Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

In a message dated 6/7/2008 2:34:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
erthnsky AT bellsouth.net writes:


> > In my experience, the dragon you fear -- and have therefore made
> > preparations against -- is not the one that will rip chunks out of
> > your butt. Something else will get you.
> 
> I believe that, too..
> 

----------------------

No end to it, I suppose.

It was when I was 18 that I first started plotting and scheming to homestead. 
 We had hardly kissed the '60's goodbye ... and the 'War' then was Viet Nam.  
It had only been 15 years since Hubbert made his predictions and no one 
outside some dusty academics had any notion of Peak Oil.  

The reasons were simple, and yet I feel as if I've never been able to 
communicate them on this list.  I saw the the foolishness of selling one's 
life to a 
corporation or profession whose demands on your life's force were relentless. 
 
I had invented in my mind the concept of 'direct use' economy long before I 
read Nearing and Co.

It's been a winding path to get here, and no mistake.  But there are no 
dragons against which I have prepared, homesteading has not been in reaction 
to any 
of the things being discussed here because at the time I made my main turn to 
this lifestyle, none of those things existed.

If gas were 25 cents a gallon and electricity were free, if food were all 
organic and cost 2% of one's income, I'd still homestead.  In fact I was 
indeed 
growing much of my own food and walking (4 miles each way) to work at a time 
when food and gas were cheap.  I did it out of sense of freedom.

So let me outline it, although many might find it mind-boggling:  I haven't 
prepared against anything.  Homesteading isn't a mirthless reaction to hard 
times or foolish choices.  Each step on this enterprise was thought out and 
embraced for its own sake, not because it was a reacton agaisnt somehting or 
preparing against something.

If our personal farmstead economy is stable in these times, that's just icing 
on the cake, not the reason to have done it.

I fear no dragons.  Pointing out that others are about to be devoured by them 
isn't the same thing a fearing them.  Sitting around waiting for something 
bad to happen to me is as reprehensible as the people who think AIDS is a 
punishment from God on homosexuals.

You've got a long wait.  And it's almost sad that you don't see why.  Almost. 
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