Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

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.