Tag Archives: self-sufficient

Rural Relations with Josh: Lessons Learned, Part III – Is Rural Living Right For You?

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When considering the purchase of a rural home it’s important to look at how much it will change your life. It’s convenient living in, or near, the city where stores, jobs, and services are nearby. There is also internet access and utilities that may not be available in a more rural area. Unless you have a steady income from retirement, or disability, or you’re independently wealthy, you need to have gainful employment. If you can handle these possible down-sides, living in a rural environment has a lot of up-sides that, I believe, more than make up for the negatives. It’s great to see wild life, enjoy the silence, and have room to raise animals and plants for personal and/or financial gain.

One of the challenges of moving to a rural area is commuting to the city for work, or finding a way to transfer a career to a more rural area. Other options include telecommuting or home-based jobs that provide the needed flexibility. I have an occupation which allows me to work from home 95% of the time. One of the greatest challenges that I have faced is finding good internet service. I rely on high-speed internet for work to join conference/video calls, solve customer problems, and generally enjoy the benefits the internet has to offer. Other challenges include commute time, gas expenses, and shopping availability. Since we often have to travel a lot further to shop we have to plan accordingly and stock-up.

Shortly after moving into our new house, about 30 miles from Seattle, I called around trying to find high-speed internet service. I was dismayed to discover that the options were limited to satellite, mobile hot spot, or a land line. I tried both satellite and a mobile hot spot with mixed results. Satellite internet provided sufficient bandwidth but with high latency it felt pretty sluggish. The mobile hot spot worked, most of the time, and was fast enough, most of the time, and had low latency, most of the time. In my line of work, quality/reliable high-speed internet is a requirement. I ended up signing up for a $435/month T1 connection that would provide 1.5Mb with unlimited usage each month. This type of connection is extremely low latency and no shared bandwidth which provides a consistent connection at a very high cost (relative to consumer prices). I remain shocked that living this close to Seattle I struggle to find quality affordable high-speed internet.

Another problem I face is commuting to various locations around the greater Seattle area. Even though downtown Seattle is only 40 miles away, it takes me up to an hour and a half to get there. Any time I have to drive to a job it’s a road trip. I pressure all of my clients to let me work remotely and work harder because of it. Working from home has saved me around $400/month in gas expenses.

Living this way also encourages personal preparation and self-reliance as help/resources are much further away, the power typically goes out more often, you are more likely to get snowed in, or have a tree fall across the driveway, law enforcement/EMS takes longer to respond, etc., etc.. But in the end, living in a more rural area is well worth it to our family. Raising our kids in an area where they can run out and play in the woods and explore and adventure is a big deal, that’s how I grew up.

 

We’re Raising Rabbits

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We began raising rabbits yesterday. We now own two eight-week old, American Chinchilla Rabbit does (female). We will get a buck (male), of the same breed, from another nearby breeder soon. We weren’t completely ready for rabbits, but the opportunity presented itself and we decided to take advantage of it. The hutches were all assembled, but we hadn’t build the covered area to put them in yet. So the two does are staying, temporarily, in one of the completed hutches in the garage. We put blocks underneath the hutch to raise it off the floor and cardboard underneath to absorb the urine.

Actually they could stay there for a while, we aren’t really in a hurry. Females can’t breed until six months of age (males at five months). The gestation period is 31 days; the kits are typically butchered at three months. So we need to get a mature buck not later then the beginning of October; then the soonest we could have our first litter would be the beginning of November; and the soonest they could be butchered would next February.

Part of me wishes we could have gotten older ones, to be able to move the process along faster. But I think we’ll appreciate having the extra time to learn about our rabbits, before we have to worry about breeding them and dealing with the litters. There’s times we feel impatient, but I think this is a good time to move slowly and deliberately.

We’ve only got the one hutch, that they are in, fully set up. Last night we just put water and food into bowls. Today I made a trip to the feed store and bought a feed bin, a water bottle spout/holder (that works with a two-liter plastic bottle), a 25-pound bag of rabbit feed, and a bale of grass hay (I commented to Sarah that’s the first bale of hay I’d ever ‘owned’).

As far as the breed we didn’t go looking for Chinchilla Rabbits, we actually didn’t go looking for any specific breed. We were given the name of a reputable breeder, and that’s what he had. But I had seen them before and thought they were a very attractive breed. Apparently they are considered a rare breed rabbit (threatened with extinction); so it’s kind of neat to be able to help a threatened species. They are considered excellent for both fur and meat, they quickly grow to a good size, breed large litters, and are good mothers. Apparently their “demand” has dropped since we now rarely use rabbits for their pelts, and white rabbits are the most in demand for meat.

Our goal of becoming more self-sustainable has taken another large step. By bringing in rabbits we’ll be able to produce a high quality, quickly regenerating source of protein. While they’re alive we’ll give them the best life we can, and in death we’ll quietly thank them for what they give us.

We know nothing about raising rabbits, but we will learn. We’ll keep you posted on our successes, failures, and learning experiences along the way. For anyone considering getting rabbits I highly recommend RiseandShineRabbitry.com (also like him on Facebook, he puts out lots of tips and info on rabbits) and the book Story’s Guide to Raising Rabbits by Bob Bennett.

(Wednesday: Sarah’s View)

Self-Reliant vs Self-Sufficient

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We tend to use these phrases interchangeably, assuming they mean basically the same thing.

Recently on TSP (episode 754) Jack clearly defined and delineated them. I did a quick Google search and–even though these words previously existed–I believe Jack has created a new prepper definition of these words; Jack Spirko originals, if you will.

Self-Reliance is having stored preps; it’s like having money in a ‘rainy day’ account, or an insurance policy; it just sits there, available if we need it. Jack defined self-reliance as: “a finite resource that’s held in reserve in case another system fails”. We preppers understand this. We all have stockpiles of stuff that we don’t want to use unless we have to; we will only use enough to keep things rotated. In a total TEOTWAWKI most of these items, once they were used up, would no longer be available in their modern forms. Examples, organized into bullets of our five basic needs, include:

  • short and long term food storage, factory canned food, food not locally produced
  • bottled water, chemicals used to purify water
  • toilet paper, clothes, plastic bags
  • ammunition, most pharmacological medicines including antibiotics
  • batteries, flashlights, fuel, light bulbs

Self-Sufficiency is sustainable. Jack defined self-sufficiency as: “it’s own independent system that’s not dependent on someone else’s system . . . even when the system of support is currently available.” This describes the portion of your needs you are able to produce, and use on a daily basis, whether the current systems are in place or not:

  • gardens, livestock, canning and other food preservation
  • wells, septic systems, water filters, rain barrels
  • handmade furniture, handmade quilts
  • bows and arrows, musket balls and powder
  • solar, wind, and/or hydro power

A defining characteristic is how they are measured. Self-reliance is measured in time, it is “finite, it’s wholly self-limiting,” e.g. you have enough food stored for six months, enough batteries for three months, enough water for 30 days. Self-sufficiency is measured by percentages, it is essentially indefinite (for the sake of a human life-cycle), e.g. you can produce 20% of your food needs, produce 30% of your energy needs.

This is not to say that one is better than another, just different. Both, in our typical current worlds, are necessary. Right now the systems are in place; use them, enjoy them, just don’t become overly dependent on them being there forever. Self-reliance is typically the main thing people focus on when they initially move into a prepper mentality. Self-reliance is about stockpiling needed stuff. As we’re building our preps, look toward the goal of self-sufficiency and developing and using skills to produce needed items. Remember to view self-sufficiency as a percentage of our needs, not our wants.

Being self-reliant will give us a buffer to get our self-sufficient skills up to full speed, i.e. using our food storage for the winter and spring, until the gardens begin producing.

As preppers, if we understand these concepts we can use them to help us define our plans and set our goals. As we know–and I discussed in Buying Stuff Is Easy–stuff can be destroyed, taken, left-behind, or lost. But knowledge and skill sets exist as long as you maintain proficiency with them.

(Friday: What I Did This Week To Prep)

P.S. I was using these words interchangeably myself when I initially started my blog. My subtitle under the name ‘Trace My Preps’ said ‘A Prepper / Self-Reliant Blog’. I have now changed it to: ‘My Journey through Self-Reliance into Self-Sufficiency’.