My journey into what today is referred to as “prepping” began before I was born. My grandmother was born and raised on a small farm in Valley View Texas. As a child her family grew most of their produce and raised all of their own meat. The exceptions were dry goods such as coffee, sugar and spices. In her time this wasn’t referred to as prepping. It was simply known as living on the land.

In 1895 she came to Dallas in a covered wagon to seek her fortune. She met and married my grandfather and they settled into a small home. In her entire life her yard was filled with a garden, chicken coops and rabbit pens. Some of my fondest memories as a child were following her in her garden and eating fresh cherry tomatoes right off the vine.

She instilled this same sense of self reliance in my father and he in me. I never saw him hire or pay anyone to do something he could do himself. I recall as a senior in high school he bought the family a new car and I was given the old one. Within a year it blew a head gasket. I’ll never forget the two of us in the garage rebuilding the engine over a weekend.

Much like other families of the time I was fortunate enough to attend college and spent a portion of my life in marketing for a Fortune 500 company. But I always had a small garden with at least tomatoes, onions and the like.

In 1970 my mother purchased a lifetime subscription to a fledgling magazine called the Mother Earth News. It was in one of the early issues I found an article that introduced me to the thought that the worlds resources are finite and that for the standard of living for the rest of the world to improve we would have to consume a smaller share.

As I grew older and became more politically aware it became apparent how dysfunctional our political and economic system is. It is my philosophy is that the best way to bring change to the current system is to starve it financially. In this pursuit my wife and I have sold the house in the suburbs and moved onto a 14 acre farm in North Central Texas about an hour and a half from the closest major metropolitan area.

We now have cows, goats, llamas, chicken, guinea fowl and a garden. I’ve purchased the hardware for a 12,000 watt solar system that I’m installing now. Along the way we’ve learned many lessons, some of them the hard way. The purpose of this blog is to share our experiences and the knowledge we’ve acquired along the way.