Our survivalism story, in a nutshell
Hi! I’m Sheila.
We were basically city folk all our lives, but over the past 20-plus years, we formulated, clarified and then realized our vision to make the transformation to our current lifestyle. We understand the fear and panic many are now feeling when contemplating making a lifestyle change within a short time because they are observing events around them that require such a drastic move.
For the last several years, our family, my husband Dan, our son Jesse and I, have been living what some may call the “survivalist” lifestyle. Actually, we live off-grid (so far off the grid that there is no landline and no cell phone service available), self-sufficient life. We’re not here to get away from the world for a few days while chaos happens and calms down. We don’t think that’s what will happen, anyway. We’re here because we have chosen to separate ourselves from the rat race, the system, and not be swept away in the tide of what we see as society running amok. This is not a temporary lifestyle for us. It’s a wonderfully peaceful, sometimes difficult and always rewarding life. Regardless of what does or doesn’t happen, “out there”, this is how we choose to live.
Once we moved to our current location in New Mexico, we chose to lease parts of our land to form a small community of like-minded, people (I would rather call it, “like-spirited”) to help each other make it through what we believe is coming down the pike soon. In that search for the right people (who we eventually did find) we met many types of self-proclaimed, “survivalists,” most of whom were in reality, “survival tourists.” Our son coined this phrase to describe those who only wanted to investigate survivalism just deeply enough to find reasons they couldn’t/shouldn’t do it. (“Phew, I almost had to wash my dishes by hand!”).
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