mental problems...please help!!!!

[Jens]

Beavers-Not sure what things are like in your area, but around here land in small towns is extremely cheap.  You can get an acre or two for a couple of grand.  Might be the best of both worlds that you are looking for.  Room enough for the homestead, and still some of the benefits of town.

Around here, 2 acres or so is gonna be around 10 grand minimum, for anywhere we would want to be.  We aren't willing to just take whatever we can find, not picky mind you, just not quite that impulsive!

rwanders,
   We don't eat much meat, because the conditions of commercial operations are generally atrocious.  If we have raised it, as we did with chickens in NH, or we know the environment they are raised in because of closeness with the farmer, no problem.  Even organic operations are many times a great big crock, that can mean nothing more than organic feed.  The whole "cage free" thing only means they aren't in cages, but they are still possibly on concrete, in a warehouse, being fed crap.

Produce wise, it actually doesn't take that much to grow a lot of your own stuff.  I am not saying we will grow all of our food.  Rice, beans, and flour, for example, we will probably still buy, and they are all a pretty major part of our diet.  I don't want to have so much that I can't plow it with a light draft horse, something that my friend Dino did with 5 acres of corn this year.  The animals will be mostly pastured, as again, we won't have too many, but will need some supplemental food.  We don't get snow often here, so don't have to hay all winter.  Most vet visits, especially with small animals, aren't necessary.  Fertilizer comes from the animals and restaurants in the form of plenty of compost and manure.

We haven't butchered anything larger than a chicken, but are confident (if not naive) enough that we can handle a goat, sheep, or pig.  The cow will be shopped out.  The really cool part about animals, is that if you have enough land to pasture you can raise, two for the price of one, and the extra one will actually net profit after processing if you sell the meat. 

My wife spent a couple of months milking a friends cow 3 nights a week, taking care of the whole thing herself, so that is not a problem. 

We have basically been training for this over the last ten years.  I do know that there is still cost involved, and yes, if you compare it to Wal-Mart food, it is more expensive, but that isn't how we eat.  Most of our food comes (in spring, summer, and fall) from the farmers market, and local farmers, and we do pay a bit of a premium for that.  If not for super foods like beans, rice, and eggs, we would have a food bill double what we spend now, or a much lesser quality diet.

I think that it is still very possible to reduce your actual food bill to just about nothing, trading labor in the process.  We are going to find out, here in the city first, since that is where we are.  I have actually been thinking of keeping a detailed book that covers a year of expenses involving food on this plan, including labor totals.  I would have to start next year, once we have canned stuff to get us through till summer when the first crops are edible, but it would be interesting.

[rwanders]

Jens, Go for it!! You have obviously put a lot of thought and lessons of experience into your plans.  I am old enough to have known and remember the "wood & water hippies" of the 60's and 70's-----idealistic and in many cases, idiotic dreamers lost in their smoke---many came to Alaska and some left their bones along the Yukon River trying to live off the land without thought or preparation. You are obviously not from that tribe. God Bless you and yours!

[Jens]

Thanks for the kind words.  Like I said, I started this thread to try and work through the difficulties not with the dream, but with the timing, and the seemingly overwhelming desire that blots out the present goals much of the time.  Tunnel vision can sometimes be good, but much of the time problematic.  Through prayer though, talking to you all here, and mos importantly my wife, I have worked through it.  That is not to say that it won't crop up again, but...

"many came to Alaska and some left their bones along the Yukon River trying to live off the land without thought or preparation."

ouch!!  Yeah, Alaska would be very difficult.  Kinda like trying to homestead on the moon!  I don't understand why you would want to do something, with no prior knowledge, in a place that you can only do it a couple of months out of the year.  In that situation, I think I would be more like the guy from Alone in the Wilderness- build everything myself, hunt, fish, and plant a few things, but be dependent on that sea plane...especially with the kids.  Here in Tennessee though, you can grow and harvest food from about March through November.  That is one of the reasons we chose to move here instead of staying in New Hampshire.

My friend called yesterday, and asked if we wanted 3 roosters to eat, looks like its clobberin time.  There is nothing quite like fresh harvested meat (or produce).  I can't wait to be able to once again harvest fresh greens and tomatoes from our garden.  Having a fresh salad everyday, fresh eggs, that is our idea of paradise, even though you have to work to get it. 

If you have any squash plants this year, they make a special treat everyday.  Everyday there are new blossoms on the plant, pick them, take them inside and bread them and fry them.  Italians call it Fiorelli, it's so good!  You can stuff them with cream cheese, but it makes them a bit more difficult to do.  Eat them the same day that you pick them though, they don't keep too well.  Picking the blossoms doesn't harm the plant, as long as you make sure that there isn't another squash coming out of it, not all of them grow into fruit. 

BTW, why "wood and water"?  What does that mean?

Thanks again for the words.

[drainl]

Jens,  It does sound that no matter what you  decide things will work out just fine.  My wife and I (mostly me) don't want to be a slave to this monitary system.  The things you've done sound exactly like us.  My goal is go get our total expenses down to 800/mo.  B/C of simply living that I made a commitment too about 5 years ago both my wife and I work part time.  Wow this has been the most freeing experience.  All just to live simply, this coming year I'm scaling back at work even more (6 hours a week total work time).  This allows me to spend time with my son and play music with my bands, which I enjoy much better then taking work requests fixin' computers etc.
 
We have bought our property like you are describing kind of.  It's 15 acres with wood so that we can heat with , close to town but VERY private.  Your friend that will let you take wood of his /her property, would you also be able to fence some animals in and grow veggies there?  Is it close enough for that.  Is there someone else you know with land that you might be able to use for free/barter/etc for what you want the land for ( saving taxes) .  You would then be able to live in your current effecient house, maybe add solar panels to help with electric and your water heating needs, thus reducing your costs lower, add a simple wood stove.  OR , maybe just find a pice of affordable property out of town that you could build a little cabin with cash as you go along and use it's resources while your still living in town.  Sounds like you have alot of options aviable to you.  Good luck .   I know what your going through tryin' to anaylize every option and align it with your goals.  When ever I think too much about this stuff I just try to step back and "Enjoy the journey".   My overall conclusion is to get out of debt forever lol. 
Peace
Jeff

[Jens]

We have already talked to our friends about pasturing some animals at their place, and having a nice big garden.  It is about a half hour drive though, so not too feasable from a saving money type of standpoint.  Still, we do plan to pasture a calf or two, but weeding a garden, and twice daily milkings just won't work.  We do have enough land in town though, to grow most of our veggies, plus there are several fruit trees that we found last year that we will harvest peaches, and apples from.  There are hickory trees for nuts, walnuts, and chestnuts around as well.  Unfortunately, the family farm out there is owned by 3 brothers.  They split the 1500 acres, but none of them actually own their piece on their own, three way for whole thing.  Two of the brothers don't talk to each other, so they can't work anything out.  Otherwise, we could probably buy, or 20 year lease some property from them.  Oh well.

15 acres sounds great!  Where is it located?  Got any pics yet?

[rwanders]

Jens, "wood & water hippies" attempted to live what we now call "off the grid" with an added dose of anarchy. In some ways they were a 20h century version of the 19h century utopian movements with the added attractions of rock n roll, sex and drugs-----it was a fun time while it lasted.  I did participate to some extent and fortunately survived with only a few (I think) brain cells missing. 

ps:  Where in New Hampshire?  I spent several months in Center Ossipee in 1988 while building a wood burning powerplant in West Conway----beautiful area!  Never saw so many antique shops in my life----a friend owned one on route 16 near lake Winnepesauke. (sp?)

[Jens]

We were in Barrington, about 25 mi from Portsmouth.  Very neat area, indeed.  We met a lot of cool people, who had little farming operations.  They didn't produce everything, but could have.  A couple of friends of ours taught us how to butcher chickens.  They had over 200 birds, between chickens, ginnea fowl, turkey, and ducks.  We were even invited (and went) to Christmas dinner at their families house.  After that, we became like family.  Too bad we moved two months later! 

It was the first time I had seen so much water!  Lakes everywhere, and they all had that pure reflection thing, like you see in paintings, where the landscape is almost perfectly reflected on the water.  Don't get that out west, at least not from what I remember growing up.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the wood and water hippies didn't work out, has to do with the environment they created for themselves.  Brings to mind Sodom and Gomorrah! 

BTW, we were about 1 hour from Winnepisauke.

[speedfunk]

 I just noticed I posted under wife's account (drainl).  30 mins does sound a bit far for daily trips, that's too bad.  Your assortment of nut types is pretty awsome!     .  Upstate NY, I have the thread on the 900sq/ bermed house.  I do have pics but for reason they don't seem to capture the place to well. 
Jeff

[fraggin]

If anyone else has stories they'd like to share, I'm all ears...eyes that is.

An older thread, yes, but a valid read no doubt. I can relate. I grew up living a simplified lifestyle. My family had and depended on livestock and gardening. There were daily chores to be done. In the summer it was tending to the garden. In the fall it was canning, drying, and storing/selling harvest. And there were always the animals to tend to. In those days, ATV's were a luxury and horses were the next best thing.
As a child, participating in the family lifestyle was not a choice. I was so focused on getting out on my own to do things my way, I didn't realize that I was assuming the lifestyle I wanted would be better. As much as I loathed it then, I'm beginning to long for it now.

I also relate to the mental turmoil you're dealing with. I suspect many cabin builders have an engineering mindset. If you're anything like me, you will be constantly building and tearing down your cabin in your mind. When you can't achieve goals immediatley, or if you reach a point where you have to stop progress on a project, it can get frustrating.

Though being able to visualize and brainstorm can help in the end, sometimes it will wear you out if it gets to the point of being an obsession that can't immediatley be fulfilled. The other aspect is that a negative context can be created by becoming frustrated just in thinking of what you don't have or can't do. I'm not sure how to explain it without an example.

But, For example, I had 3 windows on the second story of my house that had rotting wood that needed to be replace badly. These windows ate a hole in my stomach for months of constant worrying.

Initially, I had three options. Pay someone to replace or repair them, Do the work myself, or let them continue to rot.

Since leaving them in their decaying state constantly bugged me, I had to choose what to do. That's when the negatives started to flow. "I've never done this kind of work. What if I break a window? I can't afford new windows. What if I can't figure it out halfway through?"

Eventually, I got a ladder and a saw and just went to work cutting out all the rotten wood. I was really nervous about it once I created a 1x3 ft opening in my house. But, I took a step back, had a cold drink, and came up with a plan to make the repair. The first window took all day, the next weekend, the second window took 5 hours and a two weeks later, the third window took 2 hours.

Looking back on the situation, I was silly for doubting myself to the point self-ridicule. I try to remember that as a tool to use when I get in the same situations later.

I'm a firm believer that if a person want's something bad enough, they will find a way to get it. But, the first step is confriming that you will make it happen. The most important thing is that you make progress, and recognize the progress as it is made. Not all progress will be visual progress.

[Jens]

So, are you moving back into a homestead lifestyle?  I agree, that one needs a mind that can process things on many different levels in order to complete many projects.  I am a builder/remodeler for a living, so I am not too worried about the building part.  The other stuff, well, we'll have to figure out a lot of that as we go.  Most of it boils down to common sense and hard work.  It's a bit funny though, when we think about all of the things that we have made our hobbies and main interests in the past 11 years, it is almost as if we have been in training for homesteading! 

I finally have come to a point, where I can step back from the obsession part.  I am still thinking up new house ideas, and wishing I had all the land for my dream shop and stuff, but when I think about it now, it isn't the uncontrollable urge to figure out how to get it done.  God does answer prayers, we'll just see how long this level of sanity lasts!

Thanks for the story fraggin, I have been in the exact position of which you speak.  It is very exhilarating when you come out the other side!

[firefox]

Yes, we know you are crazy Jens, but think of it this way. You are in good company. Mind you I only speak for myself and my wife. We are in a situation where we finally got some land in the middle of a tiny town in the mountains of Nevada. About a half acre, but it is plenty for us. We are currently trapped in a house in a city which has so many rules I am afraid to go to the bathroom without a permit. I no longer have any money to work with so it is getting difficult to do the repairs we need to do to fix up the house so we can sell it. But the good news is that if we can get through this without incurring a debt, we can sell off the house and make enough to pay for materials to build our own in a town that doesn't even have a building department! Yes it will be a bit of a struggle, but we will make it.
It's hard to keep an old Marine down.

We are both rooting for you and think quite highly of your goals and motivation.

Bruce & Robbie

[Jens]

Hoo-rah!  Good-on-ya Bruce.  You'll get it fixed up and sold, congrats on the little piece of land.  Where in NV?  I lived in Reno for part of high school.

[firefox]

Hi Jens, It's under my sign on...Eureka Nevada
Bruce

[trout valium]

A psycologist we work with purchased 50 acres.  They started building their home and his wife would ask "will we be in it this winter?"  He was certain they would.  6 years later they moved in.......

Stay the course, don't take shortcuts, and you will arrive at your dream.  Funny thing about that dream - it will change and grow as the journey progresses.

We are in the midst of purchasing 50 acres ourselves.  First goal is to pay it off, second is to live and work on it while we are doing just that.  We haven't figured most of it out ourselves