The Whole purpose to being a Self-Sufficientist

From an amatures' perspective:

Being Self-Sufficient is more than just living off of the land. It's enjoying the hard work at the end of the day, the end of the harvest or the end of the hunt.

The whole purpose to being Self-Sufficient is to reward your stomach with hormone free produce and livestock that is unadultrated by the stress which comes with the territory of produce and livestock that is prepared for market.

Some people take it to a whole nother level. They are absolutely vegan and will not think twice of slaughtering an animal for food. Although I have respect for their stance against eating meat. I however, am a Complete Carnivore that relishes in the delights of cooking particularly barbecuing, grilling and smoking meats.

For me this is my joy from the Field to the fire Pit, I would not want to enjoy it any other way. My Plan is to start off small and learn as I go. I believe in recycling. For 15 months in a combat enviroment I lived in a tent in the desert and we had to utilize anything and everything to make our little space comfortable. I hope that I am not going to turn into some old denim wearing vet with patches of every engagement and hording everything I find and never letting go. I hope I do not turn out like that. So I am being careful.

My chicken Coop is made up of a dog house that my neighbor was going to throw away and all I did was screen off the front and add a roof. The back has a metal sloped roof that can be opened so I can collect eggs and place feed in there. I don't think I would have thought of these things had I not been forced to look at life through a survivalist eye.

But needless to say I am moving in a different direction from the rest of the world, and hopefully my journey leads me to have a much better appreciation for things grown, prepared and killed by my hands. To me this is what being a Self-Sufficientist is about.