Author: jRHMIf

The idea of becoming self-sufficient can seem very exciting.  It certainly is to me.

However, sometimes it can also seem very daunting or even impossibly out of reach.

As with so many things I do, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the massively ever increasing to do list.  And there can be times when it feels that you’re not sure it’s all worth it.

I think it’s important to say that the idea of self-sufficiency is one that comes with an element of harkening back to an ancestral yearning to b

e in charge of your own destiny.

And that’s more how I think of being self-sufficient.

Do I currently produce every single thing that my family consumes in our garden or by my own hand?

No.

And I doubt realistically, that I ever will, on whatever level, you want to look at it.

I don’t think any of us really want that. I certainly don’t want to live in a world where I cannot enjoy the benefits of things such as the connectivity of the internet. I never want to feel that I can’t have access to the wealth of information that a smartphone provides me or that I can’t share my wins and losses. With countless people I may never meet.

No, to me self-sufficiency, is more akin to self-reliance, in its strictest sense. And what I mean by that is, I want the destiny of me and my loved ones in my hands.

So being able to produce a significant portion of our calorific intake means that I am significantly less vulnerable to the vagaries of outside pressures that come from government, markets and global politics.

Knowing that I’m able to Fix a great deal of things that may go wrong with the building I live in means that I’m far less likely to be putting the wellbeing of my family at risk because I can’t afford to hire a contractor immediately when the roof leaks.

Being able to generate the small amounts of income from selling eggs at the side of my road or teaching cheesemaking to kindred spirits are ways I can supplement my income that are unlikely to be affected by things like redundancy or a downturn in the economy.

These are what I consider to be the real key to self-sufficiency.

There is certainly something to be said for division of labour. Many of you will be reading this on a smartphone or a PC.

These devices weren’t made by one person. In fact, I would be quite certain that there isn’t a person alive that holds the knowledge to construct every single component, from the tiny screws made from ore mined from the ground up to the coding and microchips and touchscreen glass. It is the division of labour and delivery economies of manufacturing that this produces that allows these magnificent miracles to exist in our world.

And while I’m not seeking to give these up. To me personally, it’s important to be less dependant on these things to be more self-reliant, more self-sufficient.

That’s what it means to me and while I will work towards producing 100 % of my family’s consumption, it is the journey, not the goal that is important to me.

Our first year at mill close attempting to become more self-sufficient has been a roller-coaster of amazing learning experiences. While there were definitely setbacks, I have absolutely no regrets about attempting to become more self-sufficient and trying so many new things. We definitely had success with our hens in the wood and in doing so we are also able to save more than 60 ex battery hens and give them a happy free-range retirement. They have already paid back more than their running costs in eggs.

The 3 pigs we started with Which were supposed to be a breeding pair and an additional female turned out to be less than we had hoped all 3 showing signs of extreme older old age and not a piglet in sight. My wife and I eventually had to have them put down humanely as one of them couldn’t even stand up alone after less than a year here.

We had a period of 2 weeks when we lost my favorite milking goat 3 pigs to old age and 15 hens to a Fox strike. That was a difficult time.

But we’ve come out the back of that and are going into our second year with some weaner pigs in the wood one very productive milking goat and 2 flocks of highly productive hens.

I have found Saint George’s mushrooms in the food forest; I have made wild garlic and Walnut pesto from foraged ingredients and have had a vegetable garden that is exceeded my wildest expectations. Against the backdrop of incredible successes, we have also had a flood in the house, escaped animals and the difficult challenge of balancing a full-time job with maintaining our dream here.

I definitely feel that we have achieved several milestones that only needed doing once. For instance, the 2 paddocks are 80% fenced so the huge job of fencing them is replaced by a much smaller job of maintaining them. The overgrown area at the North of the Meadow has been cultivated and turned into a vegetable plot which I believe will be enough to feed the family with a bit spare. The duck ponds are dug and inhabited and the main part of the planting for the food forest is also complete.

There were definitely times when maintaining the gardens and keeping up with the lawn mowing hedge trimming, wedding, animal feeding, children raising and having a full-time job was almost more than we could manage. But as things slow down now in September, with the weeds starting to feel sleepy ready for the winter and the nights drawing in meaning the animals get bedded down earlier, I am already excitedly planning my vegetable garden for the next year.

I’ve certainly learnt from many mistakes. For instance, the value of electric fencing with a solar charger has kept are 

chickens and ducks safe since the bloodbath of the first six months, and I feel this is something I can manage much better in the future than in the past. The importance of correctly labeling and maintaining the labels of seedlings is something I vastly under estimated and the absence of doing so I hold responsible for significantly diminished returns from the garden.

In this last year I have learned to make cheese, milk goats, build and use a compost loo, as well as thousands of small lessons on raising animals and plants. I have also tapped my first tree. In doing all these exciting and testing things with my family I also feel I have shared some really special times with my children and wife which I cannot put a price on.

I am already extremely excited about what year 2 will bring.