Free-Range Living

 'Prime benefits-------'

 It could be that growing own food could be said to be a 'primary' process, whereas having money to the purchase food is a 'secondary' process. Some people lead lives more 'primary' than 'secondary' - people such as those log cabin residents in Alaska or Canada featured on TV, using useful skills to sort their life needs out, by hunting, fishing, growing, gathering, and the like. They can then experience what might be called 'primary satisfaction' which comes with the territory, and could be also at least partly down to leading life in  a self-responsible, self-sufficient style. Practial work and vocational work can be seen by some to be at a 'lower tier', but then potentially denying those leading non-practical lives the chance of primary-sourced satisfactions - ?

Here on the organic micro-holding (small smallholding) in the UK midlands, the idea is to lead at least a semi-practical life in a partially self-sufficient  manner suited to both the resources available and to the (aged) micro holders themselves, but still with plenty of 'primal' satisfactions available. Growing produce in a 'with nature' method, in tune with the micro-holders feelings, is a key element of the system resulting in fresh vegetables available all the year round - with no air miles attached -and sufficient potatoes for half the year,  onions for the whole year.

Longer-term production ----- 

 The growing process has to follow the crop rotations necessary for organic growing as the system has to be self-sufficient in terms of delivering on-going fertility to the soil, without the possibility of bolstering it by adding chemical fertilisers to it. This means that a mix of 'exhausting' crops such as potatoes, and 'replenishing' crops such as legumes, peas and beans, need to be grown in the right proportions (legume crops 'fix' nitrogen, a plant nutrient, into the soil from out of the air , a bit of magic?) The longer-term benefit of maintaining/increasing health of the soil again offers primary satisfactions.

Additional sources of soil nutrients such as 'green manuring - digging crops specifically grown into the soil  - and of course, organic compost made from veg waste, spent plants, grass cuttings, hedge trimmings and the like, are also integral to the 'micro' organic process of growing. In other words, the waste from the growing operation and the site is then converted into free fertiliser - doesn't sound like a too shabby system, producing in turn then good produce too - ?  Organic growing sytems do tend to produce lower yields of crops, particulary at the farm-scale level, maybe around 20% lower, to be offset though by significantly lower crop input costs, particularly fertiliser and spray costs, and too longer-term benefits, such as the claimed better long-term health of the soil.

Micro-hold moments ------

At this time of year - end of December - it's a relatively quiet micro-holding period, coinciding with a bit of micro-holder 'semi hibernation' time, which feels sort of 'natural', and no doubt it's not too bad an idea to give both the body, and the mind, a bit of a rest. It's also quite pleasant not to have to go out too much in the winter cold and wet, something that livestock farmers, say upland sheep farmers, have to do. Lowland livestock farmers often have their animals inside under cover in the winter, so can get a bit of an easier ride. There is though, the micro-holding outside job of getting in produce, which at the moment consists of celery, turnips, greens, parsnips and beetroot, all though well worth the effort. Wood from the undercover woodstore has to be brought in daily, as does kindling wood, along with often a small amount of smokeless fuel, particularly if the weather's a bit colder.

Having a non push button heating system relying on a fair amount of human labour tends to make a body somewhat aware of 'primary existence needs' as does fetching in home-grown produce from the veg growing area. Other advantages occur, making the labour effort involved worthwhile. In the case of wood, the winter's supply is obtained and organised through the summer, resulting in full logstore and full 'small' wood bunker at the start of winter, giving a real 'practical' feeling of 'fuel security', emphasised via the physical process of organising it (physical work/activity can be useful to 'counter', say, deskbound time - ?) .

Macro pictures ----- 

Another useful micro-holding benefit is more economic cost, in that the system here runs at around 50% of the average house/cottage yearly energy cost, a pretty useful cost saving. An acquaintance in the next village, a practical man, and a 'cottager', had useful sources of free burning wood supply, resulting in his energy provision costs running at around 20% of average cost, again a very useful cost saving, and with the 'extra' benefit of the 'primal' satisfaction that being involved with basic life needs provision can bring. Modern life, often say, specialised , and busy, may mean folk can miss out then on basic satisfactions that can come with meaningful physical work and producing 'tangible output' - ? Part of the attraction of farmwork, for instance, might well be the 'mixed' style of working life, involving at times both sedentary and physical work? (besides other benefits such as, say, working in, and with, nature ---- ).

Another approach to the topic could be to say, of say, a firm, that its primary function in a society is to supply needed goods and/or services to that society, a sort of truism really in that if the firm doesn't supply goods that are needed, then there'll be no financial return and the firm won't last. As, though, the current common primary objective in business seems to often be to make maximum profits, then this could be labelled a 'secondary' level type of objective. It may still pay firms to employ the primary objective in that if they take their eye of this particular ball, then they might get into proceeding down 'wrong roads' - ?

A UK train firm were taken to task for not running many of their public service trains, causing considerable difficulty to people in terms of, for instance, getting to work. Their 'justification' for cancelling the train services was that they'd worked out that it was cheaper for them to pay the non-run fines than actually putting on the services ------ ??!

Maybe too the wider sort of analysis could be applied to individuals, even though these days the accent does seem to be very much on individual returns/gain, but linking the objective to the wider entity, the society, might yet give the individual the opportunity of 'wider returns' - ?

P had worked 'in industry', but then joined the lecturing staff of a National Higher Education- level college, which at the time was languishing 'bottom of the pile'. New management had recently arrived and that plus useful work from a motivated and dedicated team of academics, then over a period of a few years took the college to the 'top of the pile'. 'It was some achievment', said P, 'and it really felt good to be part of such a productive and successful team, a 2+2=5 type of situation, being a valued part of the 'bigger picture' event', and knowing good work had contributed strongly to the students'.

 Micro satisfactions -------

Being active to a reasonable degree here at the micro-holding brings in a reasonable harvest of practical-sourced prime level satisfactions, and the physical work seems to nicely fit with any mental exertions. It helps to have a bit of a rest, which the current semi-hibernation mid-winter spell provides, as do the daily sessions in the afternoons in the 'retreat' cabin -got to look after the micro-holder, or else the system goes caput ------ It still helps of course that in mid-winter there's the woodstove to 'manually' operate, plus the odd wood sawing event, and when help comes once a month in the form of eldest son, a few physical tasks take place. That the lifestyle can also help in the cause of providing and affording the essential life needs in the face of seemingly ever rising costs , is also a source of some comfort, as is languishing in semi-hibernation style in front of the warming log stove --------