1) I have so much useless knowledge in my brain that I sometimes forget what I am doing.
2) I sometimes think I would be much happier if I never had to go to a store ever again.
3) My husband really is my best friend.
4) I would love to have a smoke house, root cellar, berry patch, chickens, and a big garden just like my grandparents did.
5) I know how to build a house, dig a well, plumb a bathroom, butcher a pig, and pluck a chicken. But I can't physically do any or it. And that makes me sad sometimes.
6) I like eggs
7) I like standing in the woods while it is snowing and just listening to the silence.
8) My first job was stuffing envelopes for $4.00 an hour while all of my friends were flipping burgers for $3.15.
9) I don't tell my kids how proud of them I am nearly often enough
10) I am not afraid to try new things even if I often fail at it.
11) The only "stuff" I need to be happy really just belongs in the kitchen. If I couldn't cook, I think I would go crazy. I don't know how people live without cooking their own food. I just get so much satisfaction from getting elbow deep in a bread bowl. I think we would all be healthier and happier if we would all just take the time to cook a big meal for family and friends at least once a month.
12) I make my own soap, laundry detergent, bread, and ham. I can make butter (when I have access to extra milk) salami, and sausage. I sew, crochet, can our food, and make jelly. I think I am living in the wrong century.
13) I get more joy from watching the birds in the yard than from watching TV.
14) I sometimes think that getting sick and not being able to work was actually a blessing. If I hadn't gotten sick, I would have missed so many chances to be with my family.
15) I want a homestead so badly I can taste it.
16) I am tired of the government telling me what I can eat, what I can do or not do, where I can put a chicken coop, what i am supposed to believe, and how to raise my kids. After all, they have done such a great job with the banks and manufacturing sector. I don't know why everyone doesn't adopt the morals the government employs. It has worked so well for them, after all.
17) I think that greed is over-riding common sense. That is why we are in such an economic mess.
18) Learning to be still was very hard to master, but very worth the effort.
19) I think I would be much harder to live with if I didn't have chocolate.
20) Bureaucrats make my teeth hurt.
21) I don't kill things, except ants.
22) I think the two most important phrases in the English language are " thank you" and "I'm sorry".
23) I would like to lose weight, but I just like food too much. If I could lose weight without giving up good food, that is a diet I can stick with.
24) I believe in knowledge for knowledge's sake. If you stop learning, you might as well just give up.
25) I enjoy being silly sometimes. I think that if we take everything too seriously, we forget to take joy in the moment.
Showing posts with label life on the farm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life on the farm. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Born too late
I think I am the only person I know who would do just fine without modern technology. I love my clothesline. I enjoy growing my own food, canning, sewing, crocheting, and cooking. We have been living with the windows open for the last 2 months so no heat or air going. I like making bread. I can pluck a chicken and butcher a hog. I can make butter and, sort of, cheese.
I cook with bacon grease and plain flour. My pie crusts are home made. I make my own soap and laundry detergent. My skirts are down to my ankles and my necklines to my collar bone.
I believe in punishing the kids if they smart off to me or someone else, and giving them hugs and telling them how proud I am of them often.
I was just born too late I guess. I should have been living in the hills back during the Depression or something. I don't need a bunch of Madison Avenue execs telling me that I can't be happy without...whatever they are trying to sell. I am perfectly happy with the things I have. I don't need anything else.
I cook with bacon grease and plain flour. My pie crusts are home made. I make my own soap and laundry detergent. My skirts are down to my ankles and my necklines to my collar bone.
I believe in punishing the kids if they smart off to me or someone else, and giving them hugs and telling them how proud I am of them often.
I was just born too late I guess. I should have been living in the hills back during the Depression or something. I don't need a bunch of Madison Avenue execs telling me that I can't be happy without...whatever they are trying to sell. I am perfectly happy with the things I have. I don't need anything else.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Organic foods
You would think with the price of food going up every day and the number of people who are eating organic, that the corporate farms would see the trend and start producing more healthy, wholesome foods. Instead "organic" is being treated as a niche market that they can charge a premium for.
I grew up organic without even knowing what that meant. We had a huge garden (about 3/4 of an acre) where we grew almost all of the vegetables we ate, chickens for eggs and meat, a few pigs, a couple of cows, and 3 apple trees. My grandmother had about 1/4 acre in strawberries and a family friend had a milk cow.
We didn't use alot of chemical fertilizers in the garden. That was what the cow and pigs were for. We traded eggs for milk every week, and my grandmother was more than happy to share the strawberries with us since we gave her the feathers from the chickens to make pillows and featherbeds.
We would go to town every couple of weeks to deposit my Dad's paycheck and do what little shopping that needed to be done. Usually it was just coffee, cereal, sugar, flour, and maybe some sodas. The rest of the time we spent doing chores and homework.
We would spend a lot of time in the summer canning the garden. My brother and I still had to get up every morning around 7 and pick the garden every day. My dad really liked green beans so we usually had 8 40 foot rows. That comes out to about 4 bushels of green beans every 3 days or so. We tried to get everything that needed picking done by noon, before it got too hot. Then we would spend the afternoon snapping, shelling, washing, peeling, cutting, or whatever it was that was needed for what we had picked that day. Then while my brother was taking care of the livestock, I would be helping my mother can everything.
Now granted, it was a lot of work, but at least we knew what was in our food. We didn't have to wash off any residual pesticides, or waxy preservatives before we ate it. We didn't have to worry about growth hormones or antibiotics in the meat or milk, we could eat a soft boiled egg with worry about salmonella. And the best part was that a year's worth of food cost us a few bags of livestock feed and some seeds.
Organic food would have been laughed about at my house. "Who would spend twice as much to buy food that we grow ourselves?"
I guess the laugh was on us.
I grew up organic without even knowing what that meant. We had a huge garden (about 3/4 of an acre) where we grew almost all of the vegetables we ate, chickens for eggs and meat, a few pigs, a couple of cows, and 3 apple trees. My grandmother had about 1/4 acre in strawberries and a family friend had a milk cow.
We didn't use alot of chemical fertilizers in the garden. That was what the cow and pigs were for. We traded eggs for milk every week, and my grandmother was more than happy to share the strawberries with us since we gave her the feathers from the chickens to make pillows and featherbeds.
We would go to town every couple of weeks to deposit my Dad's paycheck and do what little shopping that needed to be done. Usually it was just coffee, cereal, sugar, flour, and maybe some sodas. The rest of the time we spent doing chores and homework.
We would spend a lot of time in the summer canning the garden. My brother and I still had to get up every morning around 7 and pick the garden every day. My dad really liked green beans so we usually had 8 40 foot rows. That comes out to about 4 bushels of green beans every 3 days or so. We tried to get everything that needed picking done by noon, before it got too hot. Then we would spend the afternoon snapping, shelling, washing, peeling, cutting, or whatever it was that was needed for what we had picked that day. Then while my brother was taking care of the livestock, I would be helping my mother can everything.
Now granted, it was a lot of work, but at least we knew what was in our food. We didn't have to wash off any residual pesticides, or waxy preservatives before we ate it. We didn't have to worry about growth hormones or antibiotics in the meat or milk, we could eat a soft boiled egg with worry about salmonella. And the best part was that a year's worth of food cost us a few bags of livestock feed and some seeds.
Organic food would have been laughed about at my house. "Who would spend twice as much to buy food that we grow ourselves?"
I guess the laugh was on us.
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