Self-Sufficiency in Style
the seasons
|
Self-Sufficiency in Style the seasons
|
|
|
The seasons look entirely different from a
self-sufficient life.
Each has its particular pleasures and characteristics. The work is different, the life is different. |
|
|
If you live in the town and work in an office the seasons seem very fixed.
In winter, you leave for work in the dark, work under artificial light and go home in the dark. You drive the car. You hope the central heating system works. In summer, you leave for work in the light, work under artificial light, go home in the light. You drive the car. You hope the air conditioning works. You try to wear the same clothes and do the same job. The whole object of life is to avoid the changes of the seasons, to standardise your working and living conditions. That was not true a generation or two ago, and it is not true of self-sufficiency today. |
|
|
|
It is tempting to think that farming operates with the seasons, but modern
farming tries hard not to.
The arable farmer sits in an air-conditioned cab, complete with radio and mobile 'phone during office hours. True, sometimes he will work from 8 till late, but only during harvest. Plant varieties will be chosen to help spread the work into an even pattern. Even the livestock farmer will attempt to operate evenly all the year round, breeding his beasts on a year round cycle and housing them indoors during the winter. |
|
Most starting self-sufficient life-styles will attempt to make their new
life accommodate itself to modern tastes and life patterns.
They will seek to work a standard day all around the year - to enjoy the same pleasures and pastimes as they did in the city. They will initially see their new life as replacing a job. They will see it in overwhelmingly financial terms, even though they may seek not to do so. They will try to eat their own strawberries in January. |
|
|
|
One day, perhaps quite suddenly, it will occur to them that January
Strawberries don't taste so good, whereas the leeks and brussel sprouts
are at their best.
They will suddenly wonder, in Summer, why they are milking indoors, and having to clean up afterwards. "Why don't I milk in the meadow?" ...and they do, an eccentric sight to passers by. On a cold November day, they will lead the cow in to a warm stable. The mucking out merely a little stimulating exercise in the colder days. |
|
The truth is self-sufficient homesteaders will try to exploit the seasons to start, but will gradually change life-style to operate with the seasons. They will enjoy the change that each season brings. |
|
|
The first realisation that rural self-sufficiency is not just an
alternative employment opportunity, may well come in an unexpected way.
Someone who has felt cold all their lives and tended to hug the fire and turn up the central heating, suddenly realises that they feel routinely warm most of the time. It will be the extra exercise and fresh air beginning to change the way the body works. |
|
|
|
Lettuces and cucumbers will begin to lose their appeal, just when the
supply, seemingly co-incidentally, dries up.
Roasts and stews and hotpots suddenly acquire an unexpected allure, just as the season for root-crops arrives. A lethargy begins to creep in as the days shorten, just as a burst of energy arrives to greet the longer days of Spring. |
|
Animals and plants operate to an annual cycle. Is it so strange for man to do the same? |
|
|
Commercial farmers raise their pigs on the basis of two or more litters per year. To do so, they must either have light land and insulated arcs or rear indoors all the year round. The work is hard, the accommodation expensive in all combinations. Once you move to a single annual litter, the sow can have her offspring in the Spring and enjoy a well deserved rest through the Autumn and dark Winter months. For the keeper, the work is easier and cheaper. There is less handling of expensive feed and trudging through mud. They get the bonus of watching the antics of a happy pig, well strawed in winter and rooting about with her youngsters in the summer. |
|
|
Time off from milking? |
A cow does not give milk for twelve months of the year, so you always get a couple of months off milking in the cold early Spring. If you leave her calf with her during the Summer, you will get a big healthy calf and the pleasure of seeing them together in the meadow. You will share the milk, but there will be plenty. As the calf gets bigger, her share will increase, and with luck, in the late summer, you will be able to take a few weeks off from milking, before resuming once the calf has gone. |
|
The "trick" to self-sufficiency is to enjoy the seasons, to go with the tide rather than against it. |
|
|
Modern systems of gardening and farming do allow operation over much
longer periods of the year, but are all of these really worth it?
Even the farmers wonder. Many are moving to low input systems, which imply a greater acceptance of the rules of natural life. |
|
|
|
Many self-sufficiency buffs, start with a theory of life as their
motivation.
They seek to work out their ideals against a background of fields and farm-stock but, alas, often fail to find their Shangri la. Some of us came from a totally different direction - pragmatic and without strong feelings about theories. It is strange that we reach the same conclusions as the theorists. |
|
So are all the greenhouses, the attempts to raise out of season crops, the
refrigerators and dryers a betrayal of some deep principle of
Self-Sufficiency?
Not at all. They are a sensible use of modern technology. There is no deep principle to be betrayed. There is no reason you should not have lettuce and tomato when out of season. It just may not be worth driving to the supermarket to get them. ...and January strawberries still taste awful. |
|
|
Common sense rules at the pragmatic Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner. |
