Gone Country needs preparations

You can not just pick up and start living there as gone country needs preparations. There are some people that have a gift for writing. Patrice Lewis is certainly one of them. Evidently she can give quite the speech as well as I enjoyed reading the text of her speech.

I really liked one of her first points that in order to survive long term you need a homestead. These are the types of places that settled America. We transitioned away from a agrarian lifestyle, but it has added complications. We now run around on increasingly over whelming schedules and wonder where time went.

One would not think of a homestead as being a respite from the busy schedules. There is always something to do around a homestead, but it is a different type of work. A lot of times it can be done with family and it is an entirely different type of work as you will reap the benefits later.

One of the benefits of a successful homestead is little or no debt. It makes it very hard to be successful if you are carrying a high level of debt. There is a reason that people with high levels of debt are slave to the master. Just think of how many people still had gardens and livestock during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The numbers are way down compared to that now. We have become more dependent as a whole versus the independent homesteading folks of the past.

One of the other critical things of the past that was changed by the Great Depression is the dependence on water. One of the key points for any homestead is availability of water. That used to be one of the primary factors. The proliferation of reservoirs has changed the settlement habits. There will be a correction as the water use is unsustainable at best and in severe jeopardy if the power goes out.

I think before you do it gone country needs reparations, but I also know that there is not better place to be. A place where there tends to be the right type of things, living a way that God intended, and a community that is matched by none. The American dream use to be a self sustaining homestead. There is a reason that fierce stubborn independent people thrived.