Prepare while others are daydreaming.

William Arthur Ward

As you probably know by now if you’ve been reading this blog long, I am all about being prepared. It kind of goes hand in hand with homesteading and wearing the label of a “prepper” is a bit of a badge of honor for me even if the media has tried to make it something to be mocked or marginalized.

The same media that likes to show us the lavish “prepper” bunkers of the world’s elite. 🤨

While we don’t have a luxury bunker fitted out for the apocalypse, we do have what we need just in case. And what we don’t have, our neighbors do and are willing to share with us and vice-versa.

It’s one of the many blessings of living in rural Idaho.

We are becoming more self sufficient each year, too, by doing things like composting our own soil, saving our seeds to replant in the future and this year I’m learning to can our produce (finally).

Eventually, we hope to not need the supply chain at all to grow our gardens. This year already we’ve been able to prep our beds using our own compost and nitrogen fertilizer we got for free from our generous neighbor who works at the local water treatment facility.

We’ll add some potash we’re making and we’ll mix in some chicken manure soon.

We are working hard at making our little homestead not just productive but profitable. Just this week we sold enough ducks and chickens from last year’s flock to cover the expense of feeding them over the winter.

Which means all the eggs they laid for us were free and free equals profit.

This year we’ll be planting even more in our gardens to keep and to sell, as well as grains and seeds to harvest to hopefully feed our flocks through most of the winter without having to buy much commercial feed.

Eventually, we hope to raise enough meat here to feed us all, including the pups.

What we can’t raise ourselves we can hunt. Not only does hunting fill our freezers but it also helps to keep the local herds of deer, elk. pronghorn and moose healthy.

And it’s deelicious!

So now that we’re pretty well established in this way of life, it’s time to start encouraging others to also become more self sufficient. It’s not a religion, so I don’t want to preach the gospel of self-sufficiency-equals-salvation, but it is important to let others know that if you have been considering this lifestyle, well, if we can do it, so can you!

Yes, I know that sounds so cliche. 😄

But it’s true! Just a few years ago if you had told me my future would be like this, I’d have laughed! I’m not laughing now, though. I wish I had started thinking and living this way years ago.

I still have so much to learn and I admittedly wasted all those years focused on mostly frivolous, shallow pursuits, most of which only got me closets full of useless crap (which I need to continue to clear out).

Until recently, I had little to no peace of mind knowing that if I had to, I could live through some very hard times.

The kind of hard times we all may be facing sooner than we’d like!