Farm Dreams
Homesteading, Organic Gardening, How to Farm, Preparedness, Self-Reliance
How to get your spouse in the mood to farmstead?
I am bursting with joy at the thought of owning my own small farm, gardening, canning my own food, hunting and raising livestock, living off the grid, and installing solar panels on my house. I dream of owning my land and my house debt free, spending my life living off the land, not depending on others for my family's survival. I don't dream of this because I fear impending doom. I dream of this because I grew up very poor, and farmsteading to me is an opportunity to not live in poverty. Farmsteading and unplugging is an old way of life that is hard work and based on skills, not money. So what's the problem? My husband does not share my enthusiasm. He is pessimistic about everything. It's not all his fault though. I did not have these plans when we got married. I have changed. I graduated from college in December 2009 with hopes of a new career and joining the middle class, finally. But that opportunity did not come a knocking. And I sure didn't find it when I went looking for it. Over the past year, I have been under-employed when I wasn't unemployed. Being at home with my kids for a few months changed me. I always said that I would never be a house wife. I always felt it was a degrading way of life. Looking back at myself now, I can't imagine why I felt that way about taking care of my own kids. I used to think that to be successful, I had to have a high paying career and a big house. Now I know that is simply not true. I see farmsteading as my American Dream at this point in my life. So how can I bring my husband and kids into the fold? They are still "brainwashed" by the television and video games. I've told them that they don't have to give up TV. I'm willing to compromise. But my husband must think this a phase that will pass and soon he'll have the woman he married back. Maybe he thinks it's my hormones messing with my head. lol. I don't know why he doesn't seem to be taking this seriously. I've found a house with 2 acres. It needs a lot of TLC, but I know we could do it. He says he doesn't want to do that much work to a place. Doesn't want to do that much work? How can I ever expect him to want to work on our homestead? Should I give up my dream? I am not willing to break up my family to go farmsteading. But shouldn't he compromise with me and stop being so stubborn? Sorry I drew that out so much. I have a lot on my mind as you can plainly see.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Theresa Schieffelbein on
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Francesca, I wish you all the luck and good fortune in your new life! Love your "make it happen" attitude!
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Permalink Reply by Cindy Watson on -
OMG, Francesca, I found myself nodding my head to every sentence of your last post, lol. My hubby is equally goal-less. I think he'll let me get away with a lot as long as we can still "look" normal from the outside. No homespun alpaca clothes for our kids when they're teenagers ;)
I've looked into rabbits, too. The coolest thread I ever found on rabbits is here... http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3219174&am...
It has photos of the butchering process, and some yummy-looking meals. Plus a pretty cool insight into the realities of raising and killing cute little bunnies. :P That's one area hubby has already drawn the line at- he doesn't want the kids to get attached to bunnies and then have me kill their pets. *sigh* No fun!
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Permalink Reply by Francesca on -
LMAO! Well I told my husband and my kids that the rabbits will be for eating, and there will be no names given to our future meals. I think as long as they don't give them names, they will be able to eat them. ;) Of course, my kids enjoy hunting already, at least 2 of them do. The youngest is still too young to have a clue. lol. Thanks for the link. I need all the info I can get! I am determined that this whole "not passing on the knowledge we need to survive" thing will end with me! I will teach myself and my kids how to survive on their own. And I will never regret it, even if they never use the skills I teach them.
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Once my kids got used to the idea it wasn't so bad. They got to keep one rabbit for a pet and that one was hands off to me. Not a problem as I got all of their babies. There was only one time that I caused tears. It was Easter time and we got a late season snow storm. I had nothing thawed out as we were supposed to go to my parent's after Mass. I didn't give it a second thought but roasted up a nice fat rabbit. My 4 year old took one look and broke out into uncontrollable sobs...."Momma butchered the Easter bunny"...you can imagine. I ended up telling her that it wasn't the Easter bunny but there was no way out of it. I ended up asking a neighbor with a snowmobile to come and get me. He took me to the store and I bought a bunch of candy etc. I made up another nice basket and left it for her. I wrote a note from the bunny saying "Your Momma didn't butcher me honey, she got my evil cousin Earl" We still laugh at that. From that day on she had no problem helping me butcher. It is getting over the cute little Easter bunny that takes some doing. My daughter is now 30 and still tells that story. You have to laugh at life or it just isn't worth living!
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Permalink Reply by Happy on -
Oh my goodness Theresa! I have been away from my computer alot so I can't keep up but that reminds me of something my brother Scott did, as a joke/prank to my other brother Eric, that went terribly wrong. He killed a bunny and put it in a basket on the front porch for Eric to find, Easter morning. I was the youngest and woke up first, my mom was sick and my Dad was out of town, so no had filled the easter baskets. I went outside to tell my brothers, Scott and Jonathan, that the Easter Bunny had not come and found the basket on the front porch! I was a wreck, sobbing, and screaming uncontrolablly and I knew who did it! (Did I mention I was 5). I thought my mom and other brothers were going to kill him, because the December before while I was eating deer meat he told me it was Bambi's mom. When you have 5 older brothers you can be tormented alot but atleast there are 4 others to handle it!
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Permalink Reply by MyBackAchers Farm on -
Same boat here too, or at least we used to be.
In 2004 I started an educational process by having the hubby watch Crude Awakening, Crude Impact and any movie on peak oil. For him, that was a shocker, but it didn't stop there. I had him watch Bartlett's Scariest Video on YouTube in full.
In 2008 we watched the CrASH Course on chrismartenson.com before the 08 crash and completely understood what was going on in the economy.
The Food, Inc. helped but seeing the Gerson DVDs was a bigger boost to the grow fresh food around here than anything I could say about the benefits of home grown food.
I knew he had finally came around when he brought GASland for me to watch. He gets books like Howard Kunstlers Long Emergency and we listen to podcasts like NoAdgenda and Kunstlers and others.
The point is not to scare him, or the children- just give him information that helps him (and yourself) understand the world we are living in and understand the world is changing. And mostly, be a part of a positive change!
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Permalink Reply by Happy on
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Back Acher you listed a few That I have not watched yet. I think we need to make a list of videos for people (hubbies and friends) to watch starting with a high line video and then going deeper.
The video that I believe is the best beginner video (because Ty tuned out the others I found as a bunch of hype and were to documentry like that he feel asleep) would be Farm Inc. Which is on Amazon for streaming http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc/dp/B002VRZEYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv... the cost is $3.
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Permalink Reply by Francesca on
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I have been telling my husband about the things I read on the internet, and I show him a lot of it. He doesn't really like reading so we watch Countdown with Keith. My husband, Bandy, seems to wake up a little every time we watch. Sometimes he just can't believe the things people do. So thank you for suggesting the videos. That's a great idea. I started reading the SHTF School blog yesterday thanks to the link that Dusty Bottoms posted in her blog. It is very interesting, informative, and scary stuff. I haven't show it to my husband yet. I'm still wondering if I should. He may take it as I am getting ready for TEOTWAWKI, and he would probably be resistant to the idea. I would like to get the hell out of town before TS does HTF. lol. I think for now, I'll start with the less scary and work my way up until he is as ready to get away from town (and be self-reliant) as I am.
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Oh Happy, You poor thing! I am the oldest of 9 kids but we all did our fair share of torturing each other. At least the rabbit that I roasted up didn't look like a rabbit. If she wasn't involved in our day to day homesteading (I home taught our kids so they were very hands on) she wouldn't have ever known what it was.
I think that we are a lovingly twisted family but what your brother did was just awful!
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Francesca, why not tell him that you are just hedging your bets for possible unemployment or the fact that the global economy is crap and not showing much sign of getting better or that the projection that food prices will go up considerably? Sometimes it is easier to start with a problem that they have an easier time seeing and work into the problems that they can't quite get themselves to consider.
Francesca Shearer said:I have been telling my husband about the things I read on the internet, and I show him a lot of it. He doesn't really like reading so we watch Countdown with Keith. My husband, Bandy, seems to wake up a little every time we watch. Sometimes he just can't believe the things people do. So thank you for suggesting the videos. That's a great idea. I started reading the SHTF School blog yesterday thanks to the link that Dusty Bottoms posted in her blog. It is very interesting, informative, and scary stuff. I haven't show it to my husband yet. I'm still wondering if I should. He may take it as I am getting ready for TEOTWAWKI, and he would probably be resistant to the idea. I would like to get the hell out of town before TS does HTF. lol. I think for now, I'll start with the less scary and work my way up until he is as ready to get away from town (and be self-reliant) as I am.
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Permalink Reply by Francesca on
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Excellent ideas Theresa. I could do that. He wouldn't I was being foolish, and we could get prepared for anything. =)
Theresa Schieffelbein said:Francesca, why not tell him that you are just hedging your bets for possible unemployment or the fact that the global economy is crap and not showing much sign of getting better or that the projection that food prices will go up considerably? Sometimes it is easier to start with a problem that they have an easier time seeing and work into the problems that they can't quite get themselves to consider.
Francesca Shearer said:I have been telling my husband about the things I read on the internet, and I show him a lot of it. He doesn't really like reading so we watch Countdown with Keith. My husband, Bandy, seems to wake up a little every time we watch. Sometimes he just can't believe the things people do. So thank you for suggesting the videos. That's a great idea. I started reading the SHTF School blog yesterday thanks to the link that Dusty Bottoms posted in her blog. It is very interesting, informative, and scary stuff. I haven't show it to my husband yet. I'm still wondering if I should. He may take it as I am getting ready for TEOTWAWKI, and he would probably be resistant to the idea. I would like to get the hell out of town before TS does HTF. lol. I think for now, I'll start with the less scary and work my way up until he is as ready to get away from town (and be self-reliant) as I am.
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Permalink Reply by MyBackAchers Farm on
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For SURE! Start in Small Bites or its un-digestible. More than 1 bite of info a month is a lot for most people until they seem to get a taste for the truth of what is going on around them.
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