This Fall I went out and harvested 14 pounds of blue elderberries in the mountain and now I’m making homemade elderberry syrup and selling it.

There’s a man I know who owns a local farm and I buy sausage from him. He asked to buy my biggest jar of syrup (worth $32) and I proposed a trade for $30 worth of sausage and he provides a jar for the syrup. He agreed and I don’t know what aesthetic/lifestyle I’m living right now but it’s great.

I just love the feeling of bartering and trading hardwork + specialties instead of exchanging paper made at jobs we don’t care about.

zielono:

putting effort into self care can be so damn hard when you have depression and other mental illnesses. you might think it’s easier to give up and go back to the harmful coping mechanisms and to the negative mindset – it’s not, it’s just the little hell that you’re familiar with. it can be comforting, because you know what to expect, but it’s horribly difficult to survive in it and you’ll only notice it after you leave it for a while, then you’ll wonder how the fuck could you live like that for so long