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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Run like the Devil
  • Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 00:32:15 EST

In a message dated 12/25/2006 11:48:47 PM Eastern Standard Time,
erthnsky AT bellsouth.net writes:


> >Is the destiny laid on all us homesteaders that we spend
> > our days chasing about madly with 100 things to do but only time and
> > resources to do 20 of them at best, always behind, always exhausted,
> > our plans and aspirations always partly realized?
>
> I think so.

I see in your post the description of the frenzied homsteader and also the
idle city dweller as if, correct me if I have mistook this, those are the
opposite ends of a logical continuum. That is, if you don't opt for the
realtively
idle city life, you will be running like the Devil for the setting sun you
will never reach.

When I began to suspect there was something amiss with this paradigm and
though through my episodes of setting sun catching, I found that it was
almost
always because I was doing things a far more complicated way than need be. I
was
constantly doing things twice and thrice, I was spending more time setting up
and clearing away for a task than doing the task itself.

It was then that I wanted to know if I could supply myself and my family with
garden produce, meat, milk, eggs, and the like; gather our own cooking and
heating fuel; build our own buildings; maintain our own vehicles; etc (usual
drill) and there still be, let's say, half the day left over for other
pursuits.
As it happens, it needn't take even that long.

So it isn't a linear progression that I attempt to address of idleness vs
industry. But can the homesteader look out over *enough* produce, *enough*
livestock and their products, *enough* fodder, *enough* fuel, etc (usual
drill) and
say, I don't need any more. I needn't go at a rush for more now because I
really can't use it...?

What I found is that once one reaches this equilibrium of need vs industry,
there sets in a fine tuning and finesse of the projects that further reduced
the frenzy.

To each his own, of course and always. But I've found it more satsifying to
do 20 things to a paced and satisfying end than to chase after 100 and still
only get 20 of them done anyway.




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