How self sufficient are you?

That's a good point! I think we would make it quite awhile could be wrong though!

Until I decide I wanted to do something else.

I've friend who shoots a factory produced traditional recurve bow, and he fancies himself quite the survivalist for "making his own arrows". Of course, he orders all his arrow shafts pre-sized and spined, his fletching pre-cut to size, his nocks, and his points from a company in Indiana; even the tools he uses to assemble these ready made parts come from a factory. All he is doing is gluing the lot together; he orders his glue from the same company, but it makes him feel "self-sufficient". Without his outside supplier his arrow making would stop. It is the same for all those claim their "hobby", whatever that hobby may be, in some why makes them "self-sufficient".

The term "self-sufficiency" is nothing more or less than an excuse by the "haves", no matter how little they have, to look down on those who have not.

It pleases me to no end to see or hear of people getting their hands dirty and their foreheads sweaty at the labor of tending a crofts' land and animals, but none of them ever have been, are now, or will ever be "self-sufficient.

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“It is tedious to live, it is tedious to die, it is tedious to c**p in deep snow”
Old Norwegian observation

I have been providing for myself - or rather, DH and I have been providing for ourselvess for just over 30 years now.....I guess we can keep it up for as long as needed. If DH lost his job, we have enough 'stuff' to keep us.pay all necessary bills, etc for 2 years without income. After that....????? And with a hospitalization? ????Hopefully, we will

If the world fell apart for 2 years we probably wouldn't have to worry about bills anymore.

First off don't think the grid operators are totally unprepared for this kind of thing... Preventing power from going down on a widespread basis may not be preventable, but power would likely not be down a month. I have had to live weeks without it after hurricanes, it's not that hard.

Personally I'm still able enough to hunt and trap enough to feed myself, and since you can find enough wildlife and wild edibles year round here, winter is not much to worry about, I think I would be ok. You could even survive here in winter with no heat most of the winter, it only goes below freezing for a few days at a time and maybe 2 weeks total if added them all up. A good feather tick or decent sleeping bag will handle that at night.

Many years ago I used to raise and train dogs. I would take a pair or a few young pups out just about each night for exercise. One evening I took 3-4 young pups out for a run. Not long after I had released them I heard them barking. When I got to the pups they had a young woman treed . She was probably in her mid 20's. I called the pups off and started trying to apologize for the pups treeing her.
There was something strange about the girl. She wouldn't come out of the tree so I sat on a nearby log and talked to her.
After a while she began to answer but her voice was very low.
I asked her name but she could only remember her first name. I asked her where she lived and she said here. She had no idea where she was or even what state she was in. I asked if there was anything I could do for her and her answer was she would like some marshmellows.
There was a small store a few miles up the road so I drove up there and got a bag of marshmellows. She was still in the tree when I came back. For the rest of the night I gave her marshmellows. She would not take one from my hands so I would put them down move away and she would get then. I put each one a little closer to where I was setting. Just about the time I was running out of marshmellows she was setting on the other end of the log I was setting on.
It was getting about time I should be going home so I asked her if I could help her in any way or take her somewhere.
She said no but maybe I could come see her again.

Continued in the next post.

The next night I went out to the area where the girl was. When I got out of my jeep and walked out into the woods she came out to meet me. I had brought her some more food. She appreciated it but was not as hungry as I would have imagined a girl would be who lived out in the woods.
From what she told me I figured she had been living out there for 6-8 months.
I continued going to visit her almost every night or at least every other night.
After over a month visiting with her she agreed to go to my house. When we made it to my house she wanted to take a shower and wash her hair. She was clean and her clothes were clean. After her shower and a meal she asked me to take her back to her home.
On the way back to her home in the woods I was able to learn from her that she had parents in another state a few miles away. I talked her into telling me where her parents lived and took her there. After driving up and down a highway several times she finally pointed out her parents home. At first she wouldn't get out of my jeep. I finally had to pick her up and carry her to the front door. She promised if I would leave she would go inside.
I drove off with her waiting out on their front porch.

continued in next post.

I thought that would be the last I time I would ever see the wild girl.
A few weeks later I was driving through a nearby town. Walking down the street was the wild girl. I pulled over. She was very glad to see me.
She had left her parents house after only one day there. They had given her some money so she had rented one of those storage spaces to live in. It was about half the size of a single car garage. She had fixed it up with a small peep hole so she could see who drove up.
I tried again to get her to let me take her somewhere she could get some help. By that time I had learned she had been married and given some type of drugs by her husband.
Back then there wasn't any cell phones so I would give her a hand full of change so she could use a pay phone to call me if she ever needed anything.
About 2-3 times a week I would recieve a collect call from her asking me to come by for a visit. She was spending the change I gave her at a KFC a mile or so away from her store room. They had a small chicken sandwich for a quarter.
I asked her how she remained so clean and always had on clean clothes.
She invited me in for a visit and to show off her place.

continued in the next post.

She didn't have any furniture in her store room but did have a change of clothes and some blankets for a bed. She invited me to go with her to one of her special places. In behind of the store room rental place was some woods. We followed a trail into the woods and came to a small creek. There was a pool about 25-30 feet across. The water was running and very clear. She would come here daily to wash her clothes and bathe.
I would come by her store room every day as it was on my way back and forth from work. She would peep out of her peep hole and seeing me would open the door. This went on for about another 6 months.
One day I was on my way from work and stopped by to see her. As I pulled into the parking lot I saw a car parked in front of her store room. The lettering on the door said it was from the state mental health dept. I parked in the other end of the parking lot and watched while they tried to get her to open the door. When she would not open the door they called a man to come take the door off of her store room.
When the door was taken off they went inside for her and led her back out.
They put her in the back of the car and the last I saw of her was when she saw me and waved from the back of the car.

continued in next post

I know this has been a longer than usual post and many will not believe it but all of it is true.
What I learned then was if a small, young, burned out, little girl with mental problems and no real experience could make it on her own as she had done for over a year that I should be able to survive very easy. Since then I have never had any doubts I could survive just about anywhere. I learned quite a bit from her. A person does not have to have much to survive. Being happy with what you have is half of the battle.

Those who use the term to describe themselves are participating in the class system? Brilliant.

The minute someone uses a nail they found to scribe a line in their log cut with a handmade stone axe, they are no longer self sufficient as they did not forge the nail themselves? Interesting.

What term would you have folks use, in order to avoid playing into the class system?

thanks for sharing the story pancho

I'm not near as self sufficient as I'd like to be. I'm fine for water, shelter, clothing, and food as long as the weather lets something grow every year. I'd like to have the greenhouse complete so I could grow at least salads year round.

I'm in good shape for heat & cooking, but would sure miss the A/C. I'm still working at getting the underground system set up. It's a lot of work when you have to do it all by hand.

I'm pretty sure I'd be ok barring any bad accidents or illnesses. Life would be harder, but I have always believed that if my ancestors could do it, then I can too.

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That was an interesting story Pancho! Too bad they couldn't just leave her alone if she was happy living that way. Can't be too weird in our society I guess.....

Haggis reminds me of Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof: everything is political!

Pancho, this sounds like it could be made into a Cat Stevens song. Good story, thanks.

That is the condensed version.

I have eaten acorns since I was 6 yrs old. I pick them up, boil them to kill the "eggs" and then dry them in the attic of my shop. I finish drying them and storing them in screen bottom prune totes. I shell them, boil off the tannin and roast them as I use them. When I "left" home at 12 I ate a lot of acorns. There are a lot of things you can make from acorn meal. I make pemmican using roasted acorns, squrell, rabbit, chicken or turkey meat. (raccoon is the best) and berries or other dried fruit, Dried wild Oregon plums are real good. I make it fresh each week as the mix goes stale and rancid if mixed for long periods. Acorns are good for digestion so I eat a few roasted just like walnut, hazelnut or hickory nuts, or along with dried fruit. I make some excelent muffins with acorn meal and fresh or dried fruit. I boil the tannin off by running a small amount of fresh water through my boiling pot until all the tannin is gone, the longer, the better they taste, then I roast the nuts. I like the flour made from roasted nuts. We have a lot of Oregon white acorn trees here. I harvest 200 lbs a year, along with walnuts, hazelnuts and hickory nuts. Nuts are a good source of protien and good oil. I have found that half a banana and a few acorn nuts keeps me from having leg cramps as acorns are high in potassium....James

Would it end really? If he suddenly had to depend on arrows for survival? He may well with his knowledge of material find substitute materials and be just fine.

It is actually more or less a distinction between those who are so specialized that they cannot survive well if their specialized knowledge or labor loses enough value that society will not continue to provide a living for them. ie: they cannot be paid or barter their skills, and lack any other skills.

Well, in the most literal terms you seem to define self sufficiency by, use of any tool or goods made by another human means you are not totally self sufficient.. but that's not reality and is a very poor and irrational definition in that you cannot even propagate your species by yourself, so self sufficiency requires another person at minumum.

And in our species self sufficiency has traditionally been a self sufficient family, or small group. A tribe as it were... That's how we have lived for most of humanity and many still do. This is closer to the realistic definition of self sufficiency.

That means some specialization of knowledge and tasks and exchange of labor for the fruits of another's labor as part of self sufficiency.

An idea that self sufficiency is one person using nothing but things he crafts himself in nature is ridiculously flawed logic.