Self Sufficiency
December 9, 2008
We’ve been thinking a lot about being self sufficient lately. Spurred on mainly by the huge jump in the cost of food. I’ve being buying the same brand of goats feta cheese for years, it’s always been just under $5. Went to buy some last week and it’s now over $7. But it’s not just that , tins of lentil and beans I always buy have gone from $1.40 to $1.80 in the last few months. I don’t actually watch prices that closely so I presume everything else has jumped too.
Anyway things are changing and we need to change too. So my thoughts turn to what can we produce ourselves. Well cheese - we’re looking at breeds of dairy goats. Anglo Nubians seem the way to go. Quality milk, interesting looking and popular as pets if we need to sell excess stock. His lordship mentioned goat curry but I doubt he’d be able to kill a chicken let alone a goat.
So what else can’t we live without - veges - no worries, got them growing nicely despite a late frost. I’ll expand the vege patch vastly as I get the hang of things. Grains, I’d like to try a small scale field of oats for both the grain and the mulch supply, probably don’t have enough space here to do much more than a token amount of grain. I don’t eat wheat but we love rice but I don’t think I could make rice paddy cropping viable 
Fruit, our fruit trees are doing well as are nut trees, we’ll plant more next year though plus a lot more berries. Eggs, my New Hampshire chicky babes are growing nicely, though I think a couple may be roosters so I’ll have to deal with them at some stage. I’ll try to re-home but if that fails I was reading how English gardener Bob Flowerdew gets his excess roosters drunk on rum then does the deed. Best way to go I suppose.
Which reminds me - wine, not essential but it sure is nice to have a glass or two after a long day milking goats and weeding vege patches. A small vineyard would look very elegant on the north facing slope with Mt Roland looming picturesquely behind.
Power, this will have to be his lordships department. I’m not good with technology but he’ll work out the most sensible way to tackle this issue, whether it be solar or wind, batteries or putting it straight into the grid. Aurora has announced power costs will soar in the next five years so it’s definitely something that will need to be well considered.
I loved watching the British TV series ”The Good Life” years ago and have watched it again recently, priceless English humour. Unlike the Goods, we have no intention of completely dropping out of the system but it would be sensible of us to set ourselves up to not be so reliant on the big grocery chains.
