Prepper or Subsistence?
Ever wonder how you are living? Would it be a Prepper…or living a subsistence
lifestyle? Or perhaps something entirely different.
I assume if you found our online journal, you are either
interested in living simply, farm animals, my travel to Amish communities, or
are fascinated with living and working with sled dogs. I’ll try and explain what we are, in the
simplest of terms.
If you look at Webster’s definition, you may not even find
the word “prepper”. But under “prepare”
you will find “to get ready beforehand”. That about says it all.
Under “subsistence”, you will find “means of
subsisting: the minimum (as of food and clothing) necessary to support
life”. Ahhh…yes.
We are in the latter category. Not that we don’t try to prepare for what is
ahead, i.e. firewood, butchering a hog, putting up hay, etc. But for the most part, we are subsistence
folks, living a minimal lifestyle.
Minimalists, as sometimes referred to.
Or on our way to being…
Jesus told us in Matthew 6: 24-34, that we are not to
worry about food and clothing. He will
provide for us. “But we need to seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added
to you. {paraphrase}” Hopefully, you
can take a peek at the scriptures to see the beauty of this passage, and more.
Speaking of my Bible.
I always have it within reach. It
isn’t hard, as our cabin is only 10 x 15.
But I suppose it wouldn’t matter how small our cabin would be if I
didn’t have the desire. I praise God for
that desire…for that hunger. Of His Word.
I also have my Ruger within reach, although it is secondary
as to effectiveness in how to deal with this world. My Bible wins out.
Today as I checked the game trails for last night’s
activity, I pondered on how blessed I am to have the freedom to do so each
morning. It wasn’t always like
this… For years I was plugged in,
working many hours and sometimes multiple jobs to buy the finer things in life. Trinkets, really. Now I find joy in living with less and less,
and seeing the freedom it brings.
I just noticed I wrote the word freedom twice in that
last paragraph. I seem to do that a lot
– refer to my life as being “FREE”.
Freedom comes in many ways. Let
me see if I can share what I mean by this.
As for our lifestyle, we started with 15 acres, and slowly
added more land around us until we were at the number of acres we were
satisfied with owning. 40. Russ built every building on our place, himself,
using recycled materials mostly, until the acquisition of his portable saw
mill. This cabin, the Bear’s Den, on our
“back ten”, was constructed by logs taken from our dog yard, making the way for
a kennel in the earlier years. This is
not the cabin we live in, however it makes a nice “get-a-away” and I enjoy
stopping daily on my walks and smelling the wood smell that only that
cabin can claim.
As for our “main cabin”, in my last post “Deer Camp
Livin’”, I had casually mentioned we were living “mortgage free”. After I posted online, and left the Library
and headed for home (we do not have Internet on our property), I wondered if I
should have done that…shared that bit of information. But then I thought it might give others the
courage to set out and live a life like we do.
(Or a similar life, since our cabin does not have running
water, hence the words “simple life” take on a new meaning when you head
to the outhouse at 2:00 a.m., wondering if that is a black and white rabbit, or something more odorous...also black and white.)
Simply put, we don’t have any mortgage worries, so we don’t
have any PMI worries, nor do we have to worry about regular house insurance payments. Pretty simple. {That’s not to say we don’t have to pay for
the land…}
And, if we were to lose a cabin due to fire or natural (…or
man-made) disaster, we would simply move to another on our property. Would we be as comfortable? Perhaps not, but it would be doable.
You may be thinking…but how would you refurnish all that
you lost? Since Russ makes most of
our rustic furniture, he would simply replace what we need.
Everything…is just stuff. Truly, our treasure is in heaven. The Lord tells us so. Once a person truly feels that, it is easy to
let go.
For several years, we thought we would opt out of having a
vehicle also, but in training our horses, we found it wasn’t going to be a
solution for us.
Side bar: My Amish friends smile and shake their head at my fear of horse travel, as I'm always refusing to ride along with
them, opting for meeting them at our destination by my own mode of travel - my 2002 Ford
Ranger truck tooling down the road.
Here is another way to cut expenses, and bring more freedom
to your life. For years, we have only
had one vehicle. That
means one insurance payment – and one
registration/plate/license cost that hits us as a yearly "birthday present". For us, we prefer an older vehicle, with
fewer “bells and whistles”.
Another way to access freedom is to have one phone (we do not own a
smart phone) per family.
Yes, only one. One bill – ours is
less than $40 per month. More on that
later…
I know this may sound peculiar to some folks, but the
freedom it gives to be beholden to less, is intoxicating. The more you do it, the more you will find it
to your liking. And the more creative you will become in doing so.
I had to laugh as I opened a bag of feed this morning and
saved the string. I “pooh pooh’ed” my
husband for doing this years ago, but since I’ve been reading about what it was
like in war time, such as in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, it makes sense to be “ready”.
Perhaps we are “preppers” after all…
I’ll go into more depth next time.
Until then, Lord willing,
Sherry
P.S. No...no turkey for me. May came and went... Next time... {Is that a smile I see on his face?@!}
P.S.S. Our two hens
hatched out 14 chickens. One hatched 4,
and the other 10. This bump adds
significantly to our original 9 hens with one rooster. Needless to say, with the worry about Avian
Flu coming to Michigan, we will keep our flock closed, as we do not need to
acquire any further chickens for our use.
P.S.S.S. I’ll update
soon about the Amish Auction I attended a couple weeks ago. My Amish friends attended for the first time,
as did my “farm friend” who graciously drove us all so we could experience more
comfort and leg room. Thank you Heather!
