Tag: mishelle shepard

It’s been a busy few weeks processing all those pears—I canned over 30 jars of them, we’ve got 15 gallons of pear wine brewing and 9 jars of pear-ginger marmalade. I also harvested our first honey, a whopping 4.5 pints!

(I consider leaving out this part where I admit I did not mean to harvest so much, but I made the novice mistake of lifting out a bar full of capped honeycomb, which in a topbar hive should not be done in high heat, because the comb can pull right off the bar and fall into the hive, which is exactly what happened.  It then smashed onto the neighboring comb, killed lots of bees, and meant I had to then harvest two combs and pull out dead bees with tweezers.  Not my finest hour.)

Also, we’ve had another agoristic experience I’m happy to report: 3 wild hogs from a friend traded for a half-dozen dressed ducks. No cash exchanged, that means no cash to line the banksters’ pockets or to pay for more illegal wars. I love the idea of agorism, it makes so much sense to me. But, like with all things, the theory is always easier to come to than the practice.

In fact, I could have several more occasions for bartering if I felt more comfortable simply asking.  We had a dump truck load of mulch delivered, the perfect missed opportunity.   There are many skills involved that require me to up my game and learn things I’ve spent my life avoiding, because I’ve never liked doing them–like marketing, networking, various other entrepreneurial-type skills. I’ve never been that comfortable or concerned with money and I automatically zone out whenever numbers come up. New challenges pop up over the simplest things that hadn’t much occurred to me before, like how to assign value to things or services. What is a dressed duck worth compared to an undressed hog? This is a question a suburban girl never expects to ponder in her lifetime.

Also problematic is distance. I see that bartering sites are popping up quite a bit now in urban areas and folks are exchanging even more now using old standbys like Craigslist. But Austin, Dallas, and Houston are all about a 3-hour drive one way, which make regular trips there un-economical and far too time-consuming.  While I’m thrilled to see how popular bartering is becoming, it’s not a decent short-term solution for us.

Now that I’m pleasantly and perhaps permanently unemployed I like the idea of trying to find other ways to exchange and earn that wouldn’t set us back so far that Handy Hubby would give up the plan of an early retirement. That’s our five-year plan. We don’t want to start a business, not in the traditional sense anyway. We like the simple, uncomplicated sort of life; we’ve adjusted to it now. I think it was once referred to as “subsistence farming,” maybe even without the negative connotation. That’s another concept I never expected to ponder in my lifetime.

I guess the criticism from a reader that I am a neo-luddite was valid after all.  I’ve changed in our nearly seven years here.  Our paradigm has shifted.  Cities are too crowded, even social media is too crowded.  I hate to think the only option for selling our surplus would be to go back into the matrix and try to navigate the (meta)physical marketplace.  Not that I don’t appreciate it now and again, but I’d much rather go for inspiration than labor.

Such thinking of short-term solutions led me to surf the dark web, to research the black and gray markets. It was a very educational journey full of potentialities. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you about that here.

I’d love to hear from y’all–your links, ideas, thoughts, ramblings, all welcome, both practice and theory!

🙂

Our first honey harvest was an accidental success, I learned so much about what not to do!

Of course it’s Handy Hubby who does the real heavy lifting.  I’m one lucky unemployed redneck wannabe!

A workable slogan.  First word practically unknown, the next totally misused, and the latter too often hastily employed, or far too often not at all.

In brief agorism is a worldview or philosophy that requires anarchy and action to function.  Here anarchy is defined simply as a counter-force to State power. State is capitalized because it means the over-arching control grid manifested through coercive government.

Action, even wrong action, is preferable to no action.  The current coercive State relies on the affluence, self-indulgence and complacency of its citizenry.  The bread and circus are provided expressly to keep you from complaining about how you’re being ruled, to what end, and by whom.

It is our effort to get off both the proverbial Western couch and Eastern cushion.  The beige matters, the survival efforts engender peace of mind.  No, it’s not exciting, not anymore.  At one time, five years or so ago, I felt pretty powerful digging my first garden plot, with the help of only Handy Hubby and a wheelbarrow and shovel.  Shoveling poultry manure and plucking feathers have long lost their short-lived novelty.

I noticed on one site large duck eggs going for $10 a dozen, we’re feeding our surplus to the dogs.  Bless their hearts, we do love to spoil them, but wow.  Just for the record, I also make a fabulous duck paté, which I enjoy with a mild pepper jelly and homemade sourdough bread.

By far the best part about homesteading for us is, we eat like royalty.  Yeah, we don’t have the servants to show for it, but it’s still worth it!

It was a new word to me too, but one I learned is the oldest and simplest of concepts: bartering. I’ve looked more deeply into it–into the origins of the term and the philosophy and politics of it–and I suppose one of these days I’ll write more about it all.

For now, I’m thinking only one thing: We have surplus sometimes. I’ve been giving it away and usually happily so. Occasionally we find an opportunity to trade, but it’s relatively rare. Most often the surplus we can’t give away goes to the poultry and the dogs, also happily, but less so.

One year I took it to the local Food Bank, nearly an hour round-trip, thinking I was doing a good deed for the community. After one particular drop-off I remained in the parking lot for some time engaged on the phone. I watched as several people in vehicles far finer than mine strolled into the building and back out again with my hard-won, organically-produced fresh vegetables. Another avid gardener said she overheard complaints from patrons of the Food Bank that those vegetables are useless since they don’t know how to cook them, and they often take them just for show, along with their preferred items, only to throw them out at home. After that, I changed my mind I was performing any real social benefit. I doubt that supporting the poor choices of the so-called poor is a good idea, sustainably-speaking. If one can afford to drive an SUV, one can surely afford to pay for one’s produce. Otherwise, let them eat Ding-Dongs.

Agorism, otherwise known as bartering, solves our immediate practical problem of surplus, and while all the accompanied philosophy and politics are important to me, they are not as important as this. I’m reminded of one excellent quote on the topic, and that’s as political as I’ll get this post, I promise.