Homestead mailing list

[Susan Trickett <gmasue AT inbox.com>]

Hi All,
     I'm going to write down my thoughts off of Bob's last post:

I'm already worrying too much, and I still think there
> is a chance that our country has a possibilty at least of limping along
> without terrible consequences.

I am also hoping the there is a slow descent into ??? My crystal ball hasn't 
worked in a long time. I was not knowledgeable about finances and am just 
starting to really get a glimmer of what is going on and why. Even with a 
bail out I don't think life is going to be the same. This is so big that most 
people will finally understand that we need to live differently. You include 
Peak oil in the mix, and I do, then times are going to change and more 
rapidly than most people will be able to adjust to. I also don't think 
elections in 4 years will be the same circus, I think it will be serious.

> Also, this city has been my home for a long time.  

We moved to western wa from So. Ca.(San Bernardino area) about 3 years ago 
with a feeling that we needed to be in a safer location. We are in a small 
city and yes we put in a garden this year. If we'd had to rely on it for 
all/much of our food, we'd have starved. Gardening here is way different than 
in ca. Next year though I'm confident that we can do much better. We're also 
planting cool weather and salad crops. Loved Eliot Coleman's 4 Season 
Harvest, highly recommend, that someone mentioned. We have chickens that 
should start laying in Nov so we're looking forward to that. We were given 40 
lbs of fresh tuna and I canned it! I guess my point is that I need more time 
to prepare, knowing it won't ever really probably be enough. I just think 
that this crisis is going to wake up a lot of people and that we will see 
more and more people becoming as self sufficient as possible. I think that 
Katrina woke up people. And my guess is that there are lots of new people 
like me lurking on this list. On a few other lists there are lots of young 
people who feel the need to prepare and learn canning, gardening and other 
skills that will help them not be so dependent on the system. Don't be so 
fast to throw the rest of us away please.

Now, I'm ready to go ,
> psychologically, anyway.  But, I don't think I want to run away in fear.
> I could move to the middle of nowhere, and hide.  

I'd go <g> but don't have the financial resources, dh is on disability and 
money is tight. We've never had new cars or fancy houses but as I look around 
my house I see things that I wish I could trade for food & supplies and hope 
that there's time to sell some of them. We will keep working on getting out 
of debt but that will take time. I'm trying to prepare for 4 adults and 2 
kids who live here and also our oldest son, wife and 5 kids we left in So. Ca.

>It's not like I have a long established homestead community like you and 
>many others on the list. 

I wonder if most of you do have a close community or are you islands unto 
yourselves?

 To
> be honest, if things do become terribly bad, I'd just as soon stand with
> people I know than hide with people I don't. ...bobford

We don't know very many people here but we are more comfortable with the mind 
set here. We had a wild winter storm before Christmas with wind gusts up to 
90 mph that hung around awhile. While we weren't prepared, we did hear 
generators in the neighborhood and people helped each other out. You wouldn't 
have heard generators where we lived in ca.

And then on to James' comments:
> 
> And any of the more common clay who work two jobs to pay mortgage and
> credit
> card debt are only miniature versions of the above,  To the exent they
> subscribed to the debt/consumerist mentality, they will suffer in
> proportion. 

I'm not sure really how to respond to this sentiment which others have also 
expressed. I guess congratulations are in order for being smarter than most 
of the rest of us in the general population :-), or for having role models 
who imparted this wisdom to you. I don't think saying you're "lucky" is  
right because I'm sure that you've worked hard and made sacrifices in your 
life that puts you in the enviable situation you're in of being mostly self 
sufficient. I guess we'll see what happens and aren't we lucky to live in 
interesting times.

               Sue