Lets Get Back to Basics - I Challenge You.

Although the things that are happening in the world right now are not really unexpected.... I am not ready. Both in regard to both my mental and physical preparations I look around me and send a plea to anything that can hear me "Please, just give me a bit more time.. you know till the end of the year... 5 years would be great so we don't have the loan".

Unfortunately these things don't come on our schedule and that is why I have been working toward knowing what I need to know... even though I really thought that I would get more time.. more warning... more well, uh... I don't know, but more.

Of course there is a part of me kicking and screaming at the injustices of it all but when I breath and really look at things I am lucky. I still have most of my "illusion of control", at the moment, and I still have so many choices that I can make to ensure that I will be an active and productive part of any community.

The fear surrounding the current global situation is trying to do my head in. I can't control what the stock market, the banks, the housing market or anything else at the National or International level does but I can control my household and the links we have to the community.

This year was my proclaimed Year of the Community but various things have happened that forced reality to be more about stamping out fires at home so I decided I really need to focus. I need some structure and I need to be doing it along side a group of people that think these things are important too.

To make things easier for me I already had an idea which was sparked by Sharon Astyk's Independence Days Challenge. When I first saw this challenge around the middle of Autumn I thought it was a great idea to keep you focused and on track going through the Spring/Summer Season. Of course I could have joined as I was running a Winter garden but it was probably just going to cause me frustration so I decided sanity was more important than participation.

Every time the Independence Days updates came through I thoroughly read other peoples achievements I saw people methodically getting things done in the high season... so they can eat well in the low season. They were focused on a worthwhile goal and slowly chipping away until they got there and most of them achieved a phenomenal amount. Just as importantly they were keeping records. It was so wonderful to see and in the end I wrote to Sharon and asked if she would mind me running a slightly different version here for the Spring/Summer Season. I am so excited about the fact that she agreed to let me use her premise to create the Back to Basics Challenge.

The Back to Basics Challenge for those who choose to accept is to report weekly or fortnightly on either their blog or in comments here on the topics of

• Sowing seed or Planting

• Planning for The Future - meal planning, the next seasons garden plan, working out storage plans or more long term goals and projects like plans for digging root cellars
  
• Working for the Future - storing food, managing stores, preserving, building that home made cob or solar oven, adding house insulation, saving for manual grain mills etc
• Building Community - volunteering, donations, joining an existing community group, forming your own community group, taking a cake to a friend having a hard time, calling someone you just let drift out of your life, etc
  
• Learn a new Skill

Anyone Feel Like Joining Me?

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