greenstorm | (Reply)

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i hear you. we have very similar inputs - our poultry feed is grown & milled locally, but we have to go get it, and while we're scaling up our duckweed-growing-for-chicken-feed experiment this year, it isn't nutritionally complete for chickens - it could potentially reduce our feed costs & need, but won't eliminate them. the goats require alfalfa hay - which we're fortunate to buy from the guy next door (literally), but also minerals, dewormer, and when kidding season comes around we're going to need medical supplies for that, as well as another fridge for milk storage and a barn sink (working on that part this month). we support our host of volunteers through bulk-buying at the grocery stores - we definitely eat what we grow, but if we were limited to that, we couldn't support this many people - and the only grain we've had any success with is corn, which takes more acreage than we easily have, and which i cannot eat. we hope to get on solar this year - we were an inch away from finalizing loan paperwork for it when all this went down and we had to press Pause on it - so at some point, electric won't be external for us - but gas still will. and going solar here doesn't mean off-grid - it means grid-tie, and that's one of the reasons we can afford it at all. farms & homesteads in this day & age are definitely part of the web of modern commerce.

i hope your supply web remains stable and safe!