[Homestead] Go ld -- feel free to ignore

william Eggers wce1482 at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 10 11:15:30 EST 2008


Does that make you a hobby homesteader?  I do know what you are getting at with hobby homesteaders.  Those who have everything and only do the homesteading they want and buy the rest.  Also I must confess that although I have homesteaded, I am not doing so now.  Now I have an orchard and although we eat what we want, the main focuss is selling fruit.  So you can say that I am not a homesteader.  I have also tried homesteading without any outside income and I can tell you, at least for me, it was impossible.

--- On Tue, 12/9/08, Clansgian at wmconnect.com <Clansgian at wmconnect.com> wrote:

From: Clansgian at wmconnect.com <Clansgian at wmconnect.com>
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Go ld -- feel free to ignore
To: homestead at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 10:49 PM


> > If I am right in thinking that you consider yourself a real
homesteader 
> and therefore have no outside sorce of income but get all your living from

> your farm, my hats off to you.  

No, no, no, William.  Let me be quick to disclaim that.  Although you might 
not find the actual modus operendi of this homestead quite so admirable, you 
surely will find it more interesting still.

This homestead operates on the 'Dinarius Principle' (I made that up,
don't 
Google it!)  When Jesus was asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute, he
asked 
to see a penny (a dinarius, a day's wages).  He asked whose image and 
superscription was on the coin and they asnwered "Caesar's".   So
he said, "Render 
unto Caesar the thing's that are Caesar's and unto God the things that
are 
God's."

This homestead is self sufficient.  If we closed and locked the gates we 
could endure twenty years with no outside contact.  Sure, our jeans and
Carharts 
would be a bit thread bare and the stash of wire and nails might be a bit thin 
by then, but we'ds till survive.

This farmstead is a complex symbiosis of activity.   We do not use routinely 
use outside fuel, fertilizer, seeds, food, feed, etc.

It is the BASIS of our economy.

Alas, and double alas, we live in Caesar's world.  We must per force render

unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.  To that end we have cottage 
industries.  I am a luthier and wood worker.  Some people, instead of such an 
activity, try their hand at farming.  More power to them, but the farming is
something 
that takes the place of my woodworking and is not an extension of 
homesteading economy itself.  

The paradigm is this.  We grow things to eat.  If there is surplus, that 
feeds the animals.  If there is surplus beyond that, we sometimes sell it.  But
it 
is always incidental.

If I want a computer, digital camera, more than utilitarian pair of boots, a 
DVD, a pound of tea;  I bestir myself to deal in Caesar's world until I
have 
the dinari enough to buy Caesar's goods.

If Caesar's world, or my ability to participate in it, were to collapse, 
well, we'd continue on unabated with our homested fare and bedecked in our 
homestead costume (had from the Salavation Army store usually) and singing our 
homestead tunes to amuse ourselves.

But if I were to try to pay the taxes or buy a bottle of sake with money had 
from an extension of my direct use economy ... why .... I'd be a farmer in
the 
agribusiness sense.  I'm not.   I suck at that.  So instead I render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's .... and unto Nature the things that
are Hers.


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