WAP Conference – Radical Homemaking with Shannon Hayes

Shannon Hayes gave the evening talk on Friday. The concept of Radical Homemaking includes women AND men, and it focuses on turning the family from a unit of consumption to a unit of production and maintaining and building community. Click on this link to read the introduction to Shannon’s latest book: Radical Homemakers.

Shannon has a great sense of humor, a far reaching vision and practical ways of helping people remove themselves from the rat race. I enjoyed her talk so much that I purchased her book, Radical Homemakers, which was the only book that I purchased on my limited budget.  

Ryan and I have started down the path of Radical Homemaking after two layoffs, many financial hardships, and almost no desire to purchase anything that is unnecessary. We still are units of consumption, and we want to make the switch to production. We live in Cary, a city that does not allow chickens for egg production and is the only city in the Research Triangle of North Carolina that prohibits it. The house we rent is too shady to have a garden. Ryan does not hunt because he is too emotional about killing animals. He was a soldier in the Army, trained to kill people (fortunately he never had to), but killing animals was a hurdle he couldn’t visualize overcoming.

Ryan is on his way to becoming a hunter, though, thanks to our friends. They have chickens, and coincidentally there is a rat colony that is raiding the flock. Our friends have tried everything to remove the rats and not caught one. Enter Ryan with Colson’s air rifle. Score: Ryan 2, and Rats 1 escape. Now he believes he can hunt if he had to. Hopefully there will be some venison in my freezer in the next year or so. Even as I write this Ryan reminds me that there is a big difference between rats and deer.

I met several fantastic people who are radical homemakers. One physics teacher has converted his house to 75% off of the grid. He has a 3,000 square foot garden, chickens and he has converted his car to vegetable oil. His next step is to go geothermal and be completely off the grid. After that he will sell his super cool Long Island, NY house and become a farmer. His partner is right there with him on the journey. He was a ball to get to know and hopefully he will start a blog that I can follow.

A friend that I rode to the conference with is a farmer, and she and her partner are still refining their skills, but they are pretty darn accomplished. When we are ready they will teach us to raise farm animals and process them. We have wonderful friends who are organic/permaculture farming specialists who will teach us the ropes about gardening. If you are in the Triangle area and want to get off of the food grid, please contact them via their website: Branches Ecological Landscapes.  

We are at least a year away from implementing anything further on our journey to be radical homemakers and producers, as the financial blows from the layoffs were severe. We are grateful, though, to have a network of friends who will jumpstart us when we are ready.