Sustainable/Self-sufficient/Subsistence? Labels.

Sustainable sounds so similar to subsistence. (Please excuse the alliteration) Subsistence is hand to mouth, then the hand is empty. Sustainable involves the land and using your hands to feed your mouth while enriching the land to grow some more. Sustainable growing is by nature more upwardly mobile. Subsistence is hard to get above.  Both involve a lot of hard work.

Sustainable should be fresh, healthy and thoughtful. Sustainable is creating a mobile cycle of fresh food and living in this one space. It is healthier because of its insulation and self-perpetuating systems.  I struggle here because I do not like the word Sustainable. It does not describe what our personal goals are. There is more than an element of subsistence in sustainable. How do I describe it to you?  What is the word?

Our goal is to grow almost everything we need right here where we live.  All the food for ourselves and our animals. Raise a bit of cash to pay the taxes, the little electricity we need and the odd pair of high heels (and a new nightie, I tore mine this morning climbing through a fence.)   This is self-sufficient isn’t it?  We are cutting down the number of goods and services we bring onto the property.  Thereby limiting the amount that gets taken off as waste. And forcing the re-use and extended use of what we already have.  Most importantly we want to: Improve our lands. With the help of the cows and sheep, develop richer and more fertile soil. We want our families and friends to be welcome, relaxed and well fed with clean food. They can trust and rely on our food and our home. Until we get so old  – that we die.   Then the next generation will take up the  heady mantle and do with it what they will. Isn’t that what it is all about really? What do we call that? Do we need to call it anything?

The word sustainable has become a marketing tool.   It is a word we are being trained to recognise as describing safe, land friendly, green, organically grown food. It is a label that should help us choose the right goods to buy. It is a label we are being taught to recognise. But like the words healthy and green, that we encounter on a huge number of incredibly unhealthy supermarket items, it is becoming abused. These labels have become nebulous. We can no longer trust labels.  Sometimes labels reflect political objectives.

Poor old Organic growing has become fraught with rules and regulations.   If you see Certified Organic,  buy it because it has become very difficult and expensive to gain this certification. It is ridiculously strict. Government intervention is leaving sticky fingers all over it. Lobbies and Big Business have ensured that Certified Organic is really really hard work.  Monsanto is thought  to be trying to eradicate Organic seeds. I still feel like I can trust Certified Organic as a product to consume. The growers who do not want the paperwork and endless inspections and directives from a nefarious government body, label themselves Organic, Organically Grown or plain Sustainable.   Fair enough.  I like these growers too. Myself I am leaning towards Self-Sufficient or Old Fashioned.  Or just plain Bugger Off.

Old fashioned food. Old fashioned ways of producing it.  All these old-fashioned systems result in a sustainable organically managed lifestyle. And I am my own boss. And Daisy is my closest neighbour.  Who hates fences too. Is Old Fashioned the word I am looking for?

Old Fashioned-Refreshed.  What do you think?   In the twenties and thirties this was an old fashioned, diverse, sustainable (minus the word)working family farm. Everything was handcranked, dragged by a horse or using leverage, or pullies or was run by an old tractor. Wire and string was always saved. Old nails were straightened and stored.   A couple more  horses were still in the barn for emergencies.  The attic was full of centuries of interesting stuff.  Later the  old car would rust into the weeds out the back, next to the old wagon, but only after it had been driven for years until it was plain old.  Then all the reusable parts were ripped out and stored for ‘just in case’. A tiny windmill raised the water. The used water from the washing up was emptied onto the precious flower beds. There was a little electricity and a little gas for the car which left the garage on a very rare occasion.

I can work that hard.

So.  Old fashioned aye? Well, then my next step is wean myself off frequent supermarket visits.  Presently I go to a supermarket (forty minute drive) once every two weeks or so. (In my little VW that runs on recycled cooking oil.. what a hippie!!) It is easy not to shop often in the summer. I have fresh veges, fresh milk and a freezer full of meat.  So I am going to change my supermarket visits to – once a month. My next shopping day is Friday. I think the trick is to have a really good list and to remember to take it shopping with you!  I do not have a big kitchen or big pantry or reliable storage in the basement (it floods) so I am going to have to be clever.  We will see how clever I have been when winter comes and all the gardens freeze!

This means that when we crush the grapes it will have to be by hand… I mean FEET!!

c