I had mentioned a while back to some gals I was talking to that I make homemade soap. And the question arose, as it often does when I describe our ways of living, "Why?" My answer was, of course, that we are trying to live as self-sufficiently as we can. Later that evening, as I was showering with a bar of soap from my favorite soap recipe, it occured to me that my making soap has nothing at all to do with trying to live self-sufficiently, and was, in fact, the opposite! You see, I do not raise pigs and so I do not produce my own lard; I do not have an olive tree from which I can press my own oil; I do not produce any of my own fats or oils, in fact; and I have never even attempted to draw my own lye from wood ash. So I go from store to store hunting down all the proper ingredients (and use gas to get from place to place). I stood there in the shower, soap in hand, thinking there is nothing at all resebling self-sufficiency in this bar of soap! Sure, it is a good quality soap, but it is more hassle to get and more expensive as well, since I never spend more than a dollar a bar for my commercially produced, not-so-natural soap. I then had to really think about what other areas in my "self-sufficiency" am I not really being that self-sufficient! And so, as I'm spring cleaning my home and yard, I find myself in a spring cleaning of the ways I try to live self-sufficiently. It's time to weed out those things that are not bringing more benefit than their worth, or that are more taxing on the pocket book when I could be using the same amount of money in a way that lends itself to true self-sufficiency. Now, if I could turn my soap into a cash crop, it just might find it's way back into self-sufficiency 
Happy Trails! |
