This is an article I wrote more than ten years ago that was published in Countryside Magazine. It may be dated or have some erroneous information but is basically unchanged. I'm publishing it here, again, to lead in to a series of articles I intend to write on prepping and it's importance. Please enjoy.
With all due respect and credit to the Bellamy Brothers, a few lines from their 1985 hit ‘Old Hippie’, goes like this: “So he grows a little garden in the back yard by the fence; he’s consuming what he’s growin’ nowadays in self-defense.” We have become the ‘New Hippies’ both by design and the evolving world. People have become disenfranchised with government care from cradle to grave. This is not the natural scheme of things. I’m not sure that I agree with all the social aspects of the original flower children, but I do believe they were dead on right in a lot of their thinking. The ‘old hippies’ rebelled against what someone else told them was how the order of things should be. Their ideas have survived and the banner has been taken up by a whole new generation [and some of us older folk have seen the writing on the wall].
I used to worry a little on the aspect of growing older but there is much truth in the fact that you do become wiser. ‘Wiser’ equates to knowledge and the coming of middle and elder years does not mean you are over the hill, but that you have accumulated a life’s worth of experience and many of us are putting it to work. The epiphany for us came a couple of years ago when we were able to purchase another piece of property, not larger, but better situated to practice a self-reliant lifestyle. It is not in the country, but smack dab in the middle of an urban setting. There were some things that attracted us to it, like being right next door to the home we already had. It had a huge garage and workshop, several fruit trees, AND A WELL! Our daughter and her husband indicated they wouldn’t mind moving into our present home, so we leaped and bought the place.
Our nation is broke but many people go right on with their daily lives, oblivious to the gathering storm. The old, simple ways are not a lifestyle widely embraced by most of our citizens but there are some who have seen the handwriting on the wall and have made up their minds to do something about the approaching financial catastrophe. I’m positive our feelings resonate with many across the nation, but this is the story of one family who has declared a self-reliant, self-sufficient existence. In the not-too-distant past (even now, but at a high cost) lettuce was trucked in from California, tomatoes from Mexico, potatoes from Idaho. Do you get the picture? Can you imagine the cost of transporting these items to you? This is something you can easily learn by where and how you shop. The costs are not being borne by the retailer, but by you! Do they stock American-made products or cheap goods imported from thousands of miles away? Do you support your local farmers and ranchers? Are you repairing and re-using something instead of throwing it away and buying a new one? Our throw-away purchasing habits have caused this influx of cheap, foreign merchandise and have destroyed untold umbers of family-owned and small local businesses.
It is the eleventh hour and it is time to get off the fence and support local agriculture and manufacturing. It is also time to take up the staff and re-learn old skills and ways of doing things. Think local and think organic. We’re headed for a petroleum abyss and it is approaching faster than a bullet train. It is time to re-take the land that the multi-national corporations and agri-businesses acquired. I don’t advocate violence of any kind, but re-taking it through attrition and peaceful means. When you have a chance, buy that little spread. Don’t wait until you are too old to cut the mustard because you will always lament the fact that you never did make the move to the land.
Getting back to our own story, we thought that maybe, just maybe, we could make a difference in our own lives with some concentrated work and the knowledge to do it. In our own situation, age never comes into consideration. Our yardstick is, ‘is it right for us and our survival?’ We decided then to ‘grow our own little garden in the back yard by the fence’. We were determined not to use any form of petro-chemicals or artificial means and this western soil is very poor and has taken a lot of work to make it into a good growing medium. We compost everything organic, from both households and have been busy building twelve large garden beds that we are constantly working with and improving. The well has been our most important asset. We live in an area of almost perpetual drought (at least, little rain and little snow pack on the mountains). Water is not something to be wasted.
The previous owner of the property probably used every known herbicide and pesticide known to man! Birds and small critters avoided our property. It has taken us a few years but the birds (including hummingbirds), butterflies, chipmunks, squirrels, and Praise God, bees are returning. When we moved in, the apple trees and apricot tree were infested with insects but when we stopped using poisons, the birds returned and took care of the insects. This year we had a bumper crop of apples. A late frost got the apricots, though.
We don’t have a large property but we recycle everything. Dead branches become mulch; organic waste, grass clippings, leaves become compost. Even the weeds go deep into the compost pile. Part of this idea came from the Nearings’ book, ‘Living the Good Life.’ Nothing goes into the landfill unless we absolutely cannot recycle or figure another use. We re-use glass jars but recycle plastic containers. Cardboard, cans, paper go to the recycling center. All outdated personal correspondence, business files and other sensitive papers get shredded and then filled into empty toilet paper tubes to be used as fire starters in our wood stove. Our wood supply is free. I gather untreated wood pallets and cut them up during the spring and summer for next fall and winter’s wood supply. Additionally, our grandson is always on the lookout for trees that property owners want cut down.
What have we done about energy? We had to figure out a way to cut down our dependence on our automobile and gasoline. So, one of the first things was to get rid of our 17 MPG van and get a smaller car. We decided on a small Ford Focus. It has lots of headroom and a lot of space for carrying things. I practice hypermiling and have been able to push the city MPG up to 28+ and highway MPG to 40+ - a lot depends on the weather and road conditions. The tires are kept inflated at a little more than the recommended pressure and oil is changed regularly. We plot shopping and trips on a circular route and absolutely never make any unplanned movement unless, of course, it would be a health emergency. Walking to nearby locations is now our normal mode of getting there. Next, we concentrated on the home. Remember, we’re in an urban setting and do not have the ability to live off-the-grid, so we had to do what we could. All the light bulbs in the house, garage, and pump house were changed from incandescent to CFLs (compact fluorescent lights). We were a little concerned about the mercury in the CFLs but, thankfully, the county solid waste district has a disposal program. Our house is heated by a natural gas boiler, circulating hot water through plumbing and radiating through baseboard heat. It is extremely expensive to use on a regular basis so we rely on the wood stove and a small portable electric heater in our bedroom. Only on an extreme sub-zero day would we ever fire up the furnace. Wood heat keeps the entire ground floor warm and the electric heater does its job very well at night. If electricity should fail, we simply move to the living room and put some wood into the stove. Our electric bill has decreased by over $10 a month or an average of $120+ a year. The natural gas bill has decreased an average of almost $300 a year! On just those two items we have saved $420.
The pantry is stocked with vittles we have bought, home-canned and dried. We have two firm rules when shopping to re-stock: One is to never purchase anything unless it is on sale; and two, buy local if possible. We save all leftovers and freeze them. About once every month-and-a-half wife and daughter pool the leftovers and home can ‘survival soup’ (pressure canner, of course). Nothing goes to waste – nothing. Our grandson Tim is an avid hunter and Tom, our son-in-law, is a fisherman’s fisherman. Between the two families, we are able to keep the freezers well-stocked with antelope, venison, elk, trout, pike and other game and fish. This year we are going to start home canning the game and fish. It will last much longer than in a freezer. As an exercise in knowledge-gathering, we undertook a project to see what type of foraging we could do on our land and in the local area. You would be surprised! We found wild plums, garlic, onions, and asparagus. On our own land, we have dandelion – oh, the lowly dandelion! We relish the leaves in salads, the battered and deep-fried blossoms. Haven’t tried it yet, but a tale from old said that you can dry, roast and grind the roots for a coffee substitute. We found purslane, stinging nettle, milkweed, and have a rather large staghorn sumac tree. You can eat the young shoots of the sumac tree in the spring and they are tasty. A big surprise was making sumac ‘lemonade’ from the berry clusters. It was tart and delicious.
Another area of concern was health. Instead of running to the doctor or hospital with every single sniffle or ache, we decided to take control of our own health and the consequences thereof. We began questioning the need for this or that medication. We watch our diet very closely and do not consume high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oil, or MSG. More exercise; less eating and snacking. We no longer consume ‘liquid candy’ (sodas). Our weight has dropped considerably (no kidding) from just these small changes. We do not consume alcohol except on extremely rare ‘ceremonial’ occasions such as Thanksgiving. Neither is smoking a part of our lives. Our family doctor is ecstatic over our lifestyle changes and we have been able to eliminate some heretofore needed medicines. Our philosophy is the less, the better. We practice natural and alternative helps if they are right for us. We only use these remedies after careful and thorough research. Some years ago we began taking elderberry juice extract on a daily basis and are proud to say that we have not had a single cold or flu in over four years. Elderberry extract is widely known and used elsewhere in the world.
In summation, what we are trying to impart to you is take control of your life – you, yourself! Don’t let someone else decide your path. Make your decisions jointly with your spouse – don’t ever take matters into your own hands; make sure both of you are on the same wave length – but make the decision! If you are living alone, just do it! If you don’t change your lifestyle now, you will forever regret not doing so.
Watchman
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