"Revisiting Self-Sufficiency"
I try to approach this in a very practical way, and to report back that way, too.
I try to approach this in a very practical way, and to report back that way, too.
So... if you really want to be "self-sufficient"...
Well, you can't be 100% self-sufficient, and you don't need to be. Youcan produce most of your own, food, but not all of it, and you don't need to - and you can do it and still have a life and a job.
The first misconception is that you can garden your way to self-sufficiency... egh! wrong, thanks for playing! You can grow most of your own vegetables - growing spinich, brocolli, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, kale, carrots, etc... sufficient for a family of 4 or 5 is no big deal (preserving it all IS a big deal). Of course, if you tried to subsist off just this you would be dead or pretty sickly pretty soon (if you either have to earn money or farm full time that is... I guess sedentary couch potatoes could get by with just veggies, though their teeth and bones would certainly miss dairy in their diet). That produce is easy for a kitchen garden to produce.
Corn, potatoes, and beans in sufficient quantities to sustain your family is going to take a bit more work. Actually, a lot more, but still doable.
I get nasty emails from vegetarians on a semi regular basis lately. I always point out to them that they kill more animals with their consumption of fossil fuels than I do by feeding my family, but never mind hard facts - we are talking sensitivities here.
You see, I am a card carrying member of PETA... no not that PETA, the other one: People Eating Tasty Animals (and their milk and eggs, and using their manure for fertilizer). Animal protein is an absolute necessity in agrarian cultures with little fossil fuel inputs (try getting Omega-3 in your diet without animal fat), and as I TRY to do everything with as little fossil fuel input as possible (just look at my pictures... does it look like I cut the grass very often? NAFC.) they are necessay here, as well.
(I wonder if vegetarians consider the road kill from truck and trains carrying their grains and vegetables to them, or killed by climate change and pollution caused by operating farm and transport equiment, producing chemical fertilizers, pesticides used on the crops (bugs are animals, too), animals killed by farm equipment (rabbits, birds, snakes, toads, etc... call those fields home), I could go on and on but a "true beleiver" Vegan would not have read it anyway. Am I the only one to notice that, well, let me rephrase... I have NEVER met a vegan that was not pro-abortion. How's that for being STUNNINGLY full of sh*t?)
If you were looking for politically correct self sufficiency, you came to the wrong blog.
But I digress...
Organic Farms need animals for fertilizer and food - simple like that. Not want, should-have-if-possible, or ONLY for the manure (what would you do with all of the excess bulls, billy goats, roosters, and Boar hogs? They would quickly destroy your home and fields, eat every blade of grass, and injure and kill your children (think I exagerate? Leave your children in a field with a bunch of Bulls and Boar Hogs for an afternoon, let me know what you find when you come back), etc...
Let me repeat: Organic farming means animals for traction, for food, and for fertilizer. No animals, no organic farming - and no organic farming means continued factory farming and long distance food transportation, and that means climate change, pollution, etc...
It takes time, effort, and practice to be self-sufficent. You cannot learn it on the web. You could still be a doctor, lawyer, or indian chief - whatever it is you do for a living - and still produce most of your own food at home (if you live in the country or the burbs, that is). You don't need a lawn whatsoever. Every inch around your home can grow something edible. Fruit trees and berry bushes instead of ornamentals. Grapes instead of fences or hedges. Raised beds instead of a front yard. Housing 20 chickens and 2 dairy goats instead of a dog and a cat will give you eggs and milk rather than hookworm and dirty kitty litter, and the chickens and goats have a much better carbon foot print... it ain't even close. (I have a dog and barn cats... but they are working animals).
You would have to have the cooperation of your wife - good luck - and your family. Why do I say "wife" and not "spouse"? Because, there will be damn few single women, or men, moving to the country to start a self sufficient homestead, and even fewer single mothers. Nope, the demographics say it will be married people with children, with Dad providing and mom feeding the family and raising and educating the children - who'd a thunk it?! (Nothing is absolute. We have some lovely gay women neighbors (they describe themselves as "bull dykes" among other things... I love people that can laugh at themselves) running a self sufficient farm, and they are a hoot!)
So why'd I say "good luck"? I live half the year in Boca Raton, FL, where the poor people have a million dollar net worth, and the rich quite a bit more than that, and I should know - I manage their money! I hear their concerns like a priest in the confessional. Any of those guys even TRYS to move his family to a small holding homestead or ditch the landscaping for a productive garden, or try's to downsize the familY'y consumption... and it is off to divorce court for his troubles (I truly wish the "Real" American Housewife were more like Sharon Astyk but that that just ain't the case - America is fascinated by the Reality Show "The Real Housewives of Wherever" precisely because it is, in fact, REALITY). Sorry, but "family law" has left the successful "king of his castle" nothing more than a neutered figurehead, a laboring eunich that, if he so much as steps out of line, will lose his home and life's savings in addition to the family jewels he lost to the marriage/divorce industrial complex by marrying without a prenup agreement. What is the point of marriage in a society that promotes divorce?
(I am sure to get some winning emails and comments with that. Funny thing about the "truth", it gets people's piss hot. If I were to speak untruths, no one would care because we all know they simply were not true.)
There is good news, though. The Great Recession AND Peak Oil, in addition to making people poorer and requiring them to be more self sufficient, is going to demolish the marriage/divorce industrial complex. People (men - I mean, come on, have you ever heard of "GROOM" Magazine?) are already:
- Putting off marriage
- Not getting married, ever (over 40% of American children are born out of wedlock)
- Those that do marry are Engaging a pre-nuptual agreement more often to level the playing field
These were the unintended consequences (along with our SKY HIGH divorce rate and destroyed families) of Gloria Steinem, et al, and their Feminist revolution (one whose putative benefits went to 30 to 50 year old women AND THEN SPLIT WITH THEIR LAWYERS at the direct expense of 0 to 20 year old women (girls) and men (boys). The Great Recession is going to remove the incentive to divorce that was an unintended consequence in the 1960's and 1970's revisions of family law here in the U.S. People are going to NEED their family in a world without Medicare, Social Security, and Food Stamps.
Back to Organic Farming... So what does the previous couple of paragraphs diatribe have to do with Small Holding, Homestead, Organic Farming, whatever...?
There was a reason they were called "Family Farms"!!! Family, as in a husband and wife and their children. Not that that is necessarily what a family has to look like, but it was themost successful model for the building blocks of "community" for Millenia prior to the industrial age.
In an agrarian society do you know what women without husbands DO FOR A LIVING?? I'll give you 2 1/2 guesses, and a hint: It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, professions around. If Peak Oil means we are going back to an agrarian system and the collapse of industrial society - why is it verbotten to discuss ALL likely outcomes.
Don't like the political commentary with your victory gardens and dairy goats? My apologies, but it was politics that got us into the mess we are in, politics that writes the nation's laws (including family law) and it is the analysis of those political errors that might lead the way out of it. Besides, this is my blog.
Yours for a better world (by starving out divorce lawyers)
libertariananimal at gmail (d0t) com