April 18, 2017 - Energy and the Homesteader

In keeping with the last article, another thing to consider is personal energy expenditure.  I’d say that this is the single most important thing in planning the present or future, and yet it is the one thing that is almost universally ignored.  We all have a finite amount of energy to expend each day, and when that energy is used up, you’re done for the day.  No amount of rallying war cries is going to alter the amount of energy you have on any one given day.

So be very smart about how you spend your energy.  Make sure you are using it to further your own goals and not the hidden goals of others.  Consider what you are doing and why you are doing it.  It might be a good idea to survey yourself and find out where you’re spending your energy.  If you’ve decided to be a homesteader or at least have a little more freedom, you’re going to have to know where you’re spending your real gold, that is, your energy.

It's a snowball effect.

Our energy can be expended physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Usually, we only think about the physical expenditure of energy, if we think about it at all.  We think about our jobs (some much more physical than others), our form of exercise, the chores we must do in a day—that kind of thing.  And it’s true:  Everything we do takes away from our daily supply of energy.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that.  We all have certain things we want to get done in a day, and those things require energy to do them.  Our jobs require that we expend energy to perform them, and in exchange, we receive money.  It’s important in Caesar’s world to understand that money directly represents energy.  You receive it for energy spent, and you trade it in for energy that others have spent.

If we were all rewarded in Caesar’s world with the same amount of energy we spent, it would be a fair world.  But it’s not a fair world.  There are those receiving a lot more energy than they have spent in work and those not receiving nearly enough for their output—and that is for another article altogether.  For now, let’s concentrate on the fact that it’s easy to forget money is energy and instead think of money as representing pleasure or position only.  Don’t get lulled into that idea.  Money is energy.

As a homesteader, you are aware—either directly or intuitively—that money is energy, and your goal is to spend and receive your energy as independently and efficiently as possible without interruption from a middleman (who will want his cut).  Instead of paying money (energy) for certain things or to have certain jobs done, a homesteader will make the thing himself or do the job himself.  Either way, he expends energy either in the form of bodily energy or money.  The homesteader prefers the bodily energy because he can be sure of fairness and getting back what he gives out.

When a homesteader does something for himself—makes a meal, grows a garden, builds a shed—the quality is astronomically higher than what he would have gotten if he had to pay someone else for that meal, garden, or shed.  It is much cheaper as well, and as this happens time and time again, the homesteader begins to realize just how many hidden “middlemen” there really are who have been taking a cut of his money (energy) without him even knowing about it.  This spurs him on to even more do-it-yourself tasks and, thus, further independence.  It’s a process that takes time, but once it gets going, it really has a snowball effect.

So far we have talked about physical energy, but energy can also be expended mentally and emotionally.  The two are often tied together, but not always.  Mental energy can take many forms:  Responsibility, worries, duty, etc.  Emotional energy also can take many forms:  Love, hate, fear, sorrow, etc.  Remember that once your energy has been expended, it cannot be taken back, so be wise about how you spend it.

Of course, if we think consciously about it, we can make decisions to curb that expenditure.  We can tell ourselves, “I will not accept responsibility for this; I will not hate that,” etc.  But that takes a conscious effort and a willingness to police yourself, at least in the beginning.  That being said, there are many ways we spend mental and emotional energy without even realizing it.  There are many ways this energy is coaxed out of us without our even being aware.  It is done purposely.

For example, you go online and read an article about an injustice being done in another state or another country.  The words you read are emotionally charged, and you find yourself getting caught up in the issue.  Many people agitatedly comment on it.  “If I were her . . . if I were him . . . who do they think they are ? . . . what a mess . . .”  You become further emotionally charged.  You comment yourself and add to the discussion.  You tell your friend about it later.  Then you tell your spouse.  You think about the situation.  You worry about it ever happening to you or your loved ones.  A small fear grows that you brush aside (hidden but not gone).  A sense of sorrow ensues; finally, doom.  You become exhausted.

This happens over and over and over again.  It’s the articles online, the news briefs, the televised accounts, the magazines on the racks in the supermarket, etc.  They’re all vying for your attention, i.e., vying for your energy.  And there is a currency attached to this energy as well.  Sometimes it is in the form of money, but usually, there is a more sinister currency involved.

Did you ever stop to wonder what happens to the energy you expend emotionally and mentally? Remember that the Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but merely changes form.  If Caesar is building Rome with your physical energy (money), he is building a global empire with your mental and emotional currency.  And this global empire goes way beyond the physical realm.  Every time you pay him in emotional and mental currency, another brick goes into the castle, another cobblestone is placed on the road.

How does it happen?  Over time, our mental and emotional worries act themselves out in our behavior.  Perhaps we will not do something we always wanted to do out of fear of rejection.  Perhaps we will buy certain products for our “safety.”  Perhaps we will turn down certain friendships out of suspicion or just plain exhaustion.  This rejection, idea of safety, and suspicion were planted in our minds.  Every time we act out on what was planted, we lose a piece of our freedom, of our independence, and we conform ourselves more and more to what Caesar wants us to be.  And often, we don’t even know it’s happening.

Instead, we ought to spend our emotional and mental energy on ourselves, on our loved ones and friends, on our own communities.  We’re usually so emotionally and mentally spent that we don’t have time for anything else.  We need to make time for other things, and the only way we can do that is by making conscious decisions about how we want to spend our mental and emotional energy.  Do we want to waste it worrying about an emotionally-charged issue happening 300 miles away?  3,000 miles away?  Or do we want to take that energy and put it to use in projects and people and communities that we can see and touch?

This is not to say that we ought to become hermits and ignore the world.  It is not to say that we should remain ignorant of the affairs of the world or become uncaring about the plight of those less fortunate than us.  It does not mean that we should live in a bubble.  But there is only so much that we can do for situations that occur thousands of miles away from us, and there is so very, very much we can do for situations in our own backyard.

You’ve heard the expression, “think globally, act locally”?  I say think locally and act in your own microcosm.  Take what limited energy you have—physical, mental, and emotional—and put it to work for you, for results that you can actually see and feel.  Cut out the middlemen wherever you find them or wherever you suspect them.  Cut off the endless supply to Caesar, and render only to him what you must by law but certainly not a penny more.

Lastly, consider where energy comes from.  All energy comes from the sun.  Yes, we really are star children.  The sun is the source of all life in our “solar” system.  The green plants can directly absorb that energy through photosynthesis.  We cannot do that, but we can consume that energy by eating plants and animals that have eaten plants.  This is how we bring the sun’s energy into our body and renew ourselves.

It stands to reason that the more nutritious and simple your food is, the more direct and powerful the energy transference will be.  If your food is grown well and in your own backyard, if it doesn’t have to travel 2,000 miles to get to your table, if it doesn’t contain an ingredient list of 50 chemicals, it stands to reason that you are going to be able to charge your body with it much better than you would with food that comes from a questionable origin.

Having said that, you can eat the most nutritious food in the world and get no energy if your body is not working properly.  Enzymes and hidden bacteria aid you in the transference of energy.  In fact, without these lowest of creatures, you could not live.  Age affects our ability to efficiently transfer the energy, although I have seen many older people who can dance circles around younger people who are not properly fueling themselves.

A word about caffeine here:  There is no such thing as ingesting “extra energy” by consuming caffeine.  Caffeine itself contains no energy.  It binds to adenosine receptors on nerves, thereby preventing actual adenosine from binding to the nerves.  Adenosine slows cells down, but the cells can’t slow down if their receptors are blocked with caffeine, so they appear to speed up.  Caffeine causes neurons to fire, and your body mistakes this for an emergency.  Hormones are released that produce adrenaline, and adrenaline causes the “fight or flight” reaction.  Now you’re really supercharged.

Or are you?  No, you have not added one bit of energy to your body.  Instead, what you have done is mortgage future energy that your body would have used as the day goes on.  You feel the rush of energy as your body prepares for fight or flight.  Later, you experience the “crash” because you have borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.  So if you think you’re fooling anyone by consuming stimulant drugs, it’s only yourself.

No, I’m not saying you have to quit your morning coffee.  I often drink a cup of coffee in the morning, and I enjoy it.  Some studies have shown that caffeine can have some positive effects on the body.  However, if you are drinking five or 10 cups of coffee, you might want to consider cutting back.  But regardless of how much you drink, what I’m saying is it’s important to be aware of what you’re doing and why so that you understand the effect it’s having on your body.  You should be the one who makes the choice of what you will or will not consume.  You do this with your own production and with knowledge.

Energy is the currency of the universe.  A homesteader spends it and saves it wisely.  He is aware of where it comes from and how to get it.  He knows he has to spend it to make it, but he does this with the full knowledge of how to make the best use of it to improve his own life and thrive where others wither.

April 14, 2017 - Homesteading

This is a bit of a departure from my usual writing, but it has come to my attention that it might be necessary.

In the 1960-70s there was a back-to-the-land movement in our country.  Many people decided they’d had enough with consumerism and urban living conditions, and they moved—sometimes in groups and sometimes singly—“back to the land” to return to their roots.  The Homestead Act of 1872 granted land to Americans if they were willing to strike out and build a homestead on U.S. land, and this continued up until the mid-1970s in the lower forty-eight.  This Act enabled many to build their first homestead.

Just a tiny patch of land.

Unfortunately, homesteading is very hard work, and eking a living out of the land can be physically and mentally exhausting.  Many people were not prepared for the sacrifices they would have to make.  Many people did not educate themselves enough about what would be required to make such a move.  Many people were not prepared for the striking contrast between city life and rural life once the romance of the idea had worn off.  And so, many people failed homesteading and returned to the cities, disenchanted and downtrodden (and sometimes grateful).

But some people did not fail.  Some people succeeded, although they often had to change and adapt their plans to do so.  People who were flexible and willing to learn new ideas and trash old ideas were able to successfully create a homestead.  It’s because of them that the idea of homesteading is still alive today, although it’s important to point out that the 1960-70s were just one instance of the movement known as “homesteading” or “back to the land.”  In fact, all throughout history, examples can be found of people who had reached their limits with society and wanted out.

But that was then and this is now.  The Homestead Act of 1872 was discontinued in 1976 (1986 in Alaska).  You can’t get “free” land anywhere, although I think we all know that there is no such thing as “free” anything.  Certainly, the homesteaders who took advantage of the Act found that out for themselves.  Yet even today, there are new “homesteads” popping up everywhere.

So what is a homestead?  That depends.  I think the idea has certainly changed over the years.  The original Act granted 160 acres per homestead.  That’s a lot of acreage to take care of, and it’s no wonder that many people failed.  It’s also a testament of strength to those who succeeded.  In my opinion a homestead is both a physical plot and a mental state of being.  The two are inseparable in order to succeed at homesteading.

You see, the land is just one part.  It’s the mental mindset that is most important, and I think that includes a desire for freedom, a love of nature, the need to disentangle from social constructs, and a fierce independence.  The idea of doing it for yourself instead of having it done (often dismally) for you appeals very much to the person with a homestead mindset.  Those of you who are independent (and often stubborn) by nature know of what I speak.

A homestead is where you stake your claim.  It’s your territory, whether that territory is physical or mental.  A homestead is where you can be yourself.  A homestead is where every success is due to you and your hard work, and every failure also falls squarely on your shoulders and no one else’s.  Personal responsibility reigns supreme on the homestead.  There is no one to pass the buck to because you are it.

This frightens some people and thrills others.  If you’re among those who are frightened by this, you might want to stop reading now if you haven’t already.  But if you’re thrilled by this idea, read on.

There is a sense of desperation these days.  I can see it in people’s eyes.  Not everyone, of course, but a great many people.  There is a feeling of being in a trap, of having nowhere to go.  There is a sickening idea of being on a hamster’s wheel, running around and around and around and getting absolutely nowhere but exhausted.  For a while, these feelings can be staved off by “having fun.”  Eating out, drinking, theatres, plays, short vacations, extravagant shopping trips, expensive jewelry, etc., are some ways that people keep the hamster image out of their minds.  During the day, they’re fine.  Their minds are kept busy, and they delight in new baubles.  But at night, the hamster comes out and they lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, seeing the trap but not knowing how to get out.

There is a way back.  It’s a long road and it involves a lot of hard work, but it sure beats being on the hamster’s wheel, spinning and spinning.  This way back is what I call “homesteading.”  It doesn’t involve hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It doesn’t involve vast acreage.  The only acreage initially required is the space between your two ears.

The change comes from within.  It starts when you say—and you mean—that you have had enough.  Enough of everything.  Enough of smog and crime.  Enough of cramped living conditions.  Enough of bizarre social constructs.  Enough of wage slavery.  Enough of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere—whatever it is, you have had enough.  And you find out that when you have had enough, you have had way too much.

But where to start?  You start right where you are.  You don’t wait to see if you win the lottery next Saturday.  You start finding out what you can do for yourself.  That’s what a homesteader really is:  Someone who lives life according to his own terms and on his own turf.  It doesn’t all happen magically, of course, but you start at the beginning just like every other homesteader in the world.  And you don’t give up, because if there’s one thing that homesteaders are, it’s stubborn.  That stubbornness leads to fierce independence, and someday you find yourself with people who can move mountains if they have to.

Sit down for a moment and find out what it is that you can do for yourself without anyone’s help.  The chances are (especially if you are young and living in the city), not very much.  So you determine right then and there to start doing things, no matter how small, for yourself.  You make your own coffee.  You bake your own bread.  You cook your own food.  You brew your own wine.

Oh, I can hear it now.  “But someone had to grow and harvest that coffee, that wheat, that food, those grapes, so what good am I doing here?  How am I changing things?”  Yep.  But you didn’t have to pay someone to bake it for you, cook it for you, or brew it for you—often a most inferior product to boot—and you saved that money and put it away.  No, you didn’t go shopping with it.  You put it away so that someday you could buy an acre or so of land.

You wash your own clothes, and if you have a clothesline to hang them on outside, great.  If not, you hang them in your house on drying racks you can get up at any department store.  Then you take that money you would have given to the electric company for running the dryer and you put it away.  You repair your clothes when they get torn instead of immediately buying new clothes.  That means if you don’t know how to sew, you’ll have to teach yourself.  And you’ll shop in secondhand stores.

“No way!  I am soooo busy!  There’s no way I can do any of that.  You’re crazy!”  That’s my favorite excuse of all time.  “I just can’t do it because I’m busy!  My job is exhausting!  You just don’t understand!  You’re living in a fantasy world!”  I like that too.

Wage slavery will keep you living from paycheck to paycheck for the rest of your life, just squeaking by, not knowing that there are so many things you can do for yourself, and in doing those things, you don’t have to pay someone else to do them for you.  Yes, they take time to do, but so does working extra hours to pay for all the things you could have done for yourself.

“What’s the difference?  If I work lots of hours, I’m exhausted but I pay someone to do all my menial chores.  If I work less hours, yeah, I can do my own chores but I earn a lot less money.  Either way I end up exhausted and with very little money.  Either way it works out the same.”

Oh, but it doesn’t.  If there’s one thing every homesteader knows, it’s the satisfaction of doing something for yourself, of a job well done.  This satisfaction comes from hard work and learning, and ultimately it builds confidence.  Doing things for yourself makes your confidence soar, and you can’t get that through working long hours and you can’t buy it, either.  It’s something you have to earn, and this “earning” has nothing to do with money at all.

From there, the homesteader will naturally have an urge to want to be closer to nature, to grow his own food.  Or at least some of it.  Did you know that in a fertile 6 x 6 patch of sunny earth, you can grow five tomato plants?  And if they’re San Marzano tomatoes that you have watered and cared for very well, did you know that you could get over 100 tomatoes per plant?  That’s 500 tomatoes.  Yes, I have done this myself countless times—countless—in Maine.  You could sell some to the neighbors.  Or you could can them and have your own sauce all year long.

“But I don’t have a 6 x 6 patch of earth!”  You can get a five-gallon plastic bucket and grow one plant in that.  Your yield might be a little lower, maybe 50 or so tomatoes.  But that’s still a lot of tomatoes, and boy are they ever good.

“I can’t put a plastic bucket outside!  There’s no room, and even if there were, the thugs in the neighborhood would steal it or destroy it!”  Can you put it on a fire escape?  A rooftop?  “No!”  Hmmm….maybe tomatoes are not for you.

Do you have a few sunny windows in your house or apartment?  Did you know that you can grow leaf lettuce all year long in inside window boxes?  You could grow enough to have a lot of salad.  You can also grow basil, cilantro, rosemary, and other herbs right on your windowsill.  “I can’t have any dirt in my house!”  Could you buy some scallions, cut them off about five inches from the root base, place the stubs in an old glass, put an inch of water in it, and place it in a window?  Soon new scallions will grow with no dirt at all.  And you can keep harvesting and growing, harvesting and growing, for several months before you’ll need a new batch of roots.  And you can also do this with celery, bok choy, basil, romaine lettuce, etc.

“No!  I live in a box car without windows . . .”  And on and on.  Do you see where I’m going with this?

“Okay.  I’ll try it.  A little.  But I still don’t see how it gets me out of the rat race.  How does that work?”  It works step by step.  It works by teeny tiny victories that you might not even notice unless you’re really paying attention.  It works by building your confidence ever so slowly.  It works by changing the way you think.  Soon you’ll be wondering if you really need this or that, if you can improvise with that other thing, if you can do without, or if there’s a whole other way of doing something that you hadn’t considered before.  You take baby steps, and before you know it, you’ve gone quite a way—and those steps lead to plans.  Big plans.

Do you know what confidence eventually gives you?  It gives you courage, and courage is something that is so lacking in our society today yet so desperately needed.  It gives you courage to try something, and if you fail, it gives you the strength to go on because eventually you’ll work it out.  It gives you foresight.  It gives you planning skills, the ability to see long-term what you need and what you should do to get it.  Confidence gives you the ability to say, “No, I’m not going to do that.  I have another idea,” and then you go out and do it.

Really, that’s all homesteaders are.  They’re people who work and think for themselves.  Some of them go on to quit their jobs and move to large parcels of land, where they farm and work very hard for themselves.  It’s a difficult life but a satisfying life.  Others move to the suburbs so they can have a little more nature and let the good earth produce.  But either way, all of them are determined to do for themselves.

I know several families who live on half an acre or less.  Did you know that on a well-placed half-acre plot with plenty of drainage and sunshine, you can grow all the vegetables a family will need for a year?  Yes, all.  Of course, you’ll have to can, freeze, dry, and/or ferment your harvest to preserve it, but you can grow all the veggies you need.  You can also have several chickens that will produce more eggs than you can eat.  You can have a few fruit trees for jams, jellies, and wines.  All on half an acre.  It’s doable.  It can be done.  There are people doing it right now.

Some homesteaders ultimately end up being farmers living in remote areas, but many live in suburbs or mild versions of the “country.”  Many of them keep their jobs or at least one member in the family does or perhaps they’ll all go to part-time work outside of the homestead.  Are they completely free of “the system”?  No, but they’re a hell of a lot happier and freer than someone stuck in the rat race, and in the end, that’s what homesteading is all about:  Home, freedom, independence, and happiness.

April 3, 2017 - A New April

“Not again, I couldn’t possibly,” the Earth groans in the weak April sun.

The ice melts and the snow recedes yet again.  And everywhere are grey and broken reminders of last year’s life, hanging now in strange places from trees and rocks, reminding us of how short our time really is.  I seem to hear them whisper, “I was once like you,” but I know it is just a trick of the wind.  At least, that is what I tell myself.  I turn my eyes from the dead vegetation.  Let the dead bury the dead.

It's time.

The winter’s beating and damage is now in full view, and we are no longer fooled by the pretty white snow—the snow that hid so much.  The land has been ravaged.  The white velvet blanket is torn and shredded beyond repair, even though winter still tries to patch it up.  Little did we know what was taking place beneath that beautiful wrap.  Perhaps it is just as well.  “I was once like you,” drifts slowly by again.

A tiny chickadee sings a song high up in a tree, a song I had quite forgotten until hearing it again.  Each year I seem to forget it, and each year I am reminded.  The birds are patient with me.  The robins are seen here and there now, too, and the skies are no longer silent and white, but pocked with winged creatures.

The drum beats of the Lord of Winter are at last receding back into the forest from whence they came.  I have no doubt they will come again, but for now it is enough to listen to the chickadee.

“Up!  Up!” she says.  “Be quick now!”

I tell her I couldn’t possibly, not again.

“Yes, again!” she sings.  “Again and yet again!”

It’s a happy song she sings, and somewhere off in the distance a male cardinal sings his beautiful song as if in competition.

“He’s such a show off,” the little chickadee remarks.  “He always has been.”

“But how,” I ask her, “How in the world are we going to repair all of this?”

I feel that I myself am a grey and broken reminder of last year.  But just then, two squirrels go running by at breakneck speed, one chasing the other for a stolen acorn.  You’d think it was a nugget of gold.  Perhaps it is.  The water from temporary streams rushes by even faster than the squirrels, and suddenly the world is moving faster.  The wind is strong and quick but gentler.  Something is happening.  Like the chickadee’s song, I am starting to remember again.

“Come on, come on!!” she yells back at me.  “Are you coming??”

“I thought you’d never ask!” I respond, picking up the pace.  It’s time to start again.