Intelligent Survival
If you have poked your nose into a newspaper or followed the news on the television lately, then you probably are getting some ideas of your own that we, as a country, are headed for some very serious issues, and that they are quickly and quietly approaching. We, as a country, owe so many others money that we can not hope to recover. Our own economy is in a critical recession, with no end in sight at this point. Our own government is scared, proven simply by noticing the fed cutting interest rates, adopting methods of stimulus to try to stabilize things, bailing out automakers and banking institutions by giving them almost the entire gross national product amount of the prior year. Something has got to give…..
I do not presume to tell the government how to fix things. I much prefer simply making sure my own family is well prepared and ready for the coming trials and tribulations facing us. Our way of doing that was to “go country” and start an agrarian based lifestyle that was sustainable thru the coming years of turbulence.
We now raise our own chickens for both meat and ample daily eggs, hogs for ham, bacon, sausage, lard, roasts, our own dairy goats for milk. We have a huge garden started with enough output that will allow us to can, freeze, and dry food for quite some time. We do not rely on the utility companies as we used to, as our heating is now wood based, we plan on adding a deep well this year, wind powered turbines for electricity needs, and have a few cows waiting for us as soon as we finish the new fences. In short, these are simply a means of making sure our family has a future that is stable thru any harsh times.
The upside to this is that we now share much more time together as a family, learning new things, and creating (for us) new traditions. We are working towards not needing to rely on outside sources to survive, and at the same time, building family unity under god.
While looking around for some other subject matter relating to this, I came across a post by Herrick Kimball on The Deliberate Agrarian blog, titled An Agrarian-Style Economic Self Defense Plan. This is a well written article explaining why the Kimball family lives as they do, and mimics our own thoughts rather well in many ways.
The underlying moral of this story is simply to start thinking of your own future and how your family will survive harsh times before the worst can happen. At that point, the chances get considerably smaller.
Please let us know how the wind turbines work out. I have researched them for several months now. In my on-site inspections, all testing indicated poor performance. I live atop a hill where the wind blows almost constantly, and believe that turbine(s) would be ideal for my location, but need to know that it will perform for my family. In my research, the only systems that I have encountered that will “spin the meter backwards” on a direct hook up to the grid have been solar systems. More expensive, but can realistically pay themselves off over 5 to 10 years. Please update us on your turbine’s performance. Thank you.