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A journey towards sustainable living
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In this document;
Introduction   >   Objectives   >   Self Sufficiency   >   What Have We Done   >   Ramblings   >   Content & Format   >   References

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WHAT'S NEW?
INTRODUCTION

This is a place for those who believe there must be something better.
Here I will share my (our) journey to a simpler and happier life and hopefully some of it may be of use to you in your own adventure.
The headings above (links to other documents on this site) are my way of cataloging this journey.
In these web pages I will try to make it easier for you than it has been for me to be more self sufficient.
While there is a huge body of knowledge in existance out there, finding what you need, when you need it, is often easier said than done.
This is a work in progress. Sorry about the lack of content for now. I'll keep on trying to work at it.

OBJECTIVES

My objectives for this journey are as follows (not necessarily in order of priority);

  1. Be happy (This is the ultimate goal).
  2. Be healthy in order to be happy (Physically meaning diet and exercise, and psychologically. But which comes first? Or does it not matter?).
  3. Understand yourself in order to achieve mental health (Psychology. Although not necessarily a psychologist).
  4. Improve yourself (Where you are prepared to make the committment to do so).
  5. De materialise yourself (The less I have to lose the happier I am).
  6. Spend less money (Then you don't have to earn it).
  7. Work must be enjoyed (This is vital. Keep searching. Why would you ever want to retire if you enjoy it?).
  8. Family must be enjoyed (And even when you have the time, this is not necessarily easy. It must be worked at).
  9. Community and society contribution (Volunteers are necessary but everyone is just so busy).
  10. Don't have too many interests and are they aligned with your happiness goal?
  11. Do a quality job on everything (That is quality relevant to your ability, knowledge and current experience. Don't bother doing it otherwise. You can always improve).
  12. Treat others as you would want to be treated yourself (If only everyone subscribed to this!!!).
SELF SUFFICIENCY

Being self sufficient, to me, means being more in control of my life. It means I need to waste less, spend less money and spend more time on understanding and then providing my own requirements.
This is a checklist for moving towards self sufficiency;

  1. Keep it simple. Always spend a little extra time scrutinsing your choice for optimum simplicity before acting.

  2. Have good mental health. While this lifestyle can contribute to improving your mental health it is no panacea. If you are unhappy, or if others feel you make them unhappy, work towards understanding why. When you know why you are then in a position to choose whether to improve or not. You may need help with this. It is very, very difficult for anyone to have a rational view on something they are emotionally involved with. Many of the answers will lie in engaging with family, community and society (and this is a traditionally isolationalist speaking). Remember that in finding you need to deal with low self esteem, a lack of assertiveness and anxiety (for instance), you have just joined the majority of people around you. It is just that people are reticent to admit to it (and with good reason in our current stigmatised world).

  3. Have good physical health. At least as good as you are able to. This means allowing for physical and mental handicaps. But is not intended as an excuse for smoking, drinking too much (or any at all if you are an alcoholic like me), taking recreational drugs, having a poor diet and not exercising. Even as I myself battle with most of these weaknesses on a regular basis, I know there is no excuse for not looking after myself and getting the best out of the life I have and maybe extending the life I would otherwise get. Also use sun screen, gloves while working, knee pads, protective clothing, etc.

  4. Establish your vision. What are your objectives? List them. How do you expect to achieve them? Note these as your plan. Show relationships between elements of your plan, cost/benefit analyse and prioritise them. Everything you do should relate back to your vision. Of course you can and will modify your vision over time. But don't fool yourself into indulging in actions that are contrary to your vision. If you must do this, acknowledge the contradiction.

  5. Prepare a detailed budget of expenses and incomes. No matter how bad the situation is, knowing your position means you have a chance to do something before it is too late. You will need to collect shopping dockets for a month. Keep household products separate from vegetables, from fruit, from dairy, from meats and the rest.

  6. Reduce all unnecessary expenses. Ridicule this if you must. It indicates you are not really serious about taking control of your life. Use no name products. Eliminate packaged goods if at all possible. Use 11w compact fluoro globes. Turn lights off. Don't waste water (that applies to all members of the household). Don't try to keep up with the Jones's. Maybe pick those slugs off by hand rather than paying to poison them.
    Reducing expenses removes a huge amount of pressure from you and increases your happiness factor.
    The self sufficiency tasks you tackle should also reduce expenses, however many will have an implementation cost. Part of your planning process must be to way up the payback on any investment. It will not always be monetary. Sometimes the things you emotionally attached to may not be the wisest to tackle first

  7. Make final decision on house and land (whether new or existing). You do not need more than a suburban building lot. Games can be played at the nearest park.

  8. Is your house as energy efficient as it can be? (this is a major major biggy one). This means power, heating and water heating. You must be thermally efficient. You must not waste power.

  9. Waste as little water as possible. Use only dry composting toilets (no black water). Reuse all grey water with energy efficient reedbeds.

  10. Collect all your rain water. I caution against using it for drinking. Just for the garden and if possible for washing.

  11. What food do you want to produce for yourself? Work out the vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruits, eggs and meat you wish to produce. List them. Note the inputs and outputs of each and then draw relationships between them. For instance, my vegetables help feed the poultry who produce eggs and meat. They also produce manure for the vegetables, although need to grow grass as litter for the bottom of the pens to go with the manure (who can afford to buy hay/straw?). The poultry also control certain pests, although I need to be careful they don't eat the vegetables when I don't want them to. And the ducks control different pests to what the chooks do. Companion planting is also important to understand.

  12. Erect any sheds, pens for animals, trellises, fences and gates. Make pens out of metal rather than wood if you can for pest control. Maybe mobile pens are better than fixed? Vegetable and fruit tree areas need to fenced off from livestock, although ideally they can be let in at certain times. If you have livestock try to allow for multiple paddocks and you need to protect any trees within them.

  13. Plant any fruit trees or vines as soon as possible as they will often take years to start producing. Although you need to try to get them in the right position first time. Espalier is a good way to save space. Plant close together and it stops the grass growing underneath. Group like ones together for same conditions, same watering and any cross pollination.

  14. Compost bins running. Minimum of 3 bins for 3 stages. 1st for new scraps/weeds. 2nd for the current compost. 3rd to turn the 2nd bin into for the last stage of composting. You may want a 4th intensive bin for breaking down meat scraps and ofal.

  15. Vegetable, herb and flower garden(s) started. Keep them as close to the backdoor/house as is possible.

  16. Source of mulch established. Catch and use your lawn clippings and prunings. Hunt down free sawdust, etc but beware the cost and time of transport. Commercial mulch is so expensive. And anything you bring on to your property increases the risk of new diseases and pests.

  17. Meat supply established. Remember that if you are going vegetarian, where will the manure come from for your plants? Ducks and chooks are essential. Sheep if you have the space. Rabbits should be good but it is illegal to free range them (in Australia) and if you don't keep them intensively indoors, they will get the mosquito borne diseases of mixamotosis and calycivirus. Vaccination only by a vet is not practical and too costly.

  18. Have a maintenance plan in place. Maintenance will kill you and if it doesn't, it will certainly kill your enjoyment. The older your facility gets the more maintaining it needs. The less you have the less you will need to maintain. Every engine needs maintenance and consumes fuel.

  19. Understand the science in what you do. What vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc does your body need? How do you get them? Which foods contain which? Do they degrade over time? For example, does the vitamin C level reduce after an orange is cut and if so, how much over what time frames? What elements do different plants need in the soil? How do you get them into the soil and in what form to be useful? For example, what elements are in the pooh that comes out of chickens? Which ones degrade and how quickly? Does it depend on what they eat? I have still a long way to go on learning this process and then I have to remember it.

  20. Don't be afraid to change things. I know it seems like a big waste of time and sometimes money. But this one off waste will be less than the ongoing waste of something not done as well as it could be. You should not be ashamed of having made mistakes you then need to correct. None of us can know everything before we start. It is a natural part of the process. Every fence I have has been moved at last once and over half my fruit trees as well.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE

This is not "rocket science".
We were once just a couple of suburbanites who loved the good life (partying, boozing, consuming, etc), or so we thought.
With self sufficiency, we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves in for. Even after many years of reading and researching, nothing really prepares you for just getting on with it.
It would definitely be easier doing this before or after kids but I wouldn't use them as an excuse not to start.

We bought a bare 2-1/2 block of grassland in 1995. A couple of mid thirties heterosexuals with a 1 year old child and 2 more to come over the next 4 years.
We then proceeded to plant it out, totally ignoring the golden rule of "start at the backdoor". Not helped I suppose by not yet having a backdoor at that stage. And have spent quite some time over the past few years pulling most of it out again. Moving fences has become a particular speciality of mine.
Next came the house in 1997. Not the owner built mud brick house of our dreams (thank god) but an off the plan budget house which we have adapted as much as we were then able, to passive solar principles. Owner building would have undoubtedly led us to divorce.

The next 6 years we have just worked, worked, worked and expect to continue this for ever. Self sufficiency consumes as much of your time as you are prepared to give it. Do not attempt it if you also want to continue your empty consumer lifestyle. They are not compatible. Self sufficiency is very challenging and yet can be very rewarding (so I am told). Once you have learnt something I am sure you can become more efficient at it and it is very important to take just 1 step (or maybe a few) at a time and either make it work or reject it and move on.
However I would not change anything and regret nothing.

I will not provide further details of our experiences here.
The outcomes of our experiences are encapsulated in the above checklist and the details are included within the many documents provided on this website.
Remember, have a vision (a realistic one) and a plan to achieve it.
Don't set yourself time limits. This will apply pressure. Then you won't enjoy it as much. But you do need to be disciplined.
Everything is tackled on a cost benefit basis. If it can't pay for itself then why would we want to do it.
Everything should serve at least 2 purposes.
Good luck.

RAMBLINGS

I am happy because I can do what I want to do.
Everyone in the world should be able to do what they want to do, provided it does not adversely impact on the happiness of another and preferably is of at least some benefit to the community.

Time and convenience are your biggest enemies.
And they are related to the real enemy greed, greed, greed!
I fight my own greed all the time, in it's varying forms, with varying degrees of success.
Greed and self interest have their origins in the survival instinct. So how can it be bad then?
Somehow it needs to be tempered with humanity. But what is humanity and who determines the balance?
The simple rule I try to follow is to "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself".

Anyone can do this, if you want to enough.
I would like to think that everyone is born equal and that anyone can potentially do anything. If they want to. Not necessarily to the same level. All this is within reason of course (whatever that means).
No one was born and grew up more "useless" than I. As was reinforced for me by others often enough.
How often do I see, particularly in the world of business, people (often but not always managers/leaders) writing off people without even giving them a chance.
Now many of these people will also say they don't want the chance.
I have a theory on this where I do not think that they should always have this choice. There seems to be some flaws in civil libertarians. Just as there are in democracy.

I do not believe anyone has the right not to work. Work is a loose term though.
But no one should be allowed to sit around at home inactively, if they have not done their days/weeks contribution back to family/community/society, from which you may also gain your meager income.
I speak as someone who spent most of their life wanting to do this. Indeed, I remember it being my year 11 employment ambition (much to the chagrin of the flumoxed teacher - Hi Mr John Collard if you're listening).
Circumstance betrayed me, or saved me if you will. But both I and the community/society are better off for it.
I support our local (Australia) work for the dole concept. Although I expect to find the program riddled with waste (I will be happy to be wrong) and I am no supporter of the Government which spawned it.
"Mutual obligation" is a good concept, in my opinion. However I suspect the motives behind it's creation may not have been for the good of the community/society/individual as much as they were for more profit focused (read greedy) interests.

I believe ultimately everyone will have to learn to live with less. And I am just getting in early.
It is not really fair that 95% (or whatever the figure is) of the worlds population do not live like us. Indeed, the world could not support such widespread waste of it's resources. (I was first made aware of this by an old Irish priest on a bus to Bulawayo - it meant nothing to me at the time - but over the years it has cultured to an opinion).
It makes me very happy to know that by spending less, I have less to worry about, do not have to work at things I don't want to do as much, I am helping to preserve the worlds resources and the environment, I end up healthier by not eating as much shit food (and drink) and riding a bike to work rather than driving, and I end up with more time to spend with my family (although I still need to improve much on how I spend it) and the community.

Some questions of the world I have are;

  1. Is economic growth in the world a good thing?
  2. Is having an improved standard of living (whatever that really means) a good thing?
  3. Why do we have to have population growth?
  4. Is population aging really a bad thing? (or as I heard it refered to the other day - is it just a transition?)
CONTENT & FORMAT

I lay no claims to being a web page designer.
However I find computers an extremely efficient (less waste) means of recording knowledge and web pages similarly efficient for communicating this knowledge.
These pages are designed with maximum simplicity in mind. Their purpose is to be effective, not pretty.
It is also a reflection of the limitations of this web designer and his unpreparedness to pay for an "expert".

Much of this information is not new.
Indeed there is a huge and wonderful resource of information available on living a more sustainable life.
However I have experienced much difficulty and spent lots of time trying to access this information when I need it.
This site is my attempt to present this information simply and effectively for when you need it.
I am attempting to present it as well indexed, concise, yet descriptive bullet points.
All pages should be effective on the screen and printed out if you prefer (not recommended).

REFERENCES
  1. Book - A Procrastinator's Guide to Simple Living - Jim McKnight
  2. Book - Growth Fetish - Clive Hamilton
  3. Book - The Experience of Middle Australia - Michael Pusey
  4. Internet - Home and Garden - great things to buy but mostly from US so I use it for ideas

Date created 15 February 2003   - - -   Last updated 20.5.2004
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