Hello, as a city dweller I’ve been curious my entire existence about the lives of scrappier, more self-sufficient folk. I looked around for a more specific thread like this but didn’t find one. I’m heavily debating my future of wanting to live off the land but am also critically aware of some of the draw backs. If anyone wanted to share their experience with this thread or post about their activities, I’d love to see it.
This thread is intended for any form of self sufficiency on the spectrum, so you do not need to have a full on homestead to participate.
I want to see DIY, foraging, Project ideas, opinions, stories, etc. plz give me something to read! Make yourself at home here, all ye who wanted to do it yourself
Hey !!??? Did you just call me poor ?¿
Ha ha ha
Just kidding.
I wish @mota was here. He was part of the " back to the land movement" in the early 1970s. He has some great pictures and practical experience. He grew up in LA, California.
I have not seen him for several days.
You ok @mota ?
The back of my yard kept flooding in spring and heavy rains in summer so I dug a pond and no longer have a flooding problem but have a free water solution!
All roof downspouts are redirected to the back for storage in barrels, and overflow ends up in the pond.
Additionally we feed the wildlife stragecially so they cat food goes where the rats were, and the bird seed goes in pockets everywhere becuase a bird shits every 15 minutes so that’s a lot of free guano fertilzer spread around by them for the cost of seed and we get entertained by them!
Honestly a 3d printer is kind of the opposite end from what most people might think, but that thing has saved me a ton of money, has let us do projects we wouldn’t have been able to. It has also allowed me to repair a variety of things around the house that don’t have replacement parts available.
3d printer also let me make molds to pour silicone gaskets for my grow, make drain fittings, various things.
Smoking meat! This is a good time of year to watch for used deals on smokers because folks are getting the itch to upgrade for the season. I got ours that way. Being able to get big cuts of meat and break them down ourselves is way more cost effective. It can be an expensive “hobby”, but it can be a cooking method that saves money. It is about how one approaches it.
We live in the city and have health issues, so we try to be strategic about what we commit to doing manually. I grew up in a “self-sufficiency” mindset household, and while there were A Lot of things that were Not Great about that whole time of my life, I did come away with some useful skills in that regard.
Regular bread baking has been a staple in our house for the last year or so, and I’m about to start to making my own carbonated beverages (maybe eventually trying my hand at hard cider).
Sometimes it’s about evaluating and starting with what can be done cheaper or easier or ideally both. Then once you get that one handled, pick another thing/category and see what you can do. I would love to do more than I do currently, and just have to accept the reality of the situation. With luck I can find ways that are convoluted to other people, but perfect for me.
There is no one-size-fits-all with this stuff, because everyone has different knowledge and skills and ability. Thanks for starting the topic @Low.Poly, there’s a lot of non-cannabis knowledge in these parts, it’s nice to have places for folks to share it!
A 3d printer + resin printer is on my long term list of wants for numerous reasons, mostly artistic. Sculpting my own mold is one of many on my list, I’ll probably just use clay.
Meanwhile very little rain here… Temperatures are already getting summer hot and arid, its like spring hardly gets a chance to breathe. Hopefully we get a real wet season. Would love to have a bioactive pond one day.
My mindset is “have the audacity to try” , I think too many people expect perfection on the first try that they deliberately squander their own potential to just make and fix things.
My wife has really been wanting to homestead for along time, we’re waiting on the last kid to graduate then going to seriously start looking for land but in the meantime she’s getting in all the experience she can before hand. We can food grown from our gardens she makes almost everything from scratch and cans a lot of what she can from that to have for later we trade with neighbors who grow gardens and slaughter animals. We live in town but a very small rural farming town it’s actually still a village. My mom bought some land and started a small hobby farm when I was about 12 so I took care of chickens, goats, horses, gardens, tractors, the pasture built plenty of barns, shops etc. pretty well all of my teenage years and into my twenties. I still go help her when need be and I’m really looking forward to getting back to that but with my own land and so glad i have a spouse that wants the same thing. She grew up a little differently, out in the woods but only thing they did was garden but her dads one hell of a large equipment operator/mechanic/business man so she picked up some of that too. This is an awesome topic, I’m following along for sure
Honestly, I understand her desire to homestead but a small rural village seems just as much the dream to me. I personally think its a bit unnecessarily difficult to do EVERYTHING yourself in an isolated homestead. It’s a strongly western new world idea too. Being able to barter and trade labor is the dream for me.
If she already has quite the rural, independent life, what more does she wish to get out of homesteading? Just curious about her wants. I personally worry about needing to trade wide open space for social isolation in my case.
Well here we’re “not allowed” to do a lot of things even though it’s a small “rural village” local and state government oversight and overreach is still a very big thing. We’re in Illinois so that’s also a big part of the problem. There’s tons of rules and permits for having livestock “in town”, our neighbors are very close and life in general is just to expensive here. We have friends that want to do the same thing so she’s constantly saying we’ll just get land and make a compound for everyone lol She’s wanting some acreage like 4-5 minimum lol
Make sense, I would love a compound situation. I’ve lived in an HOA my entire life, so you can imagine how I feel about the over reach. They cut down a tree that was older than me from our front yard without as much as a warning
