Hello,
I’ve been thinking a little about blogging lately. Just to share thoughts and perhaps help others who may resonate with the sorts of things my family is laboring on. We left the city in 2012 and moved to the country to start a “back to the earth” type of life. Our first move was onto about 5 acres of land in a wet climate. We spent about 8 years there and then moved onto my parents’ property in a more arid climate. All of this has been a fun, challenging, and educational experience to say the least. Through all of this we have learned much and I’ve been practicing writing quite a bit over the years. I don’t claim to be all that great, but it’s much more readable than some years back. My intent through this is a creative release of sorts and to potentially share some ideas with others. My former self had to struggle quite a bit through a lot of concepts and my hope is that some of my own struggles can help speed the process up for others. If this reaches even just one person that I do not know and it helps them apply some of these concepts it will be worthwhile.
I plan on sharing ideas on many topics. One thing we have been laboring on quite a bit the last four or so years is alternative house building. We have hands-on experience with cob, straw bale, earth bag, and stick frame with rough sawn lumber. We hope to explore some other methods later on and continue enhancing the skills we’ve developed on the methods we have already applied. If I continue this blog I’ll share ideas through the experiences. Other topics include tech privacy, solar systems for off-grid living, simple solutions for housing and all that involves homesteading. We have sheep, milk cows, chickens, turkeys, dogs, and a cat right now. We hope to add donkeys soon for riding and cart pulling.
I have a couple longer write-ups already prepared that I will share soon. One is on privacy tech and how to apply solutions in that realm, and another is on the basics of solar systems for the off-grid home and/or shop. The solar one is not quite done, it might be another month or so till I share it. There are a couple things I’m finishing up on our own solar system that I want to make sure I have understood and get it working well before I wrap that up.
Regenerative agriculture is another topic dear to me. There are many great solutions for food security, healing ecosystems, and true sustainability within the concepts of regenerative agriculture. My wife and I have studied many ideas in this vast field and have been applying concepts through the years. So this might be something that is brought up as well.
Other topics I enjoy exploring are scripture, religion, and spirituality. Earlier in life I was religious and ended up sharing my faith as a Christian missionary. I lost my faith for a time and became an agnostic but remained spiritually minded. As time has gone on I’ve gained convictions on our Messiah from the New Testament and will likely share ideas on this from time to time. I love scriptures and might delve into that here with you all. If you are agnostic, atheist, or of another faith I hope you stick around through any of this. Feel free to skip posts on these topics if you lack interest. You may come to the same place I did after my agnostic and secular bout in life and might like those posts later on if you are in a different state of mind.
Another topic that might offend some are my political and government views. I may delve into topics tied to voluntaryism and panarchy. Earlier in life I was a conservative republican, but I started seeing the wars around the world as corrupt and decided to investigate. As I explored many political ideas and events through my life involving governments I became politically agnostic. I now believe the most correct form of governance is a voluntary one. I believe this is how God deals with us, and how we are to deal one with another. As a Christian our Messiah is my King, and I have no other kings before Him. So as such I do not engage in the politics of man (such as voting) or believe that any nation has a claim over me, I am a citizen of Heaven not of a kingdom of man. However as a voluntaryist I believe you can be part of any governance system you desire to be. Also the NAP (non-aggression principle) is an important part to a voluntary society. I believe it to be wrong for any person or group to act in violence and act with aggression toward one another for anything other than self-defense. And I believe Christians are to live the higher laws our Messiah taught. We aren’t to resist evil, we cannot return evil for evil, we are to turn the other cheek. Only goodness, truth, and light can conquer misery, lies, and darkness. I hope for more people to come to these ideas and join in with the Kingdom Heaven. I believe this is what has been desired for humanity from the beginning. And if we follow the laws of Heaven a new and amazing society can blossom around us. We can disengage from the coercive and violent kingdoms of men and instead follow the higher laws in scripture. So I may from time to time share ideas on this and maybe in time more people will come to agree.
I was not a reader for the majority of my life. I believe school made me hate it. But I have started reading quite a bit over the last six or so years and now love it. I may share ideas on books I read just for fun. I read much more over the winter when I’m cooped up inside. During the good weather it’s hard to have as much time for that. On the topic of school I believe that should also be a voluntary action for each individual. My wife and I do not force education on our children and are against the education industrial complex. So that is another topic that might be brought up from time to time. We discovered the ideas of “unschooling” while our first two children were young, before we were about to put them in school, and we have explored and practiced that concept throughout our parenting. We have two adult children who are off enjoying the world. They were educated by self direction under no duress and threats and they never went to school while living at home. One of them is now going to school for a trade to get his journeyman while working in the field. He finds the school very easy and might push into more advanced certificates to help challenge himself more. He enjoys working with his hands and the many different situations he’s put in while on the job gives him some satisfying challenges. Our adult daughter is enjoying travel and working various seasonal jobs. She’s a social butterfly and so far does not like to stay in the same situation for too long. Both are intelligent, independent, creative and self motivated in many ways. We have younger children at home and we are continuing in the same way with a voluntary education. We bring them into as many things as they desire to join in on on the homestead.
I believe that humanity is missing out in this modern society. We aren’t made for constant electrical connection, constant surveillance, and mindless entertainment. We aren’t made to do just one thing our whole life as a cog in a wheel in a career. I don’t believe our modern society to be healthy in any way. We overall are made for interaction with nature, soil, animals, physical labor, and real food. As my family has gone from busy city folk to the slower homestead life things have been amazing overall. It is so nice to have such a variety of things to do throughout the year. The homestead life provides a wide assortment of things to do and no two homesteads are the same. You can tailor your homestead to your own hobbies, desires, wants, and needs. I believe this homesteading life is much more in tune with humanity’s roots, an atmosphere that soothes the soul. I hope to share some of our journey with whoever has any interest.
I really have no idea how active I’ll be on this. Sometimes I have time and ideas to write a lot, and sometimes not so much. I will not disclose personal identifying information to the best of my ability. I desire to remain anonymous, If I share this with friends or family I’ll ask them to keep me unidentified. I appreciate being left alone overall and think privacy is a fundamental need for many (including myself). I’ve picked three blog platforms to post on. I may settle in and drop one or two, but I don’t know which one to pick – so I’ll just try them all. At the bottom of each post I’ll share the link to all three. They will all be repeats of the same posts. The reason for this is for you to pick your favorite format. Or if I drop one and you liked it, you can hop onto the active one. Another reason is an attempt to cross promote each of these decent platforms, cause I think they are great alternative solutions to the big tech blog platforms. If any of these change their policies to the point that I dislike it I will disengage and close the account. I hope more privacy-minded platforms start proliferating over the internet. It would be nice if we can slowly handicap the power hungry and invasive corporations by a simple voluntary boycott. I’ll soon share a write-up on how to secure your tech to become more private if you desire such a thing.
Have a lovely day!