Self-sufficiency . . . have you thought about it?

[patandchickens]

Yeah, well, that is different.

My parents are in their mid 80s, so I certainly know what you mean... but that's more the fear of self-INsufficiency than a desire for self-sufficiency. Plus it becomes harder and harder to ignore the fact that you're probably not the only human being on earth who will never die, so it is a lot easier to just define yourself as permanently 35.

I, of course, shall when the time comes be a PERFECT elderly person, witty and productive yet cheerful about my declining independance and philosophical about my eventual death. All shall admire my poise and character.

Yuh huh right

Pat

 

[BearSwampChick]

Pat, I thought your #8 post is very intelligent and well-thought out. I really liked what you had to say because I think all of us like to think we could be self-sufficient, but in reality, very few of us will be able to achieve anything close to that goal. We just have to keep learning as much as we can to do what we can. Some can do a lot and others can do a little, but we have to keep trying and every little bit helps. We definitely have to stop being consumed with consumerism. Buy, buy, buy; bigger, better, best. Why can't people be happy with just enough?

 

[Rosalind]

My cousins, aunts and uncles on my dad's side are mostly Mennonite, some Amish. They are not self-sufficient, and they've got 200-1000 acres, a coveted stall at a popular, well-traveled year-round farmer's market, and the means and know-how to be self-sufficient, if they wished to be in a pinch.

I've seen how they live. It isn't pleasant. I wouldn't want to.

I live in a farmhouse that was built in 1719. The ceilings are really low, as are doorways, and stairs are agonizingly narrow and rickety. Getting furniture up them was a feat of physics I still don't quite understand. The reason that our bedroom doors are so small I can bang my head (if I'm wearing heels--I'm 5'5") is because in 1719 in Massachusetts, people were so malnourished that they rarely grew to my height.

I'll never be self-sufficient. All I hope to achieve by eating as locally as possible and using the woodstove for heat (hey, at least mine is a modern one that has a good EPA rating) is to offset the expenses that oil inflicts on my budget. Often in New England, we get huge winter storms that blow the power out for days; my colleagues have showered and slept overnight more than once at work, because their houses had no power and no heat. I can always go home and have heat, food, and a lukewarm bath. This year, I've seen my grocery bills go up by $250/month, while my annual raise barely kept up with inflation. I'm already mostly vegetarian, so it's not a big dietary change for me to eat out of a garden.

My mother-in-law is about as close to self-sufficient as they come: There's no power lines or real roads to her farm, and she has only solar power. Where it breaks down for her, as for most people (including my Amish cousins) is textiles: growing, harvesting, preparing fiber for spinning, then spinning, dyeing, weaving/knitting the fiber, then cutting it and sewing it into a garment, uses a huge amount of time. It takes a lot more time to make a textile product than to make food. Making leather and making shoes out of the leather also takes a lot of time, although not as much as textiles. Both require fairly specialized tools. You have to have someone who does almost nothing but rett, spin, dye and weave/knit, all day long, in order to produce the most basic garments, sheets, blankets, towels, etc. for a household--which is why women used to make high-quality stuff for their "hope chest" and then use it the rest of their lives. At the rate I go through bluejeans, undies and socks, no maiden auntie could possibly keep up with me.

Don't get me wrong--every dollar I can wrench away from the greedy fingers of Saudi Arabia is a dollar I count as good for national security, good for the American economy, and good for the environment, and that's another reason I try to be a locavore. But my #1 reason is, I'm cheap.

However, there is one thing I would like to point out, Pat just reminded me of it, and last week there was some guy on NPR talking about something similar: Just because a method of generating heat/eating/getting around isn't 100% perfect doesn't mean that some choices aren't better than others. I think people sort of do this defensive, like, "It's hypocritical to ride a bike to work and say you're not polluting because it takes synthetic oil to grease the chain and the bike took energy and pollution to make the materials" and that sort of thing--well, yes, but a bike also pollutes less in the long run than an H2, so it's still a better choice environmentally. Yeah, woodstoves aren't pollution-free, but the modern ones are actually pretty good at exhausting minimal particulates with a sort of rebreather (Vermont Castings calls it a "secondary combustion chamber," it's a rebreather). If I was extremely clever and had more real estate, I'd pump the exhaust through a greenhouse, thereby filtering it further, as they do in Holland, so the potential exists there to mitigate the damage with existing technology, vs. waiting for the MIT geeks to think up something new. In the example of lead acid batteries, compare the lifespan of a fixed piece of equipment (battery) with the repeated exhaust and pollution associated with a coal plant, and normalize to existing recapture systems for pollution and reconditioning systems for fixed equipment...Most studies that compare the two don't really do this. Either they are crummy at math and accounting, or they aren't good engineers.

I digress. Anyway, no, I don't think I will ever be self-sufficient. I just want to have more disposable income.

 

[henrietta23]

We are far from self-sufficient but try to take an occasional step closer when we can. We have just 3/4 of an acre, mostly shaded and we still could be doing more than we are with it. We hope to this summer. We're educating our son about where his food comes from. We're trying to lessen our impact on the earth by buyng local when we can. We're doing a lot of reading and Internet research to see what others are doing so we can move just a little closer. We won't ever get all the way there. We just hope the small steps we take will make a difference.

 

[patandchickens]

Yeah, woodstoves aren't pollution-free, but the modern ones are actually pretty good at exhausting minimal particulates with a sort of rebreather (Vermont Castings calls it a "secondary combustion chamber," it's a rebreather).

Yeah well I sure wish all the many people in Ontario that heat with woodstoves and fireplaces and fireplace inserts and whatnot were using super high efficiency stoves. They mostly are not. Air quality here can be *really* lousy in the winter :/


Pat

 

[sunnychooks]

Perhaps we aren't really talking about being self-sufficient, but having a more sustainable lifestyle. I think that was what I was really thinking about in my post - doing things in a way that will leave less of a carbon footprint on this Earth when we are gone. There is certainly an overlap of things that we can do to achieve both. For example, I don't own a microwave oven because the idea of eating radiated food does not appeal to me, but to have to defrost my frozen foods in the fridge is also saving energy since the fridge is on anyway. Of course, I couldn't go without a refridgerator so there is only so much we can do. But if everyone who has the same mindset as I do does SOMETHING, we can all make a difference.

I think the self-sufficiency part of it come in because it gives us the opportunity to have some measure of control over what and how we eat and live.

 

[patandchickens]

As far as food safety (specifically) is concerned, the thing is, we've traded off quality (meaning eating quality, plus sustainability, plus relative harmlessness to environment, plus freedom from the residues of various toxic chemicals) in favor of CHEAPNESS.

*Why* do we have all sorts of additives in our veggies and meat, megacorporations controlling our food supply, and relatively crappy tasting food? Because people have voted, with their feet (with their wallets), in favor of the cheapest possible food that technology can produce.

We, meaning anyone in the developed world that has enough access to computers to have any chance of participating in this forum, are paying WAY LESS for food than our forefathers ever did. (Googling for a quick summary of statistics on this, the best I could do offhand was this but only because it's time to go put the kids to bed now)

Organic food isn't "expensive". NON organic factory-farmed industrial-style food is just UNNATURALLY CHEAP. The thing about organic, or locally grown, food being supposedly 'too expensive' is that everyone's too busy buying tvs and clothes and big houses (and restaurant meals!) to want to spend money on food (as a society, I mean, not necessarily all individuals). Sheesh, even if you ate only organic food, you would still be spending a slightly smaller % of your income on food than your parents back in the 1950s! Oh, but of course we need also strawberries year 'round, and bananas, and this and that and the other thing... so, yeah, something has to give *somewhere*.

Of course, growing your own food can be somewhat of a money-saving exercise (although, frankly if it is in season for *you* it is also in season and thus cheap at the farmers' market...) and does give you better and less 'sprayed' produce...

...but if you ask me, the main benefit of growing your own fruits and veggies (and eggs and whatnot) is just the act of doing something Useful and Productive I think it is good for the soul to participate in the basic processes of the world, like sowing and tending and reaping (and swearing at insects and groundhogs, that's an important basic process of the world too, right?) Practical benefits are nice, but frankly not usually all that large, unless you are spending a whale of a lot of time in the garden and barnyard.

Probably just in a crotchety mood today, but always rather skeptical about airy fantasies of the romance of the modern homestead,

Pat

 

[sunnychooks]

The thing about organic, or locally grown, food being supposedly 'too expensive' is that everyone's too busy buying tvs and clothes and big houses (and restaurant meals!) to want to spend money on food (as a society, I mean, not necessarily all individuals). Sheesh, even if you ate only organic food, you would still be spending a slightly smaller % of your income on food than your parents back in the 1950s! Oh, but of course we need also strawberries year 'round, and bananas, and this and that and the other thing... so, yeah, something has to give *somewhere*.

Hey Pat! I love your responces because they're always so well thought out and give food for thought, but on this one I have to disagree. I guess I'm one of those individuals that you meant when you wrote "not necessarily all individuals", but I cannot afford to food shop more than once a month when I buy organic. The percentage of our parents income is irrelevent because we live in a different society with different expenses and different monetary needs. Our parents also grew and raised more of their own food than we do as a society today. As far as my own situation, we don't have TV, I'm wearing a sweatshirt I've had for about 8 years, my house has 4 rooms and we rarely eat at restaurants. OK... I guess I do buy fruit out of season!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Hi I just logged on again, (haven't read all the posts)and in my defense, the two hayburners are just a passion--I will not be eating them. All of us, except for my son-love horses, and IMO, they will keep my dd out of trouble, hopefully, when she hits her teen years. Even so, they keep my busy alot of the time and I have found that since we got them--I really have no need for TV. Computers and internet, on the other hand--I could not do without!!!!!!!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Whoa!! I guess I should have read all of the posts first--who thought it would be a war of the words--or should I say war of the definitions of the words.

Like you said Pat, even the pioneers had to bring stuff along with them. and they were the role models of self sufficiency. I think we are just talking about the degrees of self sufficiency.

According to dictionary.com:


adjective 1. able to supply one's own or its own needs without external assistance: The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.
2. having extreme confidence in one's own resources, powers, etc.: He was self-sufficient, and always reminded you of it.
If you want to get technical--there you have it.
If yo want to get nitty gritty, --then yes--as in #1 did they build the machines themselves, did they take the oil from the ground refine it, make it usable to be able to harvest the grain--etc etc.

I for one want to provide for my family in a self sufficient manner. This means growing my own food--be it vegetable or fruit, or animals to provide meat and eggs. It lessens our dependence on commercialism. No one can do without it (commercialism) completely. I am not a pioneer. I do not want to be a pioneer. I enjoy many modern conveniences and don't want to be without alot of them.

This was supposed to (probably) be a friendly discussion about what people are doing to be more self sufficient. I for one, just want to provide for my family so I know where most of my food is coming from. None of this would happen , though, if there was no passion or desire to do any of this.


The wind turbines I referred to in my first post, will not be using lead batteries. there are wind farms going up all around me, and if we put one up, we would be connected to the grid, where we would produce what we need and surplus would go in a 'bank' that we could dip into if we for some reason did not produce enough energy. If our bank is depleted, we would ultimately have a hydro bill.

Pat, I do agree with your self restraint thread. the rest , I think , in the most respectful way I can possibly say this, is you're just looking for a fight.


Can't we all just get along????????:dance