To ReEvolve is to reawaken the spirit of self-sufficiency that seems to have disappeared some years ago. 

It was as simple as a lightning flash, but just as brilliant. I was helping my grandfather pick peanuts in his garden. I asked him about growing corn because I was thinking about growing some myself. For the next few hours all I could do was listen as the man began to impart the wisdom of a near-centenarian on what I’d thought was a simple matter. Just stick the seeds in the ground and give them a little water, right? As I’m sure most of you already are aware, no, it wasn’t that simple at all.

But I was a country kid, I grew up raising cows and goats and chickens and all manner of critters. Agriculture? You betcha. I’ve churned butter, snapped peas, milked cows, cut firewood and shucked corn till I was sick of it. And once I didn’t have to do it any more…I stopped. So when my grandfather began telling me all the things I never learned on the first go around, I realized what I needed to do. I needed to go back to the Earth. I was too dependent upon the conveniences of the modern day.

After that, I began my journey to rediscover myself. I figured since I’d evolved into this creature that didn’t really need to know how to do anything to survive, that it was time for me to ReEvolve, so I could do things for myself again. And now I’m embroiled in the act of ReEvolving, and I’m writing this blog as I go. I hope you’ll join me on my quest. I’ve made it so you can participate too, if you like, in a number of ways.

The ReEvolver Tribe
Our very own social community on the Internet. Join and get your own free blog, photo and video uploading, and make friends of like-minded people.

Go Questing
I sat down and wrote about a hundred different individual tasks that are built around the concept of ReEvolving. That is, sustainability, conservation and the outdoors. If you’d like to participate fully with the site, check out the quests category and begin working your way through them. If you learn a new trick or a different way of doing a certain quest, write about it in the comments. It’s one of the ways I hope we might capture some of the knowledge that’s rapidly becoming extinct in the world.

Some of the themes we’ll be exploring on this blog are:

• Self Sufficiency- Doing things yourself means a lot these days. Being able to tinker with something and get it working rather than throwing it out and buying a new one can be a valuable asset in this world we live in. And it goes farther than that, of course: did you ever make your own butter, or mayonaise? Did you even know you could? You might be surprised how many people don’t have a clue, but it is possible! And not only that, but the end product is so, so, sooooo much better than anything you can buy at a store.
• Homesteading - raising chickens and other stock, growing your own fruits, herbs and vegetables and exploring permaculture.
• Staying Local – the flashy term these days is “locavore.” Maybe you’re not growing all your own food right now, something that’s completely understandable since jobs seem to be difficult to come by and even keep nowadays, but buying local is something that even the hardest worker among us can do. Just commit to buying your goods within a certain distance of your home. You can choose extreme (within your own county) or broad (within your own state or, even broader, staying within one corner of the country). I began being a locavore myself when I realized an apple I was eating was shipped from New Zealand. Nothing against NZ apples, but there are perfectly good apples grown right here in my area, why should I eat one from the other side of the world? Before you ask, yes, I do splurge from time to time and buy something that’s not local (sometimes by accident), so I am by no means perfect.

My name is Matt Mitchell. I’m the founder of and writer at ReEvolver.com. I’m a married guy living in the American South with two little boys to keep me harried and occupied and frenzied and insane. But I still managed to marry my high school sweetheart (without whom having the two little boys would have been something like impossible), and I try very hard to reuse, reduce, recycle…all the re’s I can think of, including renew, reconnect and [re]evolve.

My [re]evolution is just getting started, and you, of course, are welcome to join me.

Image credit: brewbooks
[re]evolver header graphic image credit: Giant Ginkgo