Our Right to Self Reliance

Some time within the seventy-two hour window of the roll over of the Gregorian calendar is a fine and logical time to take stock of your self reliance.  You might want to consider doing another re-assessment in late June, too—or even as often as every three months.

Food self reliance:  Do you raise your own?  Have you started any plants yet, whether by seed, cuttings or divisions?  One of those small greenhouses set on your porch or balcony can be a treasure trove in about three months if you start using it now.  No sense is spending upwards of $6 for one gallon pots of tomatoes when you could grow them yourself for less than a dollar’s worth of seeds!  At the very least you can start perusing seed catalogues and nurseries on line or ordering the paper catalogues for delivery.  I’ve personally already gotten five in the mail, and gone through them with a high lighter to make my wish list.  Check the links page for seed companies and nurseries.

If you’re not growing your own, how is your back stock cupboard doing?  Getting a little thin?  Check for on line bulk buying options, and look in your phone book for restaurant supply grocery stores for bulk buying.  Also look around for distressed grocery merchandisers; they’ve been popping up just about everywhere the last few years and usually have extremely good deals.  See if there are any bulk buying groups available to you, and if there is not start one!

Electrical grid reliance:  Other than electric heat, usually the biggest electric hogs in a house are an electric hot water heater, an electric clothes dryer, an electric stove and a refrigerator or freezer.  Every kilowatt you can shave off your usage gets you closer to doing without grid electricity completely—not to mention saving a few dollars every bill.  Try very hard to use those energy hogs in the most effective manner.  Only run the clothes dryer with a full load of an appropriate size, for instance.  Make sure your hot water heater has an insulating blanket and the thermostat is set no higher than you really need.  Start looking into DC small appliances that you can swap out your AC ones for.  There are DC drip coffee pots, crock pots and fans available for reasonable prices, just off the top of my head.  Look for an AC to DC inverter to run them off of until you can get a small off-grid system set up so you can practice dealing with the differences.

Transportation self reliance:  Is there any possibility of using public transit?  Set a goal of taking the bus one day a week, just to practice and familiarize yourself with the routes and schedules.  If you don’t have a bike, get one!  I personally have a fondness for those adult sized trikes; much easier to pedal groceries home than on a bike.  If you have a bike, now is the time to set aside time to do an annual tune up, or schedule one at your local bike shop.  Check with Google for your local to find bike paths and routes, and plan to spend some time every week (a lovely Saturday morning, perhaps?) familiarizing yourself with what is bike accessible from your place.

Health self reliance:  Take an on line herbal medicine class, or at least check a couple of books out of the library on the subject.  If you are one of the lucky ones out there that have medical insurance, take the time to go over your policy to be sure you understand what is and is not covered to what degree.  If you have not been taking vitamins, a good multi vitamin can make a world of difference.  Take them for at least thirty days, then re-assess your well being.  If your diet is so good that you don’t benefit from supplements, bully for you!

Have a great new year!