Northern Farmer

Every morning I wake up between four thirty AM and five AM. On the average about quarter to five. First thing I do is turn on a small thirteen inch TV with rabbit ears in the kitchen and watch the news to see if the world ended overnight or something nearly as important. So far it’s still here so I never had the opportunity to crawl back to bed for another couple of hours. This is the only TV that I ever watch, and I’ll shut it off around five thirty AM. That’s it for another day of television. Lately it’s getting somewhat amusing watching the news, and it’s more fun watching the business news. This morning again, “price of a barrel of oil at new record high”. Sometimes I wonder is anyone listening or watching or reading. Because it sure doesn’t seem to be slowing anyone down a bit. Maybe it’s just a select few whom are noticing and taking action. And this farm family is one of them.

The last few days we have been taking a proactive approach in our clan. The goal is to make this farm energy independant in ten years. The reason for this date is to carefully carry out this goal. Also understand we’re not rookies at some of this. We don’t want to make to many costly blunders. Also right from the start there will be huge cuts and savings. On the news the “moderns” think the government will solve all problems, and if they can’t they’ll vote for the other political party and they will surely solve everything and we can all live the American way and consume and waste and live any perverted way we darn well want. My opinion is that the government as we have it now, overrun with failed business men and women who sell themselves for money, (prostitutes if you don’t mind), are not going to solve any problems myself and my family faces. We must do it on our own.

The last few days we’ve cut our projected energy usage almost 35% right off the bat. It will involve more wood, different tilling, better use of equiptment, and last but not least one that started today, walking. There will be a number of huge changes as time goes by to reach the other 65%. This is getting very interesting when I figure where the energy money goes and I have always been in the habit of hopping in the pickup for the smallest distances around the farm. Today I started out walking around. I only used the truck to go to a pasture two miles away. The rest was just hoofing it. Feels different. Oh yeh, I can feel it in my bones this evening but it’s a good feeling. And we saved a few dollars today as a result and all the work got done on schedual. A few dollars a day, and it sure doesn’t take hardly any driving to cost a few dollars, you know it adds up big over a short period of time. Some might wonder, what about during blizzards or extreme cold spells? That’s no problem because during those times I’ve always walked. Truck won’t start or can’t get through the snow anyhow. I’m always trudging around during blizzards. As time goes on I’ll post about some of the changes as they come and share the info in case any would help anyone else.

Another thing I rediscovered today walking around is that it’s peaceful. You know, this energy thing isn’t so bad.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.