posted
Oh, yeah! I could come one week a year and work crazy manual labor until I said to myself, "What was I thinking? I love my cushy urban life and sedentary office job!" And then I would be over it for another year. =)
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Porter is picky about food, and for him it must be savory and well cooked.
. . .This isn't a problem if we eat the same thing every day, either crockpotted chicken or goat with a side dish of potatoes or rice and some veggie or fruit. Followed up by soup made from the bones. But again, the guilt about fulfilling food desires and the unwillingness to cook.
According to the Dervaes family (the group in California that lives totally off their own place) - this is always an issue. If a person is aiming to do this for survival/self-sufficiecy, they pretty much have to be willing to have nearly the same food every day, during whichever season it is. Springtime? Lots of salads. Summers? Potatoes and corn and beans. Winter? lots of stuff that was canned from the earlier crop; and meat.
Since Americans have become very used to having variety in their diet, not seasonal (since we ship in foods from all other countries and climates now) - it is hard to get any American to "go back" to this way of life, truly. The pioneers may have only eaten salt pork and potatoes all winter long (because that was all that was available) but now we expect and demand more (and in many ways this is a good thing -- it is good to have citrus fruit in winter, for instance).
quote:But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.
It would take a very committed family to live totally off their own land only. But, by contrast, every little square foot of your space you give up to growing your own food, just as a supplement maybe, just for a few homegrown tomatoes or fresh lettuce leaves -- is a freedom step. It makes you that much less dependent on the supermarket - that much easier on your budget - and that much closer to connecting with the source of your food, which makes it more meaningful.
Okay - this ramble turned out much longer than I intended.
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Sure. The amount of money we save on groceries (we provide all of our own milk, meat, and eggs) more than offsets the higher mortgage payments we make since moving here.
Granted, the stars aligned so that we sold on a local upswing and bought on a local downswing, making that mortgage increase much less than it should have been, but still.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I'm not sure you want to do that. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
My calendar is pretty .... full .... lately.
