Living - Priorities and Choices

In my brief and limited experience I have come to the conclusion that there are some people who just have to "do" stuff they cannot help themselves and I count myself in that camp.  Lets just say I like to be occupied, like to be doing something new, like to make stuff for the pantry as well as crafting stuff and making stuff for my home, gardening etc. etc.

I am old fashioned, getting decidely wrinklier as the years go on but it seems to me that the old ways of doing things for the best part work still. It is just that most of us are shorter on time than we used to be and we seek solutions for maximising our time but at what cost?

We have so many choices these days and I often feel that we have too many choices which results in us making mistakes when it comes to priorities.  I like nice things I am the first to admit to this but my priorities are a very different kettle of fish.

I was taught from an early age that there were some main priorities that would always be standard and required and that these were the main priorities for future life and the better we could deal with these, the better our quality of life would be.  In real terms we all have different abilities and are not always competent managers and some of us (I mean me here) have to learn from our mistakes.  Sometimes that is the only way to really learn, find your way around things and know your parameters.

The Priorities are:

A roof over your head.  Whether that be your own home with land or rented accommodation. 

Heating/Cooking source.  You need to keep warm and you need to have somewhere to cook.

Water and Food in your belly. Either grow your own or access shops and take advantage of bargains in order to feed your family.

Provide for the rainy day.  Whether that be by way of putting pennies into an emergency pot or whether by making jams, chutneys, canning or bottling, meat curing or using the wild larder to provide seasonal ingredients. 

Providing for your own larder and squirrelling away different foods and products means that you and your family will eat well and richly especially during the winter months. This is you taking responsibility for feeding yourself and your family rather than relying on "supermarkets".  Whether you put food down in the freezer, dehydrate it, make jams, curds, jellies, pickles, chutneys it is a way of providing a meal for tomorrow and I do not know about you, but I am always grateful for my next meal.. I also tend to buy ingredients and try and make the most of them.  I buy what we use.  On the odd occasion we have tried a few new things - some have stayed and some have never been bought again.  

A lot of people screech in horror when I tell them that I buy a sack of potatoes (a large sack) and roughly speaking I work through this in about six to eight weeks.  I also buy a net of onions, and a tray of eggs (30 eggs).  People say well I would not use that up but my philosophy is that you would.  I don't waste anything and if ingredients will not get used up straight away either because of time constraints or because we have not eaten as much as we would do normally it goes into the freezer whether that be turned into something else or just prepared in meal portions.  Eggs get frozen too and then come out for cake baking.  Ingredients are vital resources and I hate waste.

In real and practical terms sometimes a source of food may come by way of another avenue.  Say for instance you know  someone who has a rabbit problem that they want solving (i.e. you have a shot gun - they do not) and you end up with free meat or a sharing of meat as a result. He gets rid of the rabbits you get some meat what I call a "win-win" situation.

Bartering with a neighbour in an exchange of skills or the exchange of something physical.  At the end of the day if we can help each other get by without money having to change hands then so much the better.  This is the country way of dealing with things.

Do things yourself where you can.  Sometimes it is a learning curve a very steep one but it is the cheapest way of achieving things.

To have a dream of the way you want to live and where you want to live.  If you have the land you can create and live by those standards which are important to you and where you do not have to compromise.

At the end of the day we can all do something  to make our lives more comfortable and sustainable and in many respects richer.  Home made produce is often superior to that made for the supermarkets because it has that extra element i.e. it is made with lots of love.  If you have also grown it from scratch then that is even more love and a sense of achievement which you build on year in and year out.

However for me, my main priority is keeping the family fed with what I can and where I can.  In reality where I live and where I am at the moment, I do not have much gardening space and I cannot produce what I would like to produce which means that I have to take advantage of whatever comes my way.  Whether that source is a supermarket, a veg shop, a farmer's market, a fruit farm as long as you are getting a bargain and that the product is something that your family will eat and it will not be wasted then it is something to be taken advantage of.

Even if you only do a little bit i.e. growing your own lettuce or mixed leaves in garden planters, means you can go pick what you need without wasting any.  I grow pea shoots for use in cooking in this way, using dried peas from a pack on the supermarket shelf.  It is good to mix in with salad leaves and also as a good garnish for soup.

We have to live and work within the realms of our own real world and make the best of what comes our way, but we do need a clear idea of our priorities and our requirements.  In reality sometimes we cannot to start with do what we actually want to do and we need to work at it little by little until we do get there and you will.  Sometimes things take time to achieve but the more stable the sub-structure of your foundations the more solid they will hold.

As my dear Nan used to say if you have a roof over your head, water and food and some heat you can live like a king or queen and anything else is a blessing.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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