Homesteading Means Learning AND Doing. Don't Just Read About It!
** I WASN'T BORN INTO THIS**
Some of my first broccoli - gone to seed. I read about it "bolting" but I didn't understand how fast it could happen!
I've went through a few stages in my life. I've been through a few in my homesteading life. Before Y2K (you remember that right?) I just like gardening and growing things at our newly purchased house with my newly married wife. I remember one of the first purchases for outside at that house was one of those "strawberry pyramids" that you see advertised in the seed catalogs. You know what? It worked out great. We had ever-bearing strawberries. I then, driven by memories of my grandmother's grapes, put up a trellis and planted a grapevine. Twenty plus years later, 4 moves and a different state, and I still plant a grapevine at every house we move into. The first one is doing great, if Google Street View is correct. It's a running joke between my wife and I that about the time the grapevines get to producing I decide we need to move.
Running up to Y2K, I didn't panic but we bought a generator "just in case". Of course Y2K was a big "miss" as the EOTWAWKI (End of the World as We Know It) folks learned. But I had the "prepping fever". So I had a brief stint of that attitude. I spent a lot of mental time on wondering how and when it was all going to end. Certain of financial melt-downs and other tragedies that were going to strike. I never went full-blow Doomsday, but at one point I was certain it was going to happen shortly. I still live with the reality that something like that could happen but I now know that the biggest EOTWAWKI event is looming for so many people... they call it old age and poor planning. My faith in God has grown more and more and I know that as long as I have faith in Him that I can't waste the time worrying about it. My sincerest desire is that His will be done. I still think it's important to work hard and prepare when you see trouble approaching. I think that's biblical... but the worry is gone.
I'M NO EXPERT... BUT I'M SMARTER TODAY THAN I WAS YESTERDAY
I'd always liked gardening even when I was a teen and a young man living with my parents between college and a few stints of my own place/job and then back home (I repeated that cycle only twice, thank God, for the sake of my parents and my own mental health).
My parents didn't grow a garden. My grandmother, who lived through the depression and whose house would these days be featured on Hoarders, was a fantastic gardener. I spent entire summers there for 10 hours a day as she watched my sister and I while mom worked. I wish I could travel back in time and talk to her, or at least to have been more cognizant of what she was indirectly teaching me. Her house was the first place I ever learned about compost (Hey, why does that smell funny?) when we were going fishing and she had me turn the pile looking for worms. Little did I know it was a conspiracy between the worms and her to get me to turn the compost over.
I miss the knowledge that I didn't tap into. She was more a homesteader on her large (almost an acre) city lot than most people who have 10 times the area to homestead. So although I've not always been a homesteader, I claim a heritage to it.
IT'S A GREAT TIME TO BE ALIVE
Although I can't talk to grandma, and although I'd love to spend another summer with her. I have to say it's a great time to be alive. The knowledge that is available around the internet is amazing. Just looking at Steemit, I've seen so many great posts just today. We undervalue it actually. I mean, sure we scrabble for some upvotes and we try to appreciate it, but like my grandma, it might not be here.
That's why you HAVE to get out and actually DO SOMETHING.
Stop being paralyzed by analysis paralysis.
I JUST DID STUFF
Get a rabbit to raise! Start... don't worry if it's not perfect. Learn.
Get that garden growing! Get those kids out there while they're small.
Give out an award for the largest Greenbean!
Learn how to save that harvest!
Raise some turkeys!
Pick Some Apples!
Press some Cider!
Remember: GROW WHERE YOU ARE. TODAY!
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"GROW WHERE YOU ARE. TODAY!"
Yes! I say, "Do what you can with whatever you have as soon as possible!" Too many times I've waited for something, more time, better equipment, whatever. I too, have struggled with analysis paralysis. But I'm getting better! As long as we're willing to learn, we're headed in the right direction!
When you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, you rot!
i feel you deeply on the granma love! mine could grow anything she tried, canned an amazing amount of food, made the best fried chicken & was one of the smartest people i ever knew. every time my hands get in the ground, i think of her - and indeed, i wish i could have learned more from her.
I'm certain we will be reunited again! :) God bless, have a good night.
OMGosh!!!! Y2K! YES!
I think that hysteria pushed me over the fence too. All the what if's, all the we are doomed... that's when I started getting serious about becoming more self-sufficient and being more self-sustainable!
We are self taught in all the areas that we work in: carpentry, plumbing, electricity, car repair, small appliance repair, computer repair, sewing, gardening, food preservation, butchering, animal husbandry for 5 species, grass farming, raising flowers and herbs, building custom fishing rods, keeping homestead records, teaching classes on homesteading, and a whole bunch more I can't think of.
All very crucial skills to surviving on a homestead.
Awesome! And yes, all crucial.