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My real life up to now

Living and raising a family in our turbulant times- short story
becca4656

It all started 10 years ago. I was a single mom looking for my first home. We found some nice property outside of Houston to build a house, have a garden and a few goats for my son. My family grew over time and the economy tanked. I was let go from my job in oil exploration when the US ban on oil exploration forced many of the industry to move over seas. I was happy here in teh US and decided to stay.

We had always planned to be off the grid, but it was more of a goal or a joke, not the necessity it is now. We had gotten our solar panel roof before the energy crisis and later added 1 wind turbine. It is enough to power our needs, if we're careful. We don't often have to draw off the grid, which minimized our impact from the power fluctuations that many others experience on a daily basis. But our panels are getting old, so we are looking to replace them. We're gong to have to look on the black market as we just can't afford the $100,000 for new panels as well as getting on the 10 year waiting list. We're also thinking about getting another wind turbine, but that's tricky, as we almost lost the one we have in the last hurricane. The storms are coming to far inland for my comfort these days.

Our little family garden has become a major source of food. The climate here is good enough that we can get 2 to 3 crops in a year. It was never intended to be used as a real source of daily food, but I can't spend a months salary on groceries. Flooding whipped out many of the corn and grain crops up north this year, tropical weather damaged many of the fruit crops along the coastal areas, and rising fuel costs have pushed the prices through the roof. We already had someone raid our orchard last week, picked one of the apple trees clean. We've taken to guarding the property at night as the harvest is getting close. I really don't want to shoot any one, but feeding my family comes first.  The community gets whats left.

And those few goats and chickens we started with!  Well we have 50 goats and 30 chickens now. You see, being city folk, we didn't know to separate the males and females all the time. It was an honest mistake, but we're glad for it now. We have a steady amount of milk from the goats and I must say, meat. I'm still not comfortable with the killing, neither is my husband. We try to be quick so the kids don't see, they are still to young to understand food vs pet. Personally, I'm running out of stories to tell the kids why a goat or chicken disappears every so often. At least they will be old enough to learn the truth in a few more years.

I honestly never thought life would actually get this way. We were going to try to live off the grid for fun, but this isn't fun any more, it's reality. I also never thought we would go back to using food to barter for daily items for the farm, but it does help in getting supplies that are on longer common place.  And to top it all off, I'm pregnant again, but that's a whole other story.

Oct 07
family,ravenous,farming,alternative energy sources


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