Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> I've been quite amused by this thread. We have the two super
> homesteaders, Lynda and James, doing their online dance.

If someone were an obese blob and they thought better of it and then lost 
down to a normal weight, would you think of them as a 'super dieter'?  If 
someone 
were choking and hacking their lungs out from tobacco abuse and they quit and 
began to regain their wind, would you think of them as 'super non-smoker'?

The modern energy intensive, industrial process dependent, lifestyle is 
scarcely as old as the oldest members of this list.  Setting it aside, in as 
much 
as is possible, and taking up a life of direct consumption and less 
consumption 
seems hardly to be super anything.  That is, those who are still burning 
their lives away in the modern cubicle beplagued suburban lifestyle ...... I 
don't 
see how you do it.


 What amazes

> me is that you two both have so much time to engage in the dance. 

Can't speak for what might be happening on a California homestead, but I do 
wonder what people think this lifestyle entails.  The whole idea is to not 
dash 
off before dawn in a mirthless sweat trying to get it all done.   It's a 
change of thinking.  

Early in the morning we all get the dairying done, right now that's a cow and 
three goats.  While Herself is milking, I am kicking up the cooking fires, 
preparing the milk jugs, and putting breakfast on.  In the cool of the 
morning I 
go to the gardens.  When it gets hot, I come back.  However much I got done, 
that's how much gets done.  During the heat I am in my cool underground 
woodshop.  I don't do deadlines and I don't do orders on commission.  
Whatever I get 
done, that's what's done.  Whatever I have for sale, that's what's for sale.  
Once a week or so we knock off in the afternoon and go swimming in the lake.  
Once a week or so we knock off in the morning (after dairying) and get our 
supper by fishing (or not!).  In the evening when it's cool we mow a little 
hay, 
do a little other capital work, and do some work in the gardens.  The 
children take care of the chickens, rabbits, cats and dogs.  One daughter 
trains the 
donkey, several of them fetch up the kids for the night against milking the 
does the next day.

Incidentally during the day there is food preservation and preparation.  
Never too much of anything by growing small plots of things in the garden and 
staggering the crops so that half a ton of beans don't ripen at the same 
time.  
Cheese, yogurt, tofu, bread, beer, tortillas and all such are such old hat by 
now and everyone knows every step of the process.  We are talking, 
discussing, 
and listening to the radio the whole time.  Hands go about the task almost 
unawares.

In the winter wood cutting and such replaces much of the gardening and 
processing.

It all goes at a very langid pace.  Never any hurry.  What gets done, gets 
done.  That's how much you have.  Not the other way around of having a fond 
goal 
and running like the Devil to get it all done.

So how do we have time to do such things as participate in internet fora?  
We've got nothing but time.  When the milk is put away and seeds and tools 
are 
being gathered for the garden, there's no hurry.  See what's going on on the 
lists and blogs.  When a piece has been clamped and glued, have a glass of 
tea 
and see what silliness is on the list now.  I have all the power milling 
tools 
in one building and do not allow them in the inter-sanctum holy of holies 
where I have my hand tools.  So if a piece of wood needs resawed or thickness 
planed, I must go by the house, and well, temptation being what it is, let me 
see 
if there's any of that gooseberry pie left and what the hell, some hot mint 
tea with it and see what's happening on in the internet news.

It is what I have preached for years to, alas, an empty choir.  Here we do 
just about everything with hand tools.  And yet we are never in a hurry, 
produce 
plenty and to spare, and there's all the time in the world for fishing, 
playing music, blathering amongst ourselves, ...... and such foolishness as 
the 
internet.

Keep in mind that we also maintain this lifestyle with absolutely no cash 
inputs except what our own hands and labor produce.  There's no social 
security, 
disability, retirement, settlement, stipend, nor is there any government 
assistance for fuel, food, medicine (which we almost never use anyway), or 
any such.

So while I understand whence the view comes that we must be dashing about 
24/7 to run a completely self-sufficient homestead, it simply isn't so.  It's 
much laid back and leisurely than most people's modern lives.

>  Denise, however, used
> to post from time to time. Tell us, inquiring minds want to know, is
> she out tending the animals and garden or has she fled to an easier
> life?
> 

See above.  There IS no easier life.  I suppose it's just that herself 
outgrew you (all).  She maintains several blogs on homesteading and 
self-sufficiency.  She got weary of all the whining that was the prevalent 
theme on this list 
a while back.  



> Just asking.

I know.  The faction that held that everything the Skeens had to say was from 
the very mouth of Satan (only a few of whom remain, the rest migrated to 
Robinson's Losers List, and even there came to odds with each other) had 
waited 
with bated breath for years to be present at our fall.  Sorry guys.  We 
'glide 
along like the rivers thta water the woodland'.  No juicy gossop that our 
vileness and nastiness has finally caught up with us and we've gone after 
each 
other and split up.  After all this time we are still healthy, solvent, 
together 
..... what ARE the odds!



> 
> Marie, who mainly gardens because the food tastes better and is hoping
> that liquid fuel for cars continues during her lifetime
> 

Oh, they'll continue.  But at an ever increasing price.   </HTML>