Where to Start?

The title of this post says it all. I don't know how/where to start a blog...also I don't know how to start the kind of life I want to lead. Let's start with me. I'm an average white male in my late twenties living in central Michigan. I like music (playing and listening), books, writing, hiking, camping, hunting, fishing and a plethora of other activities.

What do I not like? Working my hind end off 40 hours a week at a job I hate, in order get money to buy things that - if I didn't spend all my time working for money - I could be producing myself. Kind of a catch twenty-two right? You need the money to get going, but can't find the time to get going because you work too much. Whew. It's exhausting and an emotionally draining even to think about it. But I'm getting the cart in front of the horse here.

The other major player is my girlfriend (I hate that term! Partner or lifemate would be better.) Becky. She is in her mid-twenties, beautiful, and looking for the same sort of lifestyle that I am. She enjoys many of the same activities that I do and she is also a wonderful botanist, which is helpful if you are trying to grow your own food.

Did I mention that yet? Growing our own food and getting away from (as much as is possible) the centralized mega-food system is the main goal here. But here looms the big scary question....How do you do it? Just going for broke, buying an old farm and diving in seems like suicide to me. My romantic and idealistic heart loves the idea, just cut the cord, quit my job and buy a small place with our savings.

But what happens for the first several months before anything grows? What happens if nothing grows? What if we can't effectively store what we produce for the winter? Even if we can feed ourselves, what do we do for money for land taxes and car insurance, health insurance, savings for "retirement"? These and a thousand other questions plague our minds as we try to think of a way to get out from under the iron umbrella of industrialized America.

I think a lot of people are discouraged by the same questions we have. Trying to plan a massive lifestyle change and to look into that future for some idea of what to expect is like looking into the blackest moonless night and straining to see some light. All we see are fireflies, a few scattered ones winking on and off, hopeful points of light, but certainly the big bright light is still veiled. We decided to change our lifestyle one bit at a time, to do on a small scale now what we hope to do on a large scale later. In following posts I will explain where we started, where we are now, and where we hope to end up. As I figure out how to use this program more effectively I will try to start adding relevant photos. Thanks for reading!