Resharing this here for anyone new who hasn't found us over on the new server yet, because it's really very worth sharing:
https://rancholibertad.com/on-community/
For anyone new following, feel free to join us @stewards, or sign up for the newsletter. We share a lot of wonderful knowledge and have some enormous updates to share very soon!
I'm keeping this account alive until (hopefully) the new instance is able to support porting over our current followers, but it's not really being updated and may disappear eventually. I might pop in from time to time to check in, though ✨
In the meantime, feel free to dialogue about our latest article. We'd love to hear your perspective, and if there are any opinions on a future installment to cover some of what we had to omit in this one.
#Community #RanchoDeLaLibertad #CommunitySovereignty #IntentionalCommunity #Commune #Liberation #Indigenous #Liberatory
Community. This word encompasses many potential subdefinitions, and many of those in turn have their own emotional connotation depending on who you are and what your experiences are living with and amongst other people. Ultimately, regardless of the subdefinition, we can make some sweeping statements about community and its role
So... pigs! (a thread)
I want to do a full post about them soon, and what we're planning on doing with them, but, some background:
Homesteading is trendy right now, if you didn't know. There are influencers making entire six figure or higher salaries making small-scale farming look cute, and other factors -- like increasing cost of living in cities, the ability to do remote work for some people, disillusionment with "society" or fears of climate collapse -- are pushing a lot of people to try to buy land and get on the bandwagon (or get on the bandwagon in their small suburban lots). It's wonderful that more people are interested in producing their own food and evaluating our reliance on industrial, extractive food systems, but if we're being honest, lots of these people are doing this without a psychological basis for intense physical labor, consistent work ethic (i.e: working around the clock and not quitting or skipping chores because it's cold or they're hard or you're sick or whatever), and appropriate ethics around animals as being sentient living beings deserving of care but who also are a critical part of a whole and who ultimately serve a purpose (usually food production) and instead see animals as accessories, pets, or status or novelty items.
One of the very unfortunate side effects of this is that lots and lots of people are purchasing and then breeding livestock... and then deciding that they can't actually kill them because that would be *awful*, continuing to breed them, and ending up in basically a cycle of overwhelm where without new animals coming in the novelty is worn off to the point where they don't want to do it anymore, so they keep breeding them, but then they're overwhelmed and cannot provide adequate care or afford all of the animals they have.
Livestock "rescues" are popping up left and right, diverting resources to "saving" these animals, all while many rural communities are still impoverished (despite that their tax base is increasing with upper middle class people flooding their housing markets) and without decent food.
There's a solution to this: actually producing food. We could also, then, divert some of this food to urban communities who are also without food.
The vegan debate is enormous (and I cover some of my thoughts in this post: https://rancholibertad.com/on-the-ethics-of-livestock/) but also a little ridiculous. We can pretend all we want that a vegan diet reliant on industrial food systems is actually a diet that *doesn't cause harm*, or that farming without commercial inputs is possible without animals (it isn't) or that somehow wild-sourcing all of our food is feasible in any ecosystem in the US (it isn't -- not at scale, as in, this isn't a meaningful lifestyle change any large percentage of us could make without *any* agriculture, and this isn't a lifestyle that's been lived in a very, very long time regardless of how people wish to categorize Indigenous peoples as "hunter gatherers").
So this is how we're orienting to this issue:
What we have capacity for, we're attempting to procure from these failed homesteads, where they are "calling it" and attempting to dump all of their animals.
The goal is to provide a high-welfare environment, correct any health issues, leverage the animals' instincts to support the land (i.e: pigs love rooting and can help decompact soil and clear rocky areas, turkeys and chickens help with pest control and can consume most cover crops that we plant in garden areas too small for ruminants, etc.) and then to humanely dispatch them when it is time and feed our community (or sometimes our omnivorous or carnivorous allies, like our or community members' dogs, cats, etc. that also support similar land regeneration projects through guarding or other contributions).
#Pigs #Homesteading #RegenerativeAgriculture #CommunitySovereignty #FoodProduction
I have been at once very excited about and dreading this post for a long time, but because of our last post on allyship with chickens, I think that it is necessary to do it now, before going deeper into the philosophies underlying our work here at Rancho de la
We finally have an update for you all on what has been going on here! This gives a little info on why we've been so distant, what we've been navigating, and some very exciting additions to the Ranch.
https://rancholibertad.com/quarterly-updates-awaiting-the-return-of-the-light/
I hope to share some very fun pictures of our new animal residents soon, and I feel like I have a lot to say about this season as a whole that I'd like to share here rather than in a longer form newsletter.
Please email us your questions if you'd like to participate in this quarter's paid sub Q&A. Last quarter we were able to give some very in-depth answers to wonderful questions, so if you have something pertinent to your own project or goals now is a great time to learn from our experiences! Paid subscribers have also been promised a gift for the Solstice season, and if you're one of them please send us your address so that we may send you some goodies from the land.
I hope to be more active here very soon, I wish to catch up on all of your posts and updates and be a little more participatory in this community. It is almost the season, we have one more push before we'll be settling back into a routine and having more leisure time.
#RanchoDeLaLibertad #Community #RegenerativeAg #Livestock #Animals #Farm #Homestead #IndigenousOwned #MutualAid #CommunitySovereignty
It feels fitting that our first post on return from our brief hiatus is our Winter Solstice update, for this is the season where, as we await the Solstice itself, we await the return of the sun. As always, our lives mirror the seasons as they shift, and we are
Another update! These are the same locations as the previous post in this thread. Beans setting, squash setting fruit, gorgeous glorious nitrogen fixation and groundcover - all fed from the rain we were blessed with and very little supplemental water.
#Gardening #Permaculture #Food #CommunitySovereignty #RegenerativeAg #Alt4Me
Thank you to all of our subscribers for being so patient: I just released our late paid newsletter for October. I look forward to getting back on track for November!
October's paid newsletter is a brief intro to home fermentation with a recipe for preserved lemons that is definitely worth trying!
Please share with a friend and let them know paid subscriptions help us support our residents and our mission of building a sovereign community and regenerating this land for future generations. Our residents are some of the most vulnerable under this current regime, and now more than ever we're relying on your support to keep going and continue to support them in having a place to live and good food to eat so they may continue to spend their time working on community liberation.
https://rancholibertad.com/wild-fermentation-an-intro/
#IndigenousOwned #Indigenous #RanchoDeLaLibertad #CommunitySovereignty #MutualAid #Sovereignty #Liberation #Queer #POCOwned #FoodSovereignty
I've been a little less active lately, it's been a busy season here at the Ranch! Though, I am excited to share that we just shared our free October newsletter: Eating Ethically on a Shoestring Budget. In it we share some important information and ideas about eating more ethically without falling for greenwashing and ridiculous price tags on, let's face it, products that probably aren't *that* much better than the cheaper alternatives.
Share it with a friend if it helps you out, because that helps us out!
https://rancholibertad.com/eating-ethically-on-a-shoestring-budget/
#Food #Economy #EatingWell #EthicalConsumption #Ethics #FoodEthics #FoodSovereignty #CommunitySovereignty #Tips
There are eight of us living at the Ranch right now, and only one full time day job among the eight of us. This is not a flaw, but rather by design: we hope that our residents, beyond the time spent helping with projects that are related to stewarding the
A passionate, provocative, and very nuanced take on whether or not it is ethical to keep livestock just sent out to subscribers. I've thought about this for years, and hope that my thoughts spur your own pontification on your relationships with all animals - pets included - and the broader context you live in.
Please consider subscribing and sharing if this is valuable, to help support our mission.
Thank you as always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
https://rancholibertad.com/on-the-ethics-of-livestock/
#Livestock #Animals #AnimalRights #Regeneration #RegenerativeAg #Agriculture #Farming #Homesteading #SmallFarm #RanchoDeLaLibertad #CommunitySovereignty #Environment
I have been at once very excited about and dreading this post for a long time, but because of our last post on allyship with chickens, I think that it is necessary to do it now, before going deeper into the philosophies underlying our work here at Rancho de la
If you're interested in learning how you can more deeply participate in or support our mission of building community sovereignty and stewarding abused land, you can find options for in-person or financial participation on our website:
https://rancholibertad.com/participate
We just opened our Supporter tier, and look forward to offering more opportunities to support locally and from afar in August. Those who subscribe at the Supporter tier receive a twice yearly gift basket of goodies from the Ranch (the first will be sent in December) as well as access to participate in quarterly Q&A posts.
You will also know (perhaps most importantly) that you are tangibly supporting projects that enable us to better serve residents (now and in the future), guests seeking sanctuary, and the land. Projects such as tree planting, renewable energy infrastructure, sustainable building, animal stewardship, sustainable and place-sensible food production, and more.
We are so grateful to you for your interest and collaboration ✨
#MutualAid #ClimateDirectAction #ClimateChange #Renewable #Regeneration #RegenerativeAg #Permaculture #RanchoDeLaLibertad #Community #CommunitySovereignty #IndigenousOwned #WomanOwned
Thank you for your patience as we've taken a few steps back to evaluate our approach to communication in the context of, well, everything.
We are standing on a precipice, or so, at least, it seems. There is a shattering occurring of what we deem "normal" to be, and what happens next will depend largely on how we choose to relate to instability and uncertainty, and what we choose to do about it.
Rancho de la Libertad stands on this precipice, gathering materials to build a bridge to a yet-unknown other side. We are continuing to take steps towards building a sovereign community insulated from geopolitical and climate instability, insofar as we can be. We wish to nourish, provide space and sanctuary for, and educate our community and those who join our community from afar - to empower and enable all of us with the skills we will need to establish distributed networks, remain safe, feed and house ourselves, and thrive.
By the end of this week I hope to release a website and free newsletter offering, but also a paid subscription that will help support this project. While we may keep this account, it will not be very active. We are trying to rigorously protect our energy and time so that we can focus on real direct action, while simultaneously ensuring we maintain communication with our community and those interested in our mission. Creating one central source of contact feels like the best way, at this time, to build and maintain relationships and community.
Stay tuned for the release in a few days with more information about what we're offering our community at this time. If you'd like to send me your email to be added manually in advance, you can send it to [email protected].
Be safe, and don't forget to take a few steps back from your online spaces to check in and be present alongside your regional community.
#RanchoDeLaLibertad #DirectAction #ClimateChange #Newsletter #CommunitySovereignty #MutualSupport #MutualAid
Proutist Universal
Rancho de la Libertad
