Chauncey Cruz Jr

I’ve often gone back to the memories of my grandparents’ farm and dreamt about farm life, about being able to live off what I produced. A life more connected to nature, not just as a romantic idea, but with a very practical side. The quality of what we eat nowadays is far beyond our control. Pesticide, preservatives, additives, antibiotics are as regular as unwanted guests on our table, and these are just the most visible aspects. And money is not a secondary issue! Any food that is grown, transformed and then packed, labeled, carried, delivered, stocked and sold, puts on a big price, in order to pay for the entire chain, which is completely avoidable if you break that chain! It used to be not much more than daydreaming, a thought in a corner of my mind, in a box labelled “I’d love to” on a shelf named “maybe one day”. Dreams were great, but real life was another matter. “I live in a town, not in the country”, “I need my 9-to-5 job to survive”, “Who has the time for…”: these were my kind of thoughts. Today I would call them excuses, and they managed to keep that “I’d love to” box tightly closed. Then one day something clicked. I think the trigger was a bread machine I received for my birthday. It was a very easy machine to use, but the gratification of that first slice of bread I made myself somehow opened that box and made me realize that if “I’d love to” then I should. And that there is no such thing as “maybe one day”… you only live once, as they say! Something imperfectly done will always be better than something perfectly undone. The truth is, you don’t have to wait for everything to be perfect to start living your dreams. Something imperfectly done will always be better than something perfectly undone. “Unfortunately I live in a town” became “Luckily I have a backyard”. “I have a 9 to 5 job” became “I have half an hour in the morning and one hour in the evening, and the weekends”. “Who has time for…?”, “I do!”. A few years have passed, and nowadays not only I make my own bread (I can’t even imagine the idea of eating store-bought bread now!). I became very good at it and I also make my own cheese and beer! With the help of my lovely wife, I grow enough vegetables to feed my family of four, and more! We produce faster than we eat, so we have to can a lot of vegetables. And we do it ourselves of course, for the satisfaction of our family and also our dear friends and neighbors. I wrote these books in my spare time in order to share what I’ve learned so far, and I hope that my path to self-sufficiency will inspire you to follow your dreams. http://cruzthegardener.com/