Hi All,
I wanted to start this thread to document our adventures in attempted self sufficiency. I have asked a few specific questions on this forum during my time here, about various self-sufficiency topics, and I often come up against the "You may as well buy it in" arguments... Whilst it's certainly easier, and perhaps even cheaper to buy things in, it's certainly not self sufficient, and it often comes with a heavy carbon/fuel/societal debt.
Our "to do" list of self-sufficient requirements is going to grow over time no doubt, but these are the things we're thinking about at the moment:
Winter sheep feed - roots? rolled/bruised oats/barley? re-seed for more nutritious hay?
Pig feed - as above, both growers and sow food
Natural gas for cooking - bio digester?
Heating & Hot water (batch-log burner already quoted, and coppice to be planted this winter)
Electricity -1st stage is to install solar PV on the roof of the new barn, compliment with turbine?
Booze - orchard to be planted whenever we can afford the trees, barley for animal feed could possibly be malted for beer? sloping 2.5 acre south-facing field could be turned over to grapes (nyetimer being the target)
Food for people - sheep, pigs, chooks, veg beds, polytunnel, some sort of ground-working help required... ransomes crawler perhaps? Storage and preservation for above also needs work.
Water - on site well.
There are a few things which are going to take a very very long time to figure out - tractor power, etc... but if we get to a point where we have minized diesel usage to a very small number of days per year, that may be as good as it gets. It should, at that point, be easy enough to map on a theorectical bio-fuel or heavy-horse solution.
I'll post updates as they come, and welcome comments/suggestions/etc