Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to my grandchildrenand all grandchildren everywhere
who will inherit the Earth we leave them.
Introduction
In the 1960s I achieved my long-held dream of living self-sufficiently on a small homestead with a large garden, many animals, and a small print shop to pay the bills. But after raising and butchering my first pig, I realized I had a lot to learn.
As one means of learning, I put my printing press to work and started a newsletter, for $1 a year plus a letter with a question, or an answer to a question, about self-sufficient living. It was like a chat room, but long before there was an Internet.
That small newsletter became a small magazine and then several small magazines on goats, rabbits, chickens, sheep, working stock dogs, and general all-around green living. All were reader-written, chat-room style. Over the years I met thousands of people of many backgrounds, interests, and abilities, but who had several things in common.
Primarily, they were all dissatisfied with some aspect of the world, usually having to do with the environment, business, or government, but felt powerless to do anything about it. They couldnt change the world, but they could at least work on their little corner of it. They could become self-sufficient, each in his own way.
Times have changed. More people are dissatisfied today than 40 years ago. The world needs changing today more than ever before. Whats exciting is that more people than ever are aware of that need, even though not all of them know whats involved and few realize how theyre connected with so many others and how they could be working together to achieve mutual goals.
Self-sufficient living today is not just an escape from the rat race, a means of eating your own homegrown organic food, or living without the power grid. We might as well admit it from the beginning: our ultimate goal is changing the world. And of course, we want to enjoy doing it, as much as possible; changing the world is hard enough without getting grim about it! But thats the easy part.
This book is an attempt to pull all these elements together so they not only make sense but also point to some possible solutions.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is divided into six parts:
Part 1, A Rational Approach to Self-Sufficient Living, offers a rational approach to self-sufficiency. Its not a fad; its not escapist; its not regressing. Self-sufficient living is a lifestyle for our times and very likely will be the way of the future.
Part 2, The Kitchen: Heart of the Homestead, looks at what is arguably the most important kind of self-sufficiency: providing your own food. Whether that food originates in your own garden or barnyard or comes from far away via the supermarket, your kitchen is where it meets the moment of truth.
Part 3, The Self-Sufficient Gardener, will get you started producing your own food, even if you have never gardened before. If youre experienced, this will be a refresher course, but you might find a few surprises, too!
Part 4 is Meat, Milk, and Eggs, where well look at these nongarden food groups. Yes, you can produce your own, even on a small place.
Part 5, Shelter and Its Appurtenances, brings us to the area where we spend most of our time, money, and energy. Learn how some people avoid a mortgage and decrease both their carbon footprint and their water footprint.
Part 6 ties it all together with A Plan for the Future. You might be skeptical about self-sufficient living becoming the norm in America and around the world. But these chapters will show you what has already happened (when you might not have been paying attention), what is going on right now, and where it could reasonably lead.
This still wont begin to cover everything, so youll find some additional information in the appendixes, including where to go for more information.
Extras
Throughout the book, youll find the following four types of sidebars:
Watch Your Step
There arent many life-threatening pitfalls in self- sufficient living aside from normal things like falling trees, but when you might encounter some trouble of one kind or another, be sure to watch your step.
Off the Beaten Path
Off-the-wall little snippets of information can be useful and enlightening as well as interesting. If nothing else, theyll let you impress your friends and relatives with your knowledge of little-known facts.
definition
You might not be familiar with some words or the way theyre used in this book. Look for definitions in these boxes and the glossary appendix.
Lore of the Land
Watch these boxes for brief tips that might make the job at hand a little easier.
Acknowledgments
No book is truly original. All the words in this or any other book are already in the dictionary; theyve only been rearranged to form different ideas.
All the ideas have also been voiced, somewhere, at some time before. They are merely collected, distilled, and rearranged according to each authors biases and peculiarities.
This book is a collection of the ideas, discoveries, and experiences of thousands of people, in many areas of expertise, because self-sufficiency is especially impossible for writers.
The best personal proof of that I can offer is the one person who stands out among those thousands. She has been my best proofreader and best friend for 56 years. We have worked side-by-side for most of those, not only in the garden, field, barn, and kitchen, but in the offices and shops of the businesses weve owned. The girl who worked to get an R.N. degree left her chosen career to bottle-feed goat kids, bale hay, butcher chickens, and help put the cattle back in the pasture, often on the same day as doing the payroll and talking to salesmen or training a new employee. And then she made it a point to be at home when her children got off the school bus.
This book has a cast of thousands, but I couldnt have written it without Diane.
Special Thanks to the Technical Editor
The Complete Idiots Guide to Self-Sufficient Living was reviewed by an expert who double-checked the accuracy of what youll learn here, to help us ensure that this book gives you everything you need to know. Special thanks are extended to Harvey Ussery.
Trademarks
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be or are suspected of being trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Alpha Books and Penguin Group (USA) Inc. cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Part 1
A Rational Approach to Self-Sufficient Living
