I POSTED OVER IN OFF GRID 12-26-17

12-26-17

I POSTED OVER IN OFF GRID and Homesteading groups.  The example link is how one lady is making money as an herbal sideline.

I grew up on a small farm in the early 1950s. It had been a several generation farm so each generation benefited from work and improvements of the generation before. At that time, it was still considered that a small farm had to have 100 acres to be self sustaining.

Small farms were diversified while big commercial farms were specialized. As a small farm we had to do many things which combined to make our annual family income. We were first of all a small dairy farm. We had 40 cows which were milked twice a day, first by hand in open buckets, then with small portable milking machines which resembled pressure cookers with a small pump on the lid. The milk was then poured into 'milk-cans' and stored in a cooler until the local truck came to collect the milk. We would hand the milk cans up and he would in turn pour them into the big stainless tank. The day came when we received notice from USDA that milk could no longer be collected and sold like this because germs from the air were prone to contaminate the milk. We would have to install a large stainless steel closed system and automated milking machines and that forced us to give up dairying. We kept it up as long as we could.

We also farmed.. that is we grew crops, also diversified. Today it would be large scale vegetable gardening. Commercial farms specialized in one crop, such as potatoes. We sold the variety of vegetables at farmers markets and our own roadside vegetable stand. More than half of our 100 acres was forest.. with a variety of trees, mostly softwood and maples. Every year we cut some softwood trees and they were stacked along the road to be sold to paper mills. We had two apple orchards that were several generations old and we planted new trees and gathered apples and sold them by the bushel and ground up and press the not so fine ones into apple cider. Some cows had calves and so we sold some of them every year as well. So it was that our small farm survived by a variety of things.

When we had to stop dairying because of USDA regulations, both of my folks took part time work in town. Now instead of the small farm supporting us, we had to work to support the cost of keeping the small farm, and it got harder and harder every year. By 1958 we sold the farm and took up living in town where both of my folks could work every day. It really was a step down to living in seedy cheap tenements or 'cold water flats'. While on the small farm we never lacked for food or clothing or other things, now we really lived poor. In hard times we ate one meal a day as a family around 4 in the afternoon. Now memories of the old days were not happy, but bitter mockeries of plenty that we no longer had. I wore raggedy and patched clothes to school and was ridiculed for my choppy home haircut, torn shoes and some bad teeth.

I think now when people describe homesteading, they really mean owning a home of their own somehow. they are not thinking of becoming 'hunter gatherers' like pioneer people, or spinning and weaving their own cloth, or slaughtering their own animals for meat. I still have some bitter childhood memories of animals I had fed and cared for being killed and butchered for meat.

I think there are 3 really big obstacles to self sufficiency. Things really do seem to come in threes.

The first big one is the rising cost of property taxes. In some areas if you divide your annual taxes by 12 months it almost equals $250 to $300 a month and one is really renting their own house from the county or state.

The second big one is gainful employment, making a decent living in rural America where many people drive long distances, some almost 100 miles. to work every day to pay the bills. A few artists and craftsmen make a living from their skill but most of us have to 'wing it' through odd jobs. Either farming or ranching now requires a huge amount of acreage and equipment to really make a profit. In the west the water table is dropping yearly and deep well irrigation is now a necessity. Wells in this area have to be around 600 feet deep, and cost a lot to pump that water to the surface to water your crops.. or even a family vegetable garden.

The third big thing is downscaling ones lifestyle. Homesteading often means cutting back and doing without many things we took for granted before, even necessary things. What should I spend this weeks pay on, food, medicine, shoes for little Johnny, or a new battery for the deteriorating pickup truck? This shortage of money means things are becoming more rundown and require more fixing which makes money even shorter week by week.

Now some homesteaders are really retired folk. They have a pension or fixed income and they are looking for a rural corner where they can live out their days Most find such a corner and at least live in a mobile home or a trailer in some RV park. This is not real homesteading, to have a property and become at least partially self sufficient, living away from the city 'rat race'.

Now if like me, you lived on your own means most of your life, and maybe never paid much of anything into Social Security, you may find like me, that you still have to work at 70 years old to get by. Before FDR started Social Security, old folks were cared for by their children on a family farm, like "The Waltons", but as the small farms faded away lots of elderly became hard up. If most people had to revert to life like the great depression, they could not survive today. We have become so codependent that true independence is difficult to obtain.

So this is me. I am approaching 70 and I still have to work. I manage a lot by working for barter as a caretaker for property in exchange for a RV hookup on a private lot. I see my ability becoming less and less and wonder what will happen to me with no children or remaining living relatives. I live 90% off the grid, with solar, generator, and supplementing barter with odd jobs.

After three surgeries I no longer drive so I have to wheedle rides from people and I live almost 50 miles from the nearest town with a supermarket. My life requires a lot of planning and foresight to get by each month. I am not the only one. I know several other senior couples in circumstances much like me, also struggling to manage every month. My cash monthly income varies, some weeks I make nothing and other weeks is a windfall. Aside from barter I earn around $200 monthly some months less.

So if you are thinking of homesteading you really need to take a cold hard look at things. You really need other people in your life. There is a lot of truth to the old Beatles song "I get by with a little help from my friends". Folks like the Mennonites learned years ago that they had to band together in small communities to get by, and so should we make friends and share between us. Find an angle to making cash income.. some people even sell on-line now. A hairdresser still makes a living in the country doing permanents in her kitchen every week, and a backyard mechanic is still in demand, tho vehicles are becoming more and more high tech.

I am still trying to finagle an angle for myself.. as I get older things change and I have to adjust. I am giving serious thought to selling on-line.. I shared this lady's website in my Herbalism group.. she makes soaps and sells on the Internet and says she does passably well, tho her husband also works at another job.

http://marciasgardensoapshop.com

To paraphrase an old saying 'two heads are better than one'.. I would say 'two incomes are easier than one' even if they are both part time.

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