dried orange slices on a wood surface with cinnamon sticks and lavender flowers

Self Sufficiency

More and more people are learning just how important it is to increase their self sufficiency. We have become incredibly dependent on the systems in place and many of us are just beginning to learn how harmful those systems really are.

Almost daily, there’s another food item recalled due to potentially fatal contamination. Crops are watered with the same water that came from the cow yards. Pesticides are coating our fresh fruits and vegetables. Animals are raised in unsanitary and downright cruel conditions, which only adds to the spread of disease and increases the likelihood of yet another mass recall.

Then, there’s everything Covid taught us. When things shut down, we learned how quickly an entire grocery store can be wiped out, leaving our families without food or basic living supplies like toilet paper. Remember the toilet paper? Yeah, me too.

So, more and more of us are reaching back in time and embracing the lifestyle of our great-grandparents. Thankfully, we have a lot more tools at our disposal than they did, but the idea is still the same. Living off our land is ideal. The less we need to rely on the corporations that fuel our society, the better.

Homesteading

Homesteading isn’t new. It simply used to be called “living”. We all used to homestead. The great thing is that now, you can homestead, even with no land at all. Your homestead doesn’t need to be a large-scale operation. If you have a window, you can grow some food in a pot. And just like that, you’ve started to homestead! It really is as simple as that.

No matter what you have, you can get started in small ways. Maybe you don’t want to grow any food at all. If you just want to reduce your waste, that’s a way of homesteading too. In my house, we rarely use paper towels and I haven’t bought facial tissue in over two years. I have severe allergies and I still don’t need to buy tissue. Using reusable items in place of disposable ones is a way of homesteading.

My point is that you don’t need to do everything or nothing. There is a very large middle ground. The point is to just get started. In most cases, we really love to feel like we’re making a difference, so we do more and more. It may start with switching to kitchen towels rather than paper towels. But before you know it, you’ll be making your own oils and growing basil in your windowsill.

30 Days To Self Sufficiency

Self sufficiency won’t happen overnight, but these bite sized topics will help you along your journey and get you to a place where you are confident in your skills. Click on a day to learn more and see how I do things on my homestead.

chicks in a wood box

Self Sufficiency and Solar Panels

One thing I don’t cover in this section is solar panels. Solar panels can be a great addition to any homestead, but they aren’t right for everyone. This article discusses the options and can help you decide if solar is right for you.

We recently decided to get solar panels on our roof. Most of our property is shaded by oak trees, but technology had finally caught up to our property. Once the numbers finally made sense, we decided to go ahead and have solar installed.

One thing I didn’t expect is that when the power goes out, we have no power. I thought when we had solar panels installed, the power would be on no matter what happened, but that’s not the case. Since our panels are tied into the grid, we are still dependent on the grid. Without battery backup, there’s not a way to redirect the power directly to the house, so keep that in mind when considering your own house.

In the long run, it’s more financially beneficial for us to stay connected to the grid as we can sell our excess power back to the power company. This aspect is just something I hadn’t realized before we had solar panels put in. The good news is that I don’t feel bad running my dehydrators all day during the summer. We’re adding more power to the grid than we can possibly use in the summer.

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