Becoming More Self Reliant

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A lot of people have the dream of a few acres of land and self reliance (as opposed to self -sufficiency, which is a myth!). This group is to draw together the experiences of those living the dream and sharing the lessons learned on the way with those still working towards living on the land.

Members: 164
Latest Activity: Jan 31, 2019

How do you make it work?

A friend who is a valuer told me last year that lifestyle blocks have the highest turnover of ownership or all property types. The idea of land ownership is loved by many, but what does it take to succeed in becoming self reliant? The romanticism of a rural lifestyle vs the reality of living the lifestyle can be miles apart. So, what does it take to realise a self reliant lifestyle and how have you achieved this?

I would love for you to share your lessons and advice to myself and others:
What combinations of activities have worked for you e.g. paid employment vs earning an income off the land?
Where did you start off?
Do you still undertake paid employment part time to get by or have you transitioned fully to living off the land?
What were you biggest challenges and what were your biggest lessons learned?...

Discussion Forum

Over doing it! 14 Replies

We bought a 7 Acer block 11 months ago! so coming up to a year we have a Orchard that is constantly under attack by 30 sheep. 16 pigs, 63 chickens, 11 ducks, 2 horses and 6 cattle and 2 Geese.…Continue

Started by Shona Cullen. Last reply by Kate Oct 20, 2013.

Dreaming... 11 Replies

My current thoughts are the more $ you have up front to be freehold on land the better, so more time can be spent on the land and less paid employment in transitioning. However, it is a toss up…Continue

Started by Laine. Last reply by Shona Cullen Oct 16, 2013.

green control of pampas 2 Replies

What are the best ways to control and eradicate pampas grassContinue

Started by Kate. Last reply by Serra Kilduff Feb 26, 2013.

The Myth of Self Reliance 1 Reply

Hi All,Here's an article to make us think a bit deeper about our dreams. I agree with it whole heartily. It links in to wider Transition Towns concepts well:…Continue

Started by Laine. Last reply by Hanna Feb 6, 2013.

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Comment by Alex Hofmans on April 22, 2014 at 11:13am: Hi, I'm a 4th year Industrial Design student and for my final year project I'm working on a project to try and encourage more people in urban areas to grow their own food. My goal is to make people more reliant and more aware of the process of growing food. I'm currently researching to find out what the end result needs to do/be.

I'm hoping some of you could fill out this questionnaire (its only a few quick questions)

https://urbangrowing.typeform.com/to/J4dVkf

Also I'd really love to hear your thoughts on what you think the most efficient ways to grow are? And if you would consider food swapping to get more of a variety of of produce?

Comment by Natalie Thomson on January 17, 2014 at 5:49pm: Hi im Natalie from Invercargill we have just bought a place in Invercargill and we have a 1700m section we are wanting to do as much as we can fruit and veges wise also chooks and rabbits

Comment by Peter Niepel on April 24, 2013 at 6:48am: Yes Janine Williams, life would be so much easier if there wouldn't be so much .........nature.

Peter

Comment by Cally Brown on April 23, 2013 at 2:07pm: This is the first summer that we have not had to buy fruit and veggies. Though I admit that we did sometimes, for an occasional variation - never thought I'd crave broccoli buI've discovered it can happen! We've lived out of our garden: eggs, beans, courgettes, tomatoes, capsicum, silverbeet, nz spinach, potatoes, onions, garlic, sweetcorn, leeks, cucumber, herbs, peas, lettuce, apples, lemons, plums, peaches, feijoas, grapes, chestnuts, pears.... I've frozen, dried, made jelly, tomato sauce, 'sun'dried tomatoes, fruit-flavoured water kefir, lemon honey..... there's still pumpkins to harvest. The only disappointment has been my bees - they go very badly infested with varroa and took a long time to recover, so I'm leaving what honey they did collect on the hive as stores for them to use over winter. Hopefully next year will be a better year for them. I feel that at last we are actually making a worthwhile dent in our reliance on outside sources for our food. We don't have milk of our own, but I do get lovely organic, raw milk locally. It's a wonderful feeling.

Comment by Janine Williams on April 23, 2013 at 12:51pm: Aren't rats horrible? Shame about the cucumbers. Your garden did well this year :-) We just got rid of the wasp nest under the big tree root, they were little wasps the size of honey bees. Now I see these huge bright yellow and black ones with long wings eating the fallen apples. The wax-eyes peck holes in the apples then the wasps move in. On the whole though, the self-sufficiency thing has been successful.

Comment by Melanie Banton on April 11, 2013 at 12:24pm: It's hard yakka for the first few years, but harvesting your own produce is wonderful. So happy our bees had a good year, too :) I haven't made much cheese this year as the drought kept milk production down. Still harvesting spuds, pumpkin, beans & tomatoes, but the rats found the last of our huge cucumber crop. Oh well...

Comment by Janine Williams on April 11, 2013 at 12:14pm: Harvest Time

Isn't this a great time of the year? We are eating a lot of our own produce - potatoes, pumpkins, apples and pears, our own honey, meat...

I would like to encourage those starting out, that it's is very sweet when it starts working, it just takes a while. We have been here almost nine years now.

And we just sold the calf and started milking again, yay!

Comment by Tom Reid on February 26, 2013 at 11:46am: Koha Healing Sound workshop This Saturday 10 am in Grey Lynn.

More details here: http://provennaturalremedies.info/sw.html

Cheers Tom 021 251 3058

Comment by Tom Reid on February 26, 2013 at 11:46am: I am looking for an Intentional community based on growing food, healing and working towards an alternative economy. Just a good bunch of live and let live people is the most important thing though.

Comment by Richard Grevers on April 10, 2012 at 10:55am: We are now half-moved from town to country, with our house on the market (and fingers crossed for offers this week). We've been very lucky to be able to rent an off-grid house across the road from our land - a winter of living on-site will most definitely inform our design decisions. So far we've spent a disproportionate amount of time keeping our water-line (and hence pelton wheel) running. We're also learning how to get a shacklock range hot enough to cook and heat water with wood.