Advice From a Sovereign Mountain Man on Sustainable Living

I recently had a conversation with a reader who brought with him a wealth of advice on sustainable living.

He also came bearing literal gifts of mead and moonshine. What else would you expect from a man who could pass for Santa Claus?

Yet you could tell by his calloused hands that this guy didn’t get nearly as many vacation days as jolly ol’ St. Nick. He looked like a man who was thoroughly living his life. When vacations did roll around, he lived it up on a nationwide tour — visiting friends and telling stories of his adventures in building a free and resilient life.

That’s why, during a toast with his homemade booze, I felt I was about to get schooled in self-sufficiency.

I was right.

It turned out to be a fun couple days hanging out and sharing life with a Sovereign Society reader. This man was in an entirely different place in his life than I was. But our time spent together was no less inspiring to me than if I were living life as his next-door neighbor.

And he had a few words of advice that I want to share with you.

Not What I Expected From a Real Mountain Man

I expected to see a dark-haired lumberjack in his mid-40s, built like an ox.

Up until then, I’d only exchanged emails with the guy. More than once he mentioned his grueling experiences hiking through snow to set beaver traps so he could make some needed money selling their pelts.

To my surprise, I walked in and saw no lumberjack. He is perhaps as strong as an ox, but he resembled Santa Claus on a beach during the summer. He was wearing a red Hawaiian shirt that only slightly diverted my attention away from his big white beard. His cheeks were rosy red too, but more from his sunburn than his jolly demeanor.

His name is Jim. He met my father, Jack, about seven years ago, back when he attended one of my father’s currency trading seminars hosted by The Sovereign Society. He and Jack have kept in touch ever since.

Pass the Pepper Relish and the Hunting Rifle

Jim came to stay at my parents’ house for a few days around the summer of 2012.

In addition to his homemade mead and moonshine, Jim brought an assortment of pickled vegetables and relishes he’d canned himself. The mason jars were all shapes and sizes, with some contents more appealing than others.

I believe I was the only one in my family to sample everything Jim brought to share. My favorite (besides the mead) was a green Jalapeño-like pepper that Jim somehow made taste sweet. There was also a yellowish, spicy pepper relish I proceeded to put on everything I ate until the jar was empty.

Jim wrote to me about my article on toxic shaving cream. He told me he knew sooner or later his old ways would be ahead of the times. How right you are, Jim. (Bring more of that relish on your next visit, Jim.)

He also took the time to share his latest exploits in self-sufficiency:

Learned how to make lye soap. Pig fat renders a pretty white soap that takes fragrances well. Coon fat gives an ugly brown soap that women dislike the smell of, but works wonders on bug bites, poison ivy and other skin rashes. Being [that it is] lye soap, either [the pig or coon version] does great work on laundry stains … on my work clothes. Be careful about trying it on the wife’s silk blouse you spilled wine on!

That barely even begins to tell his story. But it’s a good start.

He tells me: “Make home a place you WANT to stay.”

Jim currently grows more than 30 different fruits and vegetables on his modest rural property, including kohlrabi, rutabagas and shiitake mushrooms. He also grows herbs such as basil, dill and cilantro, as well as medicinals.

I asked what he prefers to keep stocked in his freezer. He said ice cream. But knowing full well I was asking about meats, he simply said it comes by hoof — hunting and trapping. When he visited, he had a couple of hunting rifles in his trunk. So I wasn’t surprised when he asked me to arrange a hog-hunting trip for his visit to Florida in January 2016. Jim’s all about stocking up his freezer.

He cooks and heats water with a liquid propane stove. He burns wood to heat his house, garage, workshop, green house and three garden beds. He buys in bulk, when he buys at all. And he just started pressing his own sunflower seed oil.

Wanna be Like Jim?

His advice to readers: “Practice these things now, instead of reading about them as a fallback position for when things get bad. There is a very distinct learning curve. Much better to negotiate it with easy living solutions to carry you. When things go bad, hunger is even harsher than shivering.”

There are many ways to build your personal resilience. There are many ways to increase your self-sufficiency. And there are many ways to protect your freedom.

I can’t pretend to tell you exactly what that’s going to look like for you, your kids, your neighbors or those who refuse to take up the pursuit.

But I can tell you Sovereign Living is all about making wisdom available to you.

We will discuss all facets of and share advice on sustainable living, including:

• Growing simple garden plots or raising backyard chickens.
• Uncovering risks and offering natural alternatives to conventional food.
• Sharing homemade personal care and household solutions that reduce your exposure to toxins.
• Providing know-how to reduce your dependency on the power grid and municipalities.
• Exposing natural remedies that perform better than pharmaceutical treatments laced with side effects.
• Calling out government and corporate policies that burden our freedoms, limit our choices, and commandeer influence from the people they are meant to serve.

I’m doing research. I’m speaking to doctors and farmers. I’m building relationships that bear fruit. All so you have the opportunity to build a sovereign life right alongside me.

In the coming weeks, I hope to bring your attention to natural herbal supplement ideas that can boost your immune system ahead of allergy season. I hope to present you a solution that strips a common and dangerous toxin from your drinking water. I hope to shed some light on the potential for solar power in your home.

And I plan to bring experts and specialists into the conversation as well.

To that point, I’m also going to need your help.

We’re not all perfect. We don’t know everything. But we do share a common purpose.

Our collective wisdom and experiences can be a boon to the mission of sovereign living. I encourage you to share your story with me at [email protected]. I’d like to regularly showcase the journeys — the successes, the failures, the obstacles — of Sovereign Living readers.

Stories of awareness and resourcefulness, just like Jim’s, are enormously inspirational for us like-minded folks. But imagine if it helps to change the conversation for those who don’t yet grasp the importance of sovereignty.

Just a little knowledge can go a long way.

To quality living,

JR Crooks
Editor, Sovereign Living

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