Our American Ride Begins - We're Going Galt!

This BIG CITY family is GOING GALT! 

I was offered a job yesterday in a small town near our family farm in Oklahoma. The pay is slightly less than what I was making just a few short weeks ago here in Phoenix, Arizona...before I was unexpectedly LAID OFF (read The Axe Has Fallen). What a lovely Friday afternoon phone call that was...

Are these city girls ready for country living?

This family's fairy tale is unfolding at an unbelievable pace. For years, we've been learning new skills and inching towards a more self-sufficient lifestyle after our eyes began to open to what was going on all around us. Encroaching government, decline in societal values, currency becoming worthless, tangible goods prices skyrocketing, all leading to an unhappy, fragmented family unit working endless hours just to stay afloat.

Well, not us. We're done. We made a plan and said countless prayers. Now, by the Grace of God, we've had a door opened. It was disguised at first as tragedy after tragedy. I lost my job, my family health insurance, cars were breaking down, bills were coming due and phone call after phone call was going unanswered as I desperately looked for a new job.

As recently discussed (read I've Made My Case), Wifey and I had an idea of moving to our old family farm back in a little town in Oklahoma. It was only being used for occasional family gatherings but had, at one time, been farmed feverishly by my Grandfather many decades ago (before he came down with Alzheimers). Wifey and I were almost brought to tears when we received the welcoming response from my uncle (read The First Response).

How to make it work was our biggest obstacle. Like many folks out there today, we knew we wanted to move to the country for a better life but didn't know how to make it happen. Finally, one night, we decided to "reverse engineer" our plan. Sometimes, when I can't figure out how to get a problem solved from the beginning, I'll start at the end and work backwards.  In this case, we knew WHERE we wanted to live but didn't know HOW to get there. For us, the first hurdle was for me to get a job NEAR the farm. Once an income was established, it was possible to conceive moving there.  I just couldn't fathom moving my entire family out of state with no source of income waiting for me when we got there.

So this will be the first post, in a long series of posts, to share our journey. The past few years, I've shared on this blog what we have been doing to prepare for self sufficiency:

adding to our preps and sharpening our skills
catching rainwater in barrels
barter and trade skills 
herbal home remedies 
disconnecting from cable and meaningless liberal media 
physical fitness 
establishing a bugout location 
bugout SHTF mock runs
building Wifey's uber-cool craft room 
obtaining ammo when there is none
homemade beef jerky & dehydrating
and several posts on gardening, medicine and more.

Today begins the first day of our journey. Tonight we'll sit down with our six daughters and have "The Talk" about moving. I'm sure at least one teenager is going to flip out...and I don't mean in a good way ;-)

~OJD


If you wonder what I do for a living, I wrote about it (read What Does Daddy Do All Night?).