March 1, 2025
Day 1,247 of the Adventure
There's an exciting time of year at our doorstep. So many possibilities are represented in the springtime season. Each year we have an opportunity to readjust our focus to alter our future. Of course, it doesn't take springtime to do this. It's somehow just easier to approach some new or fresh direction with a positive energy in the spring. We are now celebrating our fourth spring at our backwoods retreat. Each year has represented a certain move towards a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Probably none more than last year as we ramped up our garden and food preservation efforts. This year, along with the house construction we have started, our goal is to do all of that food processing like last year and add in some storage components to it. This will come in the form of a combination storm shelter, modern root cellar built into a portion of the basement on the house. So........ Enough of our plans. (for now) The important factor is how to position yourselves for a life altering journey of your own down the pathway towards self-sufficiency.
I was not raised in a farm family but was certainly raised in a "Do-It-Yourself" family and in my 60 plus years, I have definitely witnessed a decline in the self-sufficiency that comes with both of those cultures. In my opinion, farming and a Do-It-Yourself lifestyle represented much more of a reliance upon skills and the abilities to do things. Much more so in the past than it feels like it goes now, Something that has not just been lost, but has been robbed from us over many decades. Regaining those skills and abilities is something that requires intentionality. It just doesn't happen on its own. We have to "intentionally to do it". Honestly, I can't think of a better time or under more perfect circumstances than right now. Convenience has bound us in mentality of helplessness to a degree. Between simply not knowing how to do..... things (you fill in the blank there) to being afraid to do things without permission, guidelines or professional help, we've allowed our hands and minds to be tied in a paradigm of dependence. I'm reminded of when we built our first nightly rental treehouse cabin. The questions we got about the process all related to an assumption that someone had to allow it, someone had to dictate the engineering and design, someone had to approve it, some professional had to build it. All of it had to presumably be completed by someone else that knew what they were doing, and were somehow "qualified" to do so. Fortunately, my business partner and I both possessed an attitude of "We can figure this out" and we did. The same is true for a self-sufficient life.
No matter what you know or don't know about doing the things that lead to self-sufficiency, a decision to start and a commitment actually walk it out, is really all that's needed. Henry Ford once said "If you believe you can or if you believe you can't...... You're right". Believing you can do a thing is the first step to doing that thing.
Adventure Quote: “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
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