Sustainable is not only about food. It is also about lifestyle.
Our house is heated by a wood stove. (We only use trees that have fallen in storms or been culled by farmers.) This means that only one area of the house is heated, the rest is just .. well .. cold.
I lay in the bath every night and you would not know there was a pale tired little body in there, the room is ALL steam. Our bed is a mound of blankets. Cats tucked into the corners. Dogs waiting for our feet.
We eat pretty much the same thing with small variations each night. The proteins are free range chicken or their eggs, lean grass fed beef, lavender lamb, or pasture raised pork. The frozen vegetables are almost all gone. The tomatoes and fruit in jars are still holding out. I also eat nuts and seeds, rice and cereals that I cannot grow out here. (Bought at the supermarket once a month – not at all sustainable.) Flour for bread, pizza bases and pasta is bought. I have used all the home grown potatoes, onions, and beans and pumpkins long ago so if it were not for frozen peas (bought from the supermarket) and my enormous stash of tomatoes in jars and my wine (there are vitamins in wine?) we would have scurvy.
The fact is that if I were a sustainably managed vegan or vegetarian (as in growing all my own food) and living out here on the prairie I would be dead. Or at the very least unwell and very thin. We eat plenty of vegetable and egg based meals. But we need to buy most of the vegetable ingredients now. Not sustainable or self sufficient at all. We have a 6 month period when the ground will grow nothing at all. A cold frame will extend the lettuce for a while. But there is very little nutrition in a lettuce. All the greens must be grown in the summer and stored. And a cabbage only lasts so long, same for the onions and the potatoes and pumpkins. So by now I am looking to the supermarket to buy my vitamins, absolutely none of which are grown within hundreds and hundreds of miles of here. Certainly not without the help of a lot of artificial heating. So thank goodness I have a freezer full of protein. Even the milk is bought from another farm until I start milking again. Not self sufficient. Flour, chick peas, legumes, split peas, kidney beans, etc, all bought from the supermarket. Not self sufficient. Flax seeds, buckwheat, rye.. all bought. 
And sustainable does not only apply to food and fires.
My hair is either ‘Just got out of bed’ Debbie Harry or ‘way out of control’ Phyllis Diller. It depends what kind of mad hair products I am making that week.
My animals are not in a heated barn.. horrors! ( gas is certainly not a renewable resource). My friend Misfit told me last night that they saw a doco about a pig farmer who was whining about the cost of propane going sky high so poor fellow had to keep his house at 64 and his pig barn at 69 (because a cold pig is a skinny pig he says) and Sheila who sleeps perfectly calmly in an unheated barn (and you know how cold it gets here) has just been told by the vet that she is indeed a Big (fat) Girl.
I am very lucky if the big room gets above 62. We will not discuss the chill of the bedrooms. But we dress for the winter. I wear winter clothes inside in the winter. Weird!
By the way – The propane shortage is attributed to the corn and soy bean farmers who had a late start in the planting season and so had to artificially dry millions of tons of GM corn/beans (that is in-edible by the way) so there was no propane left for the pig farmers who then ran into a deeply cold winter and then there was even less propane for their Houses. Poor wifey – last on the list. Shock and bloody horror.
There is a rumour around these parts that the gas companies are buying unused propane back from the farmers so they can fill the tanks of the families in the country who rely on gas for their heating. Not us thank goodness. We wear hatties inside and sit close to the fire.
Dawn is coming I must hurry. We can talk about this again another time.
But that is sustainable living. Still want to try it? I do.
Good morning. The vet told me yesterday that Sheila’s wound is deep, messy and stinky but seems to be repairing ok. She has some antibiotics that I can mix into her food anyway. But he did say very kindly that she may be too fat and too old and possibly too lonely (no boar to smell for her to cycle) to get pregnant. Now. Is that a challenge or WHAT!
I hope you have a lovely day. I tried taking her to a boar but that did not work so I am off out looking for a smelly old boar to borrow who she can parade past every day to awaken her hormones so we can proceed with the AI.
Never tell me never.
Love your friend on the farmy
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
175 responses to “Do you really want to live sustainably – self sufficiently?”
I think I have a very easy life.
I love your life, and hope that one day i can travel again, but all lives have challenges and many of mine are self imposed. I really want to see if i can live solely within my own means. And as I do not have a paid job here my means are the land. And winters here and much harder to live in than the summers.. c
Winter’s are always the hardest for us too. We heat by wood, I try to can and freeze and then will run out. But we still proceed as you do. Next year we plant more and fill more and stuff more into our freezers.
Boars really are s.m.e.e.l.e.y… PHEW
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
*♥´¨) ¸.-´¸.-♥´¨) Happy Valentine’s Day¸.-♥¨) (¸.-` ♥♥´¨
my other idea is to take some sacks out to a boar and let him lie on them and then bring the smell back.. c
That’s it C, never say never! Good for you!
You are certainly doing a lot better than me with being self sufficient, I take my hat off to you.
I believe if humans weren’t so greedy and didn’t mess up this beautiful world so much, we could all be living easier simpler lives.
Have a beautiful day and here’s to getting a fat, old and somewhat lonely girl pregnant. If anybody can do it, you can.
🙂 Mandy xo
Morning Mandy, there is a lot to think about but I do think that it is important to know that living this kind of life is hard work, it is not all sweetness and cute kitties. You know what I mean? yet i am still a long long way from self sufficient. if John did not go out to work it would be a lot harder to do. or at least take a lot longer to set up.. c
I love hearing about Sheila. She is such a character! 🙂
My brother and his family pursue a mostly self-sufficient, frugal lifestyle but I think I would find it difficult to give up my ‘home comforts’.
When I was growing up, we didn’t have central heating installed in our house until I was ten or eleven. We had a wood burner (those things are great!) in the kitchen. I remember waking up and finding ice on the inside of the windows.
Morning Grace, and yes, in the bedrooms and the kitchen we also have ice on the inside of the doors and windows, do not touch the door handles with wet hands!! c
Same here when I was a child, ice inside the windows and no central heating. We used to take cats to bed with us to keep our feet from freezing and also the next day’s underwear, so that it was nice and warm to put on when we got up on dark and freezing mornings. It helped when we had to stand in an icy, purgatorial bathroom, where the hot water took forever to come through… Hurrah for the tropics!
Reblogged this on The Grey Enigma.
We are not even close to sustainable living here. We do a little more each year, to improve on things, but it’s a slow process. I remind myself that I’m much more mindful than I was five or ten years ago – and that matters. Every little thing we do does matter in the big picture! We are hunters and gatherers, and i do raise a couple of gardens (and plant all around the house) each year. We conserve where we can and we are not wasteful about resources. We are mindful and cognizant of every decision… that part feels good. The rest will come as we go along – and it feels good to live simple.
I so admire you and your husband, Celi. You are an inspiration!
I think you have the key to the whole enterprise. Those little bits, less waste, grow your own as much as you can, reuse and so forth are wonderful. The most important is the THINKING and working stuff out, so as to waste less and grow more, and support our local clean food networks. Being aware if you like. Dealing with a little less heat. A few less things in boxes. Making your clothes last for years instead of seasons. etc. And lots less plastic and living within your means will make a GREAT BIG difference to the whole. We will never be truly self sufficient that would be too hard out here in this environment, but I intend to get pretty damn close. c
I was just listening to an interview about ketogenic diets (where the body uses fat in place of glucose for energy) and they were talking about how in deepest winter in the days before freezers and supermarkets, people just went into ketosis for a few months because there was no fruit and veg about. Not that you want to do that yourself. But one thing that you do have that is priceless is good pasture fed protein and by producing it yourself you’re way closer to living the dream than a lot of us! Stay warm…
I think i read that you are going to raise meat chickens this years Siobhann? Am I right? That will set you on your way .. I must read about this ketosis.. there has to be a reason we put on the fat for the winter.. c
I have been doing a LOT of research in this past year, into ketogenic diets (high fat, medium protein, very low carbohydrate). They can be very, very effective for cancer patients – and weight loss too (10kg lost here, and I am not at very low carb yet). The subject is fascinating. You two would do just fine with your freezer full of beautiful meat…
Sounds like the Atkins Diet. Protein, fat and low carbs. My mother went on that diet and lost 20 pounds in no time and ate like a pig. (sorry Sheila).
My favorite diet is ‘no rice, no roots, no flour, no sugar, pass me the cabbage and pour the wine. .’. this ketogenic is interesting.. a very scientific name too.. c
Lol
It IS the Atkins diet really – a little bit updated, and significantly different for cancer patients (like my sister), but basically, Dr Atkins had it pretty much right…
I’m not sure he advocated wine, but I ain’t doing anything that doesn’t involve a glass or two of wine…
I mean – if I have to die of something (and I’m doing ok so far) – wine induced … something … doesn’t sound as bad as some other things…
Not living a self sustainable life but at least we wear winter clothes. You would not believe how many people come into our Christmas Tree barn dressed only in a T-shirt and then complain that they’re cold. The first thing farmers do when they come from the cold into a (relatively) warm house is to turn down the thermostat down – currently on 62, heating on only for the evenings and yes, we have a wood burner too.
We had more luck bringing the boar to the sows than the other way round. Maybe the sows liked their home comforts but the boars would perform anywhere.
Thank you Anne, wearing winter clothes in the winter seems like the logical conclusion to sky rocketing heating costs! Thank you for your thoughts on the boar, I think I will find one and pop him in the corner and she can visit him a couple of times a day (though the gate) then when she is in heat we will AI. Then to a large extent it does not matter what breed of boar I find. I have a 6 week window before the calves are due! Right, there is the dawn.. time for me to get busy.. c
Dear Cecelia, I am a Permaculture Designer – the mother of all sustainability technologies. I am impressed that you are off the grid as much as you are. However, there are some pieces of tech which would make your life SO much better and easier. One is the Rocket Stove – burns on sticks, has almost no ‘off gassing’ and produces only a bit of CO2 and steam but heats a house or a barn (or a green house) beautifully, including if you combined a green house and a chicken house (or pig house) with one of them. You build it yourself into the ground or inside the house, not expensive at ALL, and dead cheap to run. http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp and http://www.ernieanderica.info/shop – books and dvds for instruction on making them. One of them in the house, one in the barn would burn about 1/10th the amount of wood you are currently using to heat your house the traditional way and stay much warmer. Also, you could be growing all the greens and veggies you want if you had a small green house (you build it yourself) with a rocket stove in it. Check out this Amish family’s creativity. http://futuregrowing.wordpress.com/ called Aeroponics. If you also set up a green house with fish/vegetables combined called aguaponics (google it, there’s a ton on the internet), you could have some other kinds of protein and grow many kinds of vegetables all year around self-sustaining. I never buy flour – always buy organic grains and mill them when I need them. The food value is much greater that way. Better yet, soak the grains a day, then dry them out and grind them – you’ll get a completely different nutrient level – much higher. I hope this helps.
Diann Dirks
thegardenladyofga.wordpress.com
Certified Permaculture Designer
Hillside Gardens, Auburn, Ga.
What a fantastic collection of wonderful resources, naturally i am extremely interested in your little stick fire (esp for barn).. I shall check out these links and consult.. thank you.. love the idea of milling the organic grains too.. you must make great bread! interesting to soak, then dry.. This does help.. a lot.. thank you diann.. c
Sounds pioneer-ish. However, I would eat anything you grow and I want that cat.
That is Egoli, he wants you too.. c
“But he did say very kindly that she may be too fat and too old and possibly too lonely (no boar to smell for her to cycle) to get pregnant.” –is this another way of saying pig menopause? Tell Sheila I can relate 🙂
The real problem seems to be that she is an old fat virgin. But only two years old so there is still hope.. John gets quite indignant when i call her fat. Being a little um, rotund himself. So maybe I should say A Big Girl. which is what the vet said! c
I really admire you, and appreciate all your sustainable efforts, but your location and its extreme climate are not on your side. We used to grow our fruit and veg, and way back, I kept chickens and made hay. But when you get old, your capacity for physical hard work is extremely limited, hence our move to a small house and minuscule garden. Warmth becomes more of a necessity when we are less active and we have no chimney here.
On the plus side, here in dairy/market gardening rural Normandy, even supermarkets have plenty of local produce to buy. There are sadly no farm shops, which are common in UK, but we do use the local markets. Use them or lose them.
I hope you manage to find a bit of titillation for Sheila.
Love,
ViV
Perfect word Viv! I will be seeking Titillation today. Mostly i should have said that we all live as carefully as we can in different ways. People who do not eat meat probably would not try to live sustainably out here on the frozen tundra, they would seek warmer climes where they can grow more and where the vegetables are cheaper and local. Here everything is brought from somewhere else because of the climate. c
I think that the intention and the mindfulness does count. Baby steps…Our three families are far from sustainable here, and quite a bit further from it than you are, as we don’t yet raise our own protein. (But we do grow clean healthy food to supply our local network.) My son is planning to raise a few meat hens for the freezer this spring so that’s a start. We are slowly and steadily making the effort to add more sustainable practices to our lifestyle. We drive less, burn wood that we harvest ourselves in our passive solar house and we have just built a passively heated nursery greenhouse. We are still eating out of the freezer, and have a few potatoes and squash left in the root cellar. Not nearly enough though. Each year, we put by a little more, but it is clear it would take much more to really do it. Just think of it. We need to become seed savers. If I couldn’t get my Johnnys order, we would not be planting. Fortunately, the boxes of seed have arrived safely, so we will grow another year. It’s time to get serious about preserving and storing seed as well. This is not quite as easy as it sounds, as some plants need to be grown in isolation so they don’t cross pollinate….
A very good post on a topic that we all should be thinking a whole lot more about.
One of my favourite seed companies in the UK has an excellent section on home seed saving. I’m sure interested readers around the globe can read and adapt to suit their circumstances. Here’s the beginning article: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/whyseedsave.html – scroll down to access the full seed-saving menu on the LHS.
thank you carrie, will go and have a look!.. c
Seed saving is one of my biggest weaknesses. I MUST do more of it. We should put our heads together and bot do posts on that. In fact I have been thinking that we should be swapping our saved seeds as well. Though there is a lot to be said for saving seed from a strong plant that thrived in your own area. I absolutely agree. And baby steps! YES. Your meat chickens will do very well from your gardens, just think of it as another way of composting. And if you drag their ark over the beds you have just harvested!? Oh my, that would be fantastic.. c
Our ‘BEAST’ heats 12 radiators and provides plenty of hot water using logs. I hate getting into a cold bed! Perhaps you could invest in two beasts – one boar and one cast iron!
Christine.
I really really do want one that will heat the water and run hot pipes about, we have been thinking about it but the expense is horrific. Though i really want to get away from using gas to heat the hot water.. Excellent idea christine. c
Great, thoughtful post – I do like the combination of your honesty/practicality and zest for your way of life. I am sitting writing this dressed in lots of layers, no heating on and the woodburner isn’t being lit until this evening. Then I’ll make full use of it cooking on it as well as warming myself. But I do have frozen supermarket veggies and cupboards full of pulses, rice etc that’ve flown around the world. It’s all about getting a balance we’re happy with isn’t it.
Yes, so do I. And i do love to have lemons and all those things we cannot grow, you are very right, it is all about balance.. c
I dream about and long for a more sustainable, more self-sufficient life (but you already knew this). Hubby and I have grown tired of paying for gas to heat our home. We’re tired of paying rising food prices to the grocery store so we can eat each month. We rely much to heavily on outside resources to provide our every need.
So one day we’ll have our little cabin in the country. Our heat will be from wood on our property, burning in our wood stove. Our meat will be from our own little farmy. Our fruits from our orchard. Our vegetables from our garden, canned and/or frozen with my own two hands. A hoop house or greenhouse erected to extend our growing season. As such, we will know where our food comes from and the care it was given from land to table.
We don’t dream of 100% self-sufficiency. The tax man will always want his cut. There will always be little (or sometimes big) things that will require money – tools, vehicles, tractors, shoes, clothing, etc. We likely won’t have a large enough piece of land that will allow us to grow everything we could possibly want or need. With hard work and ingenuity, we’ll create a life of as close to 100% self-sufficiency as we can possibly muster. That’s my plan. That’s our goal.
And that is a brilliant goal, I am right there with you. It can be done. And like i said the only reason i can do what i do is because john is working to pay for the set up. And god help us there will always be taxes and for me flights around the world to see my children. But a great deal can be done, even if it is only in a small waste free lifestyle to start. Though nothing is ever 100%.. though i did see 100% chance of snow in our weather forecast.. you will getting this too i think? c
Yes, we will be getting snow. They are predicting we’ll be in the heaviest pocket of snow 6-8″. And once this snow melts, I’m contacting you and making arrangements to come visit your farm 🙂
Excellent!! c