise money to pay for our beef (I don't really want to get into raising cattle at this point).

I am sure there is more that we do but I have fried preggo brain right now and need to nap. I look forward to hearing other mamas responses.

Oh Bobbi Jo... I think you are amazing. :heart:

I have a desire to be completely away from the mainstream America. I am somewhat negative about it right now, admittedly. So bare with me. I feel as though we are living an unreal and wholly unsustainable life. And yet, just as has happened time and again in history, our country is held up by the blood of slaves. And I believe it will happen again. I am unsure if my approach to home steading is not skewed by the fact that there are thousands of others that literally do not have that opportunity... and I feel great pain for them. There are many people who do not have the access to knowledge that living apart is even possible... that it even possible to live off of the tit of the corporate system. These people have been taken away from their heritage... of what is right, and what is beautiful. Of the knowledge that the "something more" is available to them... that there is nothing you have to buy or have that you can not trade or get used. Already. The ideas are used up. It is time to get back to our roots.

That being said... I want to have that life. I want to live outside of the city and have a large farm where I grow food that sustains my family. Where I grow, raise, love, preserve, and butcher the food we eat, and live with the love that the land will provide. The insecurity scares me terribly. And I am not sure if I am strong enough. I want to be away enough to have harvest our own seeds, raise our own happy chickens, and breed our own meat. Even to sustain power to our home (only because my dh will not live with out it) with solar energy. Mine is more of a goal to be totally knowledgeable and present to where my food, and my life comes from. It may never happen... but that is what I want. And to watch and hear people like Bobbi Jo, who are SO much closer to that life than myself. (Although I do what I can in my urban life.) I feel pride to know them... I feel proud to be doing what I can at this stage in my life... and feel as though my future is not set and that I can do anything with the tools that I have.

Love Val

Oh, Val, that was so beautiful.

I am in just about the same place. <sigh> Dh is not ready to do it with me. He is scared. I'm scared, too, but more and more these days, I feel I *must* despite the worry and the fear.

Lauren, oh Lauren... :heart:

Come back and farm with me... we could buy land and each get a yurt or two until we can afford our built houses. We could live on each side of the land so that we would not always be in each others space, and we could sustain our world and dreams together.

But I am not moving to Florida... sorry sister. :o

Come home... get away from those storms and the chaos. Come back and farm with me... our kids could go to Lincoln... even if we rent an apt in the district just to get them in... Oh wait! If Alex gets in and we have the same address your kids will get in automatically! Ahhhhhh... comeon... you know you want to. :heart:

Love Val

PS no pressure or anything. ;) ;)

We are headed in the direction of self suffiency. I don't know if we will ever completely arrive, but I'd like to get close.

We have 11 acres that we are converting into an organic farm. We have a jersey milk cow, Nubian goat, chickens, rabbits and did have pigs, but they are now in the freezer.

We have planted about 20 different kinds of fruit trees over the last few years as well as about 60 different berry bushes. We get eggs from the chickens, meat and $ from the rabbits, meat from the pigs and all dairy products from the cow/goats when they are milking. The cow will freshen again in 2 months. Yea!! I make cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream etc.... from our milk.

We garden extensively and I can a lot. We also accept any freebies from farming neighbors. I'll take anything. If we can't eat it, the animals are happy to.

I do sew a lot of our clothes, diapers and household items. We also barter a lot.

I'm probably forgetting a lot, so feel free to question me if you like. Here are my absolute favorite books on this subject:

Countryside Magazine, I have been getting this for 14 years. LOL

Back To Basics by Readers Digest (my number 1 favorite)

The Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla Emory

The Have More Plan by Ed and Carolyn Robinson (this is a must have, you can still get this through Countryside, I think). (my number 2 favorite)

Living The Good Life, by Helen and Scott Nearing

Stocking Up, by the editers of Organic Gardening

The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live it, By John Seymour (my number 3 favorite)

I also love the Little House books. There is a lot you can learn and they are just plain wonderful to read through.

OMGoodness Aileen... what an inspiration! I think I would have to stick with just 2 or 3 kids... *wink wink* but the fact that you do that is just amazing to me! You astound me mama... really you do. I am totally inspired right now.

Love Val

We do our own labor (yard, cars, building, etc) and I sew all our clothing. I do can, freeze, etc, but I do not grow our food. I don't know that I will ever grow the bulk of our food. My friend owns an organic farm and I like supporting them in their work, plus I sew for her family in trade. I :heart: to trade.

We are looking at buying land next year, but probably only 3 - 5 acres. Land around here is freaking expensive unless you want to live way out. I don't want my dh having commute to work, so we will settle for less land.

Although, I must say, my friends that own an organic farm only own 5 acres and they are pretty self sufficient. They do trade for meat, but they support themselves through their agriculture on that little of land.

In Michigan there are many thriving CSA's that have only 2-8 acres that are farmable. If we go that route we will probably only farm 5 acres so that we will have room left for pasture. Allison, you can do alot with 3-5 acres, especially since you can trade for some of your items all ready.

I forgot to add another thing we are doing. Dh and I are going to get trained in cranial sacral therapy next summer. I think that will be a great skill to trade services and goods with.

Hey Allison... which organic farm are you talking of? I have friends that also owns about 5 acres and they have a farm out in Boisfort Valley. I love it. They CSA most of their stuff and I have been unbelievably happy with my CSA purchase.

If I end up being skillful I love trading. I think that is very self sufficient. I mean, if money does not change hands then you are being at least out of the gov system right? I think that is great... and would gladly do it. Your skills are so worth it Allison.

Love Val

I love trading, too. :)

Hey Val...I am trying to talk dh into it, and have been for several years. His hangups right now are a) he wants a good "sell" to the parents as to why we are moving, like grad school or a great job - it's hard to justify moving back across the country; b) moldy/wet climates are not good for Jake's lungs, he has a point...we are also considering the Colorado mountains as probably ideal, or eastern WA; c) the biggie...how can we afford probably $1200/mo rent plus utilities for a year or two, on a $30k salary, without dipping into savings *at all*, that is his stipulation...

He would like to stay 2-3 years, get his Master's and National Board Certification, to make the move more feasible. I don't wanna wait. ;)

Bobbi Jo, I am almost a licensed massage therapist, and will be getting craniosacral therapy training through Upledger in the next year. I know in Michigan the licensing requirements are different; here in FL you have to be an LMT before you can practice craniosacral therapy. In any case, CST is awesome...it has done a lot for my family.

As for what we do to be self-sufficient, right now we do our own labor, too - yard, house maintenance and upgrades like flooring, cars. I trade for services (eg sew clothing for my massage therapy, or trade massage for massage with other students) when I can. I just plain don't buy much, ever, other than food. We are putting in a small organic garden this fall. One nice benefit of Florida is year-round gardening. In fact, our growing season starts just as hurricane season ends, in November! The only months you can't grow much are June and July.

We have 3 friends who have went through their program and it is amazing. In Michigan it is not necessary to a massage therapist as a prereq. Two of our friends are massage techs and one had no medical background at all so it is do able in our state. Dh and I both have a natural knack for it and have been able to get results from each othe with no formal training. We are hoping to use the skill to help several family members, I might do it at my chiro's office 4-8 hours a week, and dh wants to be able to acclimate it eventually as a therapy offered to special ed kids in our area (he is a spec. ed teacher and will be a spec. ed. admin. next year).

We do our own labor as well. Huge yard to take care of, most of our own home repairs unless they are biggies, we do our own car repairs for the most part (dh can also take them to the highschools mechanics program and get things fixed for a $5 shop fee plus parts).

I am friends with Jen from Rising River. I also know Jeanine from Kirsop, but not as well. They have only a few acres also.

You can't be self sustaining on that little of acreage though. You need 10 acres of forest to be sustaining if you want to heat with wood, even with something as effecient as a masonry stove.

I would love to win the Lottery so we could become self-sustaining:D
I would like to own our own house, do our own canning, raise our own animals, have our own water source, and solar power. Maybe someday we will be close to our goal.

We might get there someday. We have our own well that is fed by a natural spring. We live in a forest (we cleared ourselves for over 1 year before starting to build). We built our own house with our own hands. We did hire a couple of trades for things we didn't feel safe doing. Eg: installing a high efficiency oil powered hot water tank & air coil unit (combined to make a high efficiency furnace), woodstove (we haven't had to buy wood yet, just using up what we've cleared), dry-wall tapers were highered, because let's face it....it is an "art". We also bought a kitchen pre-made but it was done by a small carpentry business. The stairs are solid wood & pre-made to our specifications, but installed by us...that was an event!!! Higered, but helped masons to do the basement walls. We did electrical, plumbing,windows, stick frameing, put on dry-wall, installed toilets, etc, did hardwood floors, etc. We also did the outside too. I hand-painted 513 wood pine siding boards on the ground with 3 coats of "bin" for the knots & then 1 coat of primer & 1 coat of siding paint. We also did the trusses, and shingles. Oh yeah...I did 90 % of the insulating (uggg doing the attic on a day that was 90 degrees NOT in the attic) I also did most of the interior vapour barrier & accoustic sealant & did around all the exterior wall outlets & light receptacles. We also painted all the inside of the house too. We are now in the process of re-painting with colours vs beige & also DH is making all our baseboards & trim-work. The house is an old farm-house style with a wrap-around porch. I can see trees from every single window in the house...we have lots of windows.

We designed the house to take advantage of passive solar heating. It is not unusual to not even need to have the woodstove on once the sun comes out. We hope to someday have solar energy and get off grid. Not sure when that will come. DH is building a "barn/garage" for our 3 horses. We also have a sheep & 5 chickens. We don't buy eggs & are getting more chickens in the spring. We also have a nice veggie garden & perennials too.

I make most of my food from scratch. We make our own maple syrup every spring.......YUM!!!

I find in most cases it is cheaper to buy used clothes than it is to sew new ones since fabrics can be so expensive & honestly my time is limited!!

I also love the Reader's Digest "Back to Basics Book". It has a little bit of everything in it!!

DH loves his work so I can't imagine him wanting to leave it anytime soon. So we will become more self-reliant but not necessarily in a way that means no outside income. We are doing it more for our environment & because it makes us feel good. I think we are teaching our children some valuable life lessons along the way too.

I know this is an old thread but I'm bumping it for inspiration and in case anyone has anything to add to it. :)

~Jenni

Thanks Jenni! A couple people (like Lauren) have really made some of this happen for them in the last two years! Way to go Lauren!!

Val

i didn't even realize it was old. i am sitting here in amazement. wow.

So do we have any updates? :D

Wow. I just read through this thread...I used to love reading Farmer Boy by LIW, as well as all of her other books...such a life they led! I never realized people still do live close to that. I am pretty sheltered! What a great group of posts!

Wow...this was great to read again. Um, I'm kind of shocked by myself, now?

I guess it goes back to setting your intent. Thinking back to that time, it seemed impossible that we could be here. And yet here we are. We have *far* to go before we're self-sufficient. I am not quite sure if that is our goal any longer. I would like to raise as much of our own food as we can, but I am probably always going to buy coffee, chocolate, and many other things we cannot grow ourselves. I want to begin seriously writing again (but that's pretty compatible with small-scale farming). For the first time, Matt is starting the school year amazed with his own skills and talent as a teacher - his innovative style has led to a huge jump in test scores for the kids (not that he believes in the testing one bit, but the school and community do) - he has jumped to "guru" status at his school and with that confidence he starts to wonder if this is what he would want to do even if he didn't need a salary. We have a wholesome organic farm five miles away that sells CSAs, we have a co-op that sponsors community learning exchanges, potlucks, and more, we have local resources for food and sustenance that we never had before. Do we need to be everything for ourselves? Do we want to be?

Then we walk the land and envision our years spent tending it, coaxing it to produce meat, vegetables, fruit, maple syrup, and wood for us. We are doing most of this already, but we could increase and expand...it is easy to see, with these twenty-five acres, how it could happen.

Matt and I sat on our porch couch today, looking out at the pink, rose, navy blue, steel gray, and dusty blue sunset, set against the green mountains, our meadows going to seed, settling quietly into a season of dormancy, ready to bed down under their blanket of white (but only after the mountains flame yellow, orange, and russet for a brief and beautiful show of the vibrancy of life).

That's it. We sat. We looked. It was so hard to believe we are *here,* where we dreamed about being, where we never thought we could be. We are here; we are home.

Matt and I sat on our porch couch today, looking out at the pink, rose, navy blue, steel gray, and dusty blue sunset, set against the green mountains, our meadows going to seed, settling quietly into a season of dormancy, ready to bed down under their blanket of white (but only after the mountains flame yellow, orange, and russet for a brief and beautiful show of the vibrancy of life).

That's it. We sat. We looked. It was so hard to believe we are *here,* where we dreamed about being, where we never thought we could be. We are here; we are home.

I loved reading your whole post, but this part was so beautiful it made me cry a little bit. (Okay, go ahead and call me a sap.) I'm so happy for you and your family, Lauren.

Tara

I've had this post saved since it was resurected, intending to update. LOL I just haven't had time to post. Too busy just living, I guess.

It was really interesting to read back over my original post and think about what we have accomplished since then. I can't say much has changed, we're just a little further along. Well... we did add a wee William since then. :)

We have a really neat Irish style barn mostly built, we've gotten more fencing done. We sold our cow and are looking for another (more gentle) one to buy. We still have our goats, chickens, rabbits etc...

We got the field garden totally fenced and seperated from the kitchen garden, berries & herbs so that we could rotate the animals into it through out the dormancy period. The goats are in there presently to eat it down. Then we'll put in the chickens so that they can pick out weed seeds etc... Last, we will put in some piglets to root it up. Of course, while this is all helpful, we mainly want them in to manure/feed the soil.

We have planted many more blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, elderberries etc... We put in a 70 ft. row of asparagus. I've been slowly trying to build up a much larger herb garden, but focusing on making it a place of relaxation and beauty.

We also buckled down and payed off 25K of debt in the last 10 months. The only thing we owe on now is our mortgage. That is up next.

I put up quite a few quarts of veggies, but more of jams/jellies. I'm guessing about 200 jars in all. That is low for what we need, but with a baby due in July, we just relaxed and put him (William) first.

I've been doing a lot of sewing. The kids all need fall clothes and I just want to make them as much as I can. I'm hoping to make 90% my Christmas gifts this year. I have been doing that w/ BD gifts and it has gone well. I'm planning to focus on crafts in the next two months like soap making and candle dipping. Some of those will probably end up as gifts too. I still want to get some more apple butter and pumkin butter made. The list goes on.... :)

I am happy with our steps, I am happy with our progress. But mostly I am just happy to be on this journey.

Aileen

Wow, Aileen. That is so inspirational. I'm totally impressed. I have been struggling to find the time and energy to jar just a couple dozen jars of elderberry jelly and that feels like a lot. And I only have two kids. And they go to school all day. I have just realized, since we moved here, what a work in progress life on a small farm is.