Lovin Off the Land

VermontCathy

Matt and Danielle decided to eat only what they grew, harvested, caught, or raised for a full year. Everything from fish, shrimp, and other seafood, to vegetables, fruit, herbs, and spices, to foraged mushrooms, berries, nuts, and seaweed, to laying hens, chickens, and turkeys for eggs and meat, to raising bees for honey.

They mention using traces of other things, such as a small amount of flour, but seem to have been pretty strict.

They live on a coastline in a mild zone 9 climate, which makes it a little easier, but it's still an impressive feat. (I think this would be extremely difficult in Vermont!)

14 minute summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxIwtHbrHIQ

Their channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/lovinofftheland

jowitt.europe

@VermontCathy Thank you for sharing. I find it fascinating. I would love such a challenge, but my husband is not so advantageous. Of course Matt and Danielle have an advantage of the climate conditions and being by the ocean. If I went into such a challenge, I might have to include barter exchanges with someone growing what I do not have. I see such a potential in what they are doing!

COWLOVINGIRL

@VermontCathy Thank you so much for sharing! I really want to do something like this someday!

VermontCathy

@jowitt.europe My husband would never go for this either. He won't even let me expand the garden or get chickens.

C'est la vie!

judsoncarroll4

I can pretty much do it in the Mountains of NC - folks used to live this way here with no other option. It is easier in warmer, coastal/swamp areas. I have experience with both. Basically, at the coast, food is abundant, clean water is harder to find... and there are a lot more things that will bite you! The only real barriers to adopting such a lifestyle are knowledge and implementation I mean, living off the land on an established homestead is hard work, but not an impossible challenge. If you hit the ground with just a knife and a fire starter or some such "Naked and Afraid" survival scenario, few will make it. Few of my ancestors survived the first year when they came to America. The first generation just survived, barely. It took generations to build houses and towns. Each generation provided the platform for the next. That is certainly an ethic that has been lost. But anyway, I read an article this morning that got me thinking about such things:

https://artofmanliness.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=de21c7d1d490ef67077051042&id=f7fbc7f45e&e=729da0f547

VermontCathy

There is a lot of truth to this.

And what's more, when you get that office job and start trying to work your way up the ladder, there is prejudice *against* those who have non-standard backgrounds.

Even "grew up rural" can be a negative if it means you don't understand sophisticated urban culture.

I read and enjoy the life stories of wanderers like Lin and Larry Pardey. But while it is certainly possible to go cruising the ocean today as they did, the experience won't be the same. The world is more homogeneous than it used to be, and it's much more difficult to escape the global economy and culture.

judsoncarroll4

https://community.thegrownetwork.com/discussion/comment/900201#Comment_900201

I agree. I have a remarkably unconventional background. It seems my only option now is to be self-employed.

Michelle D

@VermontCathy thank you for sharing this. That is the kind of life that my husband as wished for as long as I have known him. It is encouraging to see other people successful doing it. We have a lot to learn before we are ready to live that way. He will be excited when I share this with him.

Ruth Ann Reyes

WOW

Cornelius

This is something that I want to work up to. I think it is awesome! I think that to live like our ancestors did bartering/ trading should also count.