I am often asked…

“Why do any of this?”

Often enough someone asks me that question and I usually give the standard answer of my desire to bring back to the forefront of our community’s minds the habits and practices our predecessors used to make life better for the living. For each one of us if we consider this question of why we try to live a self sufficient life would answer all differently, yet they will all have a common threads; Independence, security, safety, better health, better at our stewardships, getting back to the basics, being caretakers of the earth, costs, the list can go on and on.

Yet, for me, it goes quite a bit deeper. Back in 2015 I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay in the profession I pursued as a young man. Not that it was physically taxing or anything of that sort. I just knew that there was something else I needed to do. Something that had more meaning for those I came in contact with.

I made it a matter of prayer. I am christian, and feel the spiritual pull to our Creator on a daily basis. So, with such an important question on my mind I turned heavenward. It was given to me that I needed to relearn and learn the ways of the wise conservator that God has lain out in scripture… the knowledge and know-how that had been handed down through the ages, yet had for the most part been forgotten by my generation and younger. I felt a calling to become a conduit of this knowledge that was handed down to my grandparents, and great-grandparents in the ways of taking care of those things that the Lord has provided you.

I feel that I was called to this particular work. To amass as much of this past knowledge and ingenuity together for those who, once modern systems no longer function will be able to live, strive and thrive in this world of ours. That this Self Reliance can work to the advantage for the greater whole. That is what I have been pursuing since that time.

It is also a practical matter of living within one’s means, and those means are sorely limited in times of hardship, trial, persecution and economic turmoil. We all somehow feel it, that there is some other source that is pressing down hard on our societal structures to bruise, break and tumble our communities. Having these promptings and the lessons of history not so very distant, starting over more than once as a people, and now reaching a point in time where things seemingly are coming to a head; it gets down to developing skills and the vision to assess resources where they can be found, and not necessarily boughten.

For me that means having a sustainable life that also offers me a small yet fairly consistent supplemental income. It also means, in my case, weeding through the myriad of things I would like to do to get my list manageable with those things I am able to do. And even then my list of what I can do and want to do is quite long.

We Do Not Need to Fret, We are in HIS hands!

Fortunately for all of us the knowledge and the lessons of the past have not been entirely erased. We have books, and electronical versions of books that can guide us in food growing systems, and heating or cooling systems, or locomotion or animal husbandry. Things that have been done on such a mass scale in modern times that automation and machines have taken over the harder parts of all those processes and more. History has shown, that large societies inevitably break apart. Are we ready to take over for the machines and computers once they are no longer in service?

I hope that I am wrong about this, that technology keeps growing and benefiting us individually and as a larger community. That we have a path more similar to Star Trek the Next Generation than a Mad Max Dystopia… but human nature…

Yet when all is said and done – as opposed to working for ‘the orwellian man’ and living paycheck to paycheck and wishing life was easier, better and had less stress – I am now pursuing the living life as God intended, Free and at Liberty. Yet that life comes with compromises at times, its own set of costs, its own reality and its own shortcomings.

Regardless of what comes our way, as we rediscover how to be more self sufficient in our lodgings, food security, our clothing and all that comes with it, we can develop the self confidence needed to undertake such tasks. That we can rise to the occasion, come what may, and not slink and slither down in fear and defeat. That the likes of you and I to have the ultimate in living a life – Having a clear conscious and complete peace of mind and soul. A peace and clarity that only God the Father, and His Only Begotten can give to us.

Like many things in life, there are a lot of tough questions, no easy answers, no laisidaisical solutions. And for some, a lot of head scratching, trial and error, and second guessing.

I promise, lots more will follow! For now, thanks for reading, stay safe, stay the course God Bless, and Godspeed!