Sometimes Self-Sufficiency Means Asking For Help
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Up to this point, I’ve done nearly everything that needs doing on the farm on my own. But once summer hit in earnest (it now hits 100 degrees pretty much every day) I started spending more and more time working on the interior of my house, which involves using skills I don’t fully possess. My latest project has been creating a serving window between my kitchen and dining room. I had a hunch that simply knocking a hole in the wall would improve life inside my house immeasurably, and I was right. There’s more light in all the rooms, and my small house now feels much bigger.
Making the hole was easy. Destroying something always is. All I needed was a sheetrock saw and a Sawzall. Making the frame for the new window was much trickier so I gave my friend Matt a call. Initially, I thought I would only be borrowing some of the many saws he owns, but in the end I discovered that I needed his expertise even more. Simply put, he knew what he was doing, and I did not. Without his help I wouldn’t have been able to do the job correctly.
This project didn’t require the use of any of my natural building skills, but it did demand that I use an ability that’s been gathering dust during my quest for self-sufficiency, and that is the willingness to ask for help. It’s much harder for me to do this than you might imagine, and I know I need to get over it. For the farm to reach its full potential it’s going to need many hands pitching in and helping out. It seems counter-intuitive, but I think seeking help (from friends, not paid laborers) actually improves my self-sufficiency. Now I just need to start asking.