What the hell did you do

Let me get this ball started. Im not going to tell you folks what I accomplished this year because it might make people think its a competition and want to give up. Ill save that for another post labelled "C5 year in review". It was a very depressing year for me. A couple of key goals didn't happen...outside of my control. I felt like I lost ground. I felt spent. I spent to much time on the computer. Too much time trying to distract myself. So I asked myself, how can I justify my last year and I started to re-evaluate each thing I had done....And Holy Shit Snacks, Did I ever accomplish ALOT. That is what motivated this post. An honest evaluation.

So onto goals. My main goal for next year- I need my own web page. Not necessarily mine but a page to help advertise my prepper community that I can direct people to. Something that tells people what to expect here if they are shopping around for an intentional community. A place where some of our community members can share about themselves so new people can get to know them and see if they want to join them. I am a computer light weight, just short of luddite so this will be a challenge to me. Luckily I have friends to help. This will really help me limit my typing time in communicating with new people asking about moving to our property. Instead of individual notes, I can send them there and they can see if that is what they want. It will be less of an emotional roller coaster for me. Perhaps We can attach income streams to posts and articles. Its doable and a start. Don't worry. I wont leave IPN out of it....and I want to do a traditional woven willow fence surrounding my solar panels so I can move the pigs into it to till it into new garden space. It will present a new vision to our house when people aproach. Something Old. Something New.

One more. I have to learn to "True" warped bicycle wheels buy adjusting the spokes. All this time around bikes and I have avoided learning that. I have to get that down.
I wish I had someone to teach me that properly...but I think I just have to torcher myself figuring it out on my own. I can here Red Green in my head, "I'm a man...but I can change...if I have to...I guess."

No takers yet. Let me help by mentioning something positive we achieved in 2015. It came without fan fair. There was no profound triumphant peak moment in it. Just a simple moment of acknowledgment, That I had achieved the potential of self sufficiency. It happened in the fall when I was loading apples and pumpkins into the greenhouse to protect them from frost. I thought of writing about that moment but never got around to it. I realised my knowledge had increased to the point that we could successfully transition if no more outside input was added. We had successfully gotten through "The Learning Curve". If our savings and pension was wiped out in a Bank Bail in, If social services were unfunded, if oil and other resources became unavailable or unaffordable, If we never found another paying job again for the rest of our lives...We have all the basics down!
We know what we can reasonably produce and how much effort it will take. We are psychologically adapted to this transition. As in, It wont mess us up. We have built the necessary resiliency. Example. When the batteries for our solar system finally die...and we can no longer replace them, transitioning to a life without electricity is something we can handle. I have a basic idea of what my land can reasonably produce, what needs to be harvested when, how and how much (A lot more that I original pictured). We have got food production and preservation down. Its minimums have all been accomplished. Necessary purchases have been made. Anything else, we can do without. We have built the necessary social connection that have skills we don't as well as the necessary social input.

So 2015 was the year we reached all the minimums. Knowledge, Stuff and Experience.
As of 2016, we move on from there. From The minimum to sustain life indefinitely...and onto abundance. More people, better skills, More diverse Experience. Increasing the Quality of that self sustainment.

I may even go back to work because work wont be a distraction from getting those minimum things learned and built. The minimum is done so I can now move on to something else. Hurray!