Thanks so much for your entry! This was a great read. You brought up lots of good points, some I haven't really thought of.
Know yourself and your interests, plan for community resilience, budget for short term vs long term and do with less if it makes sense!
I'm a "big picture" kind of person. So much so that sometimes the short term goals get lost to the bigger picture, or sometimes so focused on the wider scope that I simply don't know where to start. To combat this, I've started a notebook where I am keeping all of our long term goals and then expanding from there. We work well when we write stuff down!
I love what you say about community. At some point I did want to be 100% self sufficient but I realized two things there... One, it negates some of the need for community, and I would rather have good reasons to interact and share and be part of a community. No desire to be a hermit. Plus... You bring up a good point that life is really meant to be lived. Where would my quality of life be? It's just not necessary. My hubby and I are thinking about doing a little traveling this year to scope out different states, different towns, see where the good vibes are at, and maybe find a place that resonates with us.
Thanks for the great info, this post helped me a lot and I hope it helps other noobs too! I love how you are doing the thing with what you have now, in the situation you have now. That's what I am starting to do and it feels really right!
Xx ToL
:) I really have to thank my partner for helping steer me to see more value in community. I am an introvert by nature and the idea of being self sustaining on my own sounds so great in theory until I actually start to do some of it. In my case wwoofing part time and doing only a portion of the work for a homestead that is not even close to 100% self sufficient, without even considering the extra load of responsibility of planning and shouldering risk, etc. It is so much work to take on being only 5% self sufficient!! So why do it?
My answer is the love, the passion, the ethics, the honor, the challenge AND the community!! I've really come to appreciate the community makes it so much more fun and rewarding. Even for an introvert like myself - I don't have to see everyone every day but when I do, I have the social support I need and homesteader friends that I can relate with - and when the time is right I can give back to the community and that is rewarding in itself. So instead of my top priority being self sufficient, my top priority is following my passions which includes many homesteading tasks. The best part is I can choose which ones I want because there is no way I can do everything :) Now I can take comfort in acknowledging that.
Good luck to all of us getting into homesteading-- I look forward to see where your journey leads you :) If you two decide to explore the Pacific Northwest or Oregon, you are welcome to visit us anytime!
I can relate, I am more ambivert but I definitely need my time in the woods!
Thank you for the offer. We live pnw, we may take you up on that some day! It would be so cool to meet some other homesteading steemians! :DD