tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86308955202455986852024-02-19T03:48:33.855-08:00Giving Tree HomesteadUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-62902345634055773322018-05-21T14:05:00.000-07:002018-05-21T14:05:09.974-07:00Sweet Success<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDYDFKkw2CDdiujgO-GTTxc_W2-Ow9RJTwHkWc-Bg6cetv5CuNVJv5uEwOaOgX_EYYEuxNVcXEOTLm06V5OlFGTibHxahRwP-I-Z_TFMTLDTKB7MI4jlcOtJUhe0XDsNXF9ckQqlKRUrQ/s1600/IMG_1180.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDYDFKkw2CDdiujgO-GTTxc_W2-Ow9RJTwHkWc-Bg6cetv5CuNVJv5uEwOaOgX_EYYEuxNVcXEOTLm06V5OlFGTibHxahRwP-I-Z_TFMTLDTKB7MI4jlcOtJUhe0XDsNXF9ckQqlKRUrQ/s400/IMG_1180.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our community's new milking cow, Sugar. </td></tr>
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This spring has sprung us into such busy-ness that I have fallen way behind on posting! But now a sleeping toddler in the backseat of a car is forcing me to sit still for an hour and write. So what is new at Giving Tree Homestead? Looking around me now I see projects in all directions—some completed, some almost completed, and some long neglected… This must be the essence of homesteading, the never-ending parade of projects. Some are seasonal, like planting a garden. Every spring the soil needs to be prepared, the seeds sown, along with mulching and watering and weeding. This seasonal pulse of activity just happened here in the last month or two, demanding my daily attention and considerable dedication. Some homestead projects are one-timers that yield something enduring, such as the porch we just added to our house’s south side. A satisfying check off the list. Other projects just never seem to go away until one day they quite miraculously do! I am thinking here of a long stone retaining wall that has dragged on for years, half done, until one day a week ago we decided to finally finish it; and along with the help of our neighbor Brian, we did just that in less time than we imagined it would take. There are more projects too. A slow-to-start spring sprung a bunch of activity on us all at once. But let me go back to the garden.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC5QiMFelenYEXFBnuR5fwGFfJziq21TPWEcJuo4gygktBiBguJwraPoN05aGXH5lCSeH7j0gFU2yenMdMAyYTiTEA_skgthZvBU-sOjPCCzPq1cORY61i2K29o__Cfv1HWUXY5vavtUU/s1600/IMG_1106.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="426" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC5QiMFelenYEXFBnuR5fwGFfJziq21TPWEcJuo4gygktBiBguJwraPoN05aGXH5lCSeH7j0gFU2yenMdMAyYTiTEA_skgthZvBU-sOjPCCzPq1cORY61i2K29o__Cfv1HWUXY5vavtUU/s320/IMG_1106.jpg" width="225" /></a> If you aren’t a gardener, perhaps the allure of rolling up your sleeves and sinking your hands in the dirt is lost on you. I can see how it seems like a total waste of time given how cheap and accessible fruits and vegetables from the store are these days. But little by little it becomes something one just does and can hardly stop from doing. My half dozen neighbors who are moving away this season were saying as much when they found themselves starting seeds and planting gardens even though they may not be around for harvest time. Sometime long ago I think I got the urge, perhaps from years of my mother dedicating small patches of our suburban yards to my sister’s and mine gardening experimentation. She would urge us to go through seed catalogues and pick out what we wanted and even when we would yield only dinky-sized pumpkins and watermelon we would feel the thrill of gardening victory. I guess I got hooked. I can remember going to great effort to construct planter boxes when I was in college and had tests to study for, even though nothing seemed to want to thrive in the grimy semi-shade of a city apartment’s back porch (go figure). I have attempted to garden everywhere I have lived, in all sorts of climates, soils, and odds stacked against me. So to finally have a real garden—a big one with full southern exposure and the time to tend it is a dream come true for me.<br />
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Perhaps if you have followed the seasons of this blog, you know a little about our first few years of gardening. We started small while we spent most energy on building, enjoying something of a salad bed really near our tent site. Then we enlisted help of our Amish neighbors to break ground and properly disc and till the soil of a more substantial plot that we carved into raised beds and paths. We started seedlings in trays and stuck them in the ground and things grew, but not that well. We hadn’t amended our soil or learned the importance of mulching, or what pest pressure there was around here. We hadn’t anticipated a drought year where the clay-rich soil would get hard and crack and then a flood year where our garden paths would be submerged under water. There is a seemingly never-ending learning-curve to gardening, but especially so when the irregularities of climate change and thrown in.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbtecH-rxcSzRX1_htmO75rTZnFYDkItgLAl7BuuEtP2M9bFhNMLwmJhtxVv6Rc0RFv4KGe87UarZtsh2bZlL-uAuLaJ29iw3PbyD2n5xQEDLgjFGDN3udU_80CjlYxgqcetg0y56G6Y4/s1600/IMG_2478.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbtecH-rxcSzRX1_htmO75rTZnFYDkItgLAl7BuuEtP2M9bFhNMLwmJhtxVv6Rc0RFv4KGe87UarZtsh2bZlL-uAuLaJ29iw3PbyD2n5xQEDLgjFGDN3udU_80CjlYxgqcetg0y56G6Y4/s320/IMG_2478.jpg" width="240" /></a> With a few seasons under my belt here, this year I attempted to apply the knowledge of past experience to this season’s garden. For example, last year our toddler got in the habit of poking around in our indoor seedling trays and pulling up signs of life, so this year I arranged a swap with out Amish neighbor Lena who has a small greenhouse (and the greenest thumb around) to caretake our seedlings. Success! Last year our plants were showing signs of nitrogen deficiency, so this year I made sure every bed got plenty of composted manure. Last year the raccoons and other animals destroyed our corn and tomatoes in our unfenced garden expansion, so this year we put up new fencing around both gardens. Last year cabbage worms attacked our broccoli, and fleabettles destroyed our eggplant, so this year I am trying out floating row covers over both crops. Last year our daughter developed a habit of stomping through the beds, delighting in how she could make her parents leap to their feet yelling, so this year, we have focused her attention on her new, kid-sized watering can and how she can be helpful (and if not, banished her to a sandbox nearby). You get the idea. This year will likely bring its own garden setbacks, but for now, before the full force of the season humbles me once again, I am feeling victorious. I am sure it too will pass…<br />
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Our garden isn’t the only thing looking Martha Stewart-worthy this year—our fruit trees are also looking quite proper! Last fall each gangly teenage-sized tree put forth a meager apple or two or three, which was riches to us. So this year, to discover them loaded with blossoms was super exciting. If even half those blossoms become fruit, it would be amazing. After years of planting, and mulching, and caging, and pruning each spring, we had almost forgotten that fruit would eventually be our reward. It has just become what we do. The same goes with strawberries, and blackberries…. After years of pinching off and replanting little strawberry suckers from our paltry little patch (started with some gifted suckers from our neighbor Dana’s patch), I somehow felt totally shocked when I noticed them loaded with little green strawberries this year. And this year we finally got to feast on fresh—like 15 minutes old fresh—asparagus from our own garden… Wow. I am not sure money could buy something that good!<br />
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And in other exciting spring news, it seems like for the first time we are going to have a hive of bees to do the work of spreading pollen around in the garden and orchard! Mike and I took a class on natural beekeeping this winter and got inspired to put up a “bait box” in a tree to see if we could catch a wild swarm of honeybees. Success almost instantly! Fortunately we had just acquired some hive boxes to transfer the swarm to, but a proper bee suit and mask is still on the way so we borrowed a neighbor’s. The transfer went well and we now have a hive of bees on our land, zipping about between pond and orchard and garden. We started them off with some honey and hope to have much more to harvest this fall. And the bait box is back in position, so who knows, we may add a few more hives (for free!) before too long.<br />
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Okay, I should stop raving about our momentary successes and get back to monitoring for flea battles and cabbage worms and tomato horn worms. And bigger projects too. This year, we are ambitiously installing a solar system on our house and embracing a little more electricity into our lives. I am sure to most people, the system we have ordered is quite tiny in size, but to us and relative to our luddite neighbors, it is large… 6 panels (or modules if you want to sound like you are a solar insider!) This process too has brought its own learning curve, which—though interesting—has left me understanding why there is an industry of engineers and installers dedicated to it. I can definitely say this is not a project for every DIYer, but the cost savings and the fact that our neighbors DIYed their system lured us in to the challenge. Stay tuned for an upcoming post about our (hopefully) successful solar installation, coming soon!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-41151618447049173392018-03-15T12:25:00.000-07:002018-03-17T14:12:32.421-07:00Contemplation and Action<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The past month of our life can pretty much be summed up as follows: making maple-walnut syrup, sitting in community meetings, and potty-training our daughter. These have been fairly tedious tasks, it must be admitted, and February (and March) are good times to slog through them. There have been a few other little projects or events here and there, but those are the major themes, most demanding of our attention.<br />
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Maple-walnut syrup has been Mike’s project. This is the first year he has enthusiastically plunged into slinging sap buckets and commandeering surface space on our wood stove (yes, we boiled it down indoors, with no fires to report!) The walnut part of the syrup is something few people know about—walnut tree sap also has a high sugar content, as well as a slightly different flavor. We tapped about 15 trees of both varieties and made a blend. The sap runs during the window of time in the year when there are freezing nights and above freezing days. This year with its yo-yoing weird weather has had quite a few of those days, and subsequently we have ended up with over two gallons of syrup--yay! The ratio of syrup to water in the sap is something like 1:60, so you can imagine how toasty our house has been with the stove going full blast over the last month, plus a delicious syrup scent wafting in the air constantly. As you might imagine, we have been eating a lot of pancakes…<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkRzXUexr1HO6s_1EVQN4Xa05xshm9GW99sxMFybyFLy6zglycYi0_nLnQYpF4WK67S83jSpjwWQmS_dzeXG9Hd6FsQoVesgjKUVxpnpb3iauzg47rImGlG1wDzArpTdImcrns9Au6A0/s1600/IMG_0975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkRzXUexr1HO6s_1EVQN4Xa05xshm9GW99sxMFybyFLy6zglycYi0_nLnQYpF4WK67S83jSpjwWQmS_dzeXG9Hd6FsQoVesgjKUVxpnpb3iauzg47rImGlG1wDzArpTdImcrns9Au6A0/s400/IMG_0975.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuM_ONdD8DklONx26vGceb_qIfSTrKNhHwyRGqeNY_z01qOjS784J1Lps4dRA-YhEE6C9VLr5FrPDsMybfXC_nNoGVm4J1grJw6TCC_jteeEakmgE3orrIewFq8kPuCR5ujChoVIq-lQQ/s1600/IMG_0854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuM_ONdD8DklONx26vGceb_qIfSTrKNhHwyRGqeNY_z01qOjS784J1Lps4dRA-YhEE6C9VLr5FrPDsMybfXC_nNoGVm4J1grJw6TCC_jteeEakmgE3orrIewFq8kPuCR5ujChoVIq-lQQ/s320/IMG_0854.jpg" width="240" /></a> As for potty training—well, we have taken the plunge. With the sage advice of Jamie Glowacki, author of <u>Oh Crap! A Potty Training Guide</u>, encouraging us, we are trying for an intensive all-hands-on-deck approach to training with some pretty good results so far. Not to say we don’t still encounter the sight of a mysterious puddle on the floor (or worse) but for the most part Caris has grokked the major concept—poop and pee go in the potty. Diapers are beginning to seem like a memory, hallelujah! Just in time for her second birthday, and the beginning of little girl-dom.<br />
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In meetings with our neighbors, one big question defines our conversations as we think about moving forward—what makes our current and future community life any different than the world around us? How do we tell the story of who we are, put it out into the world, and invite newcomers in? For me, the answer hinges somewhat on the foundational story of civilization around us—the one we all take for granted because quite simply we have been born into it. I have been reading and ruminating with that question in mind (Charles Eisenstein has been especially helpful), and it seems to be something along the lines of—we are in The Great Age of Progress, making life more prosperous and efficient for each generation of humans on this Earth. But increasingly, it seems like disparate events are punching holes in that narrative, or perhaps exposing themselves as symptoms of an unraveling at the very least: another school shooting, another failed cease-fire, another drug epidemic, another police officer acquitted of killing a young black life, another political/sexual scandal, another whistle blown, another round of schools/cities/programs stamped “failed” and turned over to the private sector, another country claiming to have nuclear technology, another round of cataclysmic natural disasters, another wave of refugees… It sort of seems like the new normal, right? And yet to continue forward justifying and rationalizing each event within the narrative of “The Age of Progress” seems increasingly like patching up holes in a sinking ship and continuing on course. At what point do we stop believing that things are getting better, or that technology will save us, or that the right leader will sort things out, or that surely someone is going to do something now that we all know about it?<br />
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Maybe I have this wrong. Perhaps the tide of increasing indebtedness/ obesity/ depression/ gun violence/ corruption really will turn soon and we can resume with progress. That would be nice, and certainly easier. But more what I suspect will happen is that there will be increasing catastrophes as our old worldview dies, that jolt individuals out of complacency and “business as usual” and into a new and confusing worldview. I can’t yet really imagine what that will look and feel like, but perhaps the best microcosm of it is what is currently happening in our most “failed” cities, like Detroit. The old political and economic behemoths have run their course to the point of collapse, leaving behind something almost post-apocalyptic in appearance. But now among the rubble there are seeds of new life regrowing. That new life is very grassroots, scrappy, hopeful, and determined. Our community feels like it is a small part of that new life growing, though at times I am not always sure how we fit into the bigger picture around us.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgF1vYe5GTp_LgiHbwqyEix65MFFvHDFXoMvcUU3dJPAJgODZPk_mGbrnmLN8_2Xfkoqyb8EOZT6ZI3bz2t_f_Sd9CsMr9MhjMYszv7M7DEXPrhECx28cFYE7Gc9j6otJz4SLLbTb7FE/s1600/IMG_0983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgF1vYe5GTp_LgiHbwqyEix65MFFvHDFXoMvcUU3dJPAJgODZPk_mGbrnmLN8_2Xfkoqyb8EOZT6ZI3bz2t_f_Sd9CsMr9MhjMYszv7M7DEXPrhECx28cFYE7Gc9j6otJz4SLLbTb7FE/s400/IMG_0983.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canning--a heck of a lot of work! </td></tr>
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The truth is that the way forward—what makes for a good and noble life amidst such destruction—is not all that much more clear for us. The phrase “it feels like we are walking uphill with bowling balls tied to our ankles” has been independently generated by several in our community, a sense that perhaps we are doing the arduous work of reinventing the wheel when there is no-one benefiting from our labors, not even us. Is it a mis-use of energy to try to do so much by hand (in an attempt to decrease our carbon footprint and all the ecological destruction and human suffering that accompany fossil fuel use)? Are we just distracting ourselves from using our energy in a more purposeful and efficient direction? These are perhaps only my questions and misgivings, and it may only be I who longs for a sense of greater ease and efficacy in transforming our world into something more beautiful and just.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHxFZnvPRSUl1hgaMrqWYbDEVy-nRdLCu2XypRGbw_J-vO5J67Ntuw-yHCSQVh5XHaOpLaGylbiYUrTip9lzxuE-FfSvBrqGEsDOlwV6t7lKVhOQEMq5Rsy51oQi329PjMQkbZ5YfAWtc/s1600/pipekey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="768" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHxFZnvPRSUl1hgaMrqWYbDEVy-nRdLCu2XypRGbw_J-vO5J67Ntuw-yHCSQVh5XHaOpLaGylbiYUrTip9lzxuE-FfSvBrqGEsDOlwV6t7lKVhOQEMq5Rsy51oQi329PjMQkbZ5YfAWtc/s400/pipekey.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our friends Joanna, Thomas, Chris, Ethan and many others in a peaceful protest occupation of the NC Govenor's office--drawing attention to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's environmental destruction and unfair targeting of minority communities.</td></tr>
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Adding to the complexity of our deliberations have been feedback and perspectives from a few former community members/friends. One friend has since gone on to devote himself entirely to solidarity work with Indigenous People, volunteering with resisting Navaho elders living in Black Mesa (a traditionally native-held area that has been seized by Peabody Coal for mining, forcing relocation for indigenous people) and also with Winona LaDuke at Honor the Earth in Minnesota (<a href="http://honorearth.org/">honorearth.org</a>) as they struggle to block further pipelines coming across the Canada border. He delivered something of a critique to our community from his perspective—suggesting perhaps that we were re-enacting history by being a group of white settlers on stolen land, and that this wasn’t addressing injustices. His critique started some important conversations amongst us about what reparations could look like, and what sensitivities and relationships we should build moving forward. Another perspective is from some other community members who just returned from participating in a direct action—in this case, working with a citizen’s coalition in Robeson county in North Carolina, protesting the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. (Their action went incredibly well, with a peaceful day-long occupation of the Govenor’s office, including an interfaith prayer, an impromptu pizza party with police, tearful meetings with Chief of Staff and others, and lots of press coverage.) Is it a better use of one’s life energy to go to the struggles where help is most needed, being willing to lay down and risk arrest to serve justice (especially when it is historically marginalized communities of color being targeted and one has a white body?) We have been focusing so much on decreasing our consumption, that participation in movement work has fallen down the list of priorities. Can we prioritize both? These feel like important questions if we hope to move into a more just future and be at all part of the transformation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-_A6fmVzQaeftm8tj9Mv78i41qd1PlqezfGy0BwqLwW8L6N6bIIvr9FeseNFkaEE9VxYG7o-_Q4MFkjqGC9n4DQzLiW0DYudh_vGrTWKRjyhxLtf7wT5CeyVOXVE-t3CDnVKJOGlrbk/s1600/WATER%252B51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="810" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-_A6fmVzQaeftm8tj9Mv78i41qd1PlqezfGy0BwqLwW8L6N6bIIvr9FeseNFkaEE9VxYG7o-_Q4MFkjqGC9n4DQzLiW0DYudh_vGrTWKRjyhxLtf7wT5CeyVOXVE-t3CDnVKJOGlrbk/s400/WATER%252B51.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of our friends were in this encounter with police at Standing Rock--they are about to be sprayed with tear gas which apparently didn't register because of the freezing water... not until later when warming up by a fire did they feel it.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga5HcPl8MQVWRlNTeXzHvOfFeaghV1yePcnW7LFv5JSHJyMDsaQpHh1v68Gl_xUX3oVVAzCOiBpAS1UPxH-Via1YvOxlGwXkoCoKQGTLK1qGSo6ogBkKjARP511qPJaHjkFZBxlVCrhUI/s1600/calc-banner-fix-11200-600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga5HcPl8MQVWRlNTeXzHvOfFeaghV1yePcnW7LFv5JSHJyMDsaQpHh1v68Gl_xUX3oVVAzCOiBpAS1UPxH-Via1YvOxlGwXkoCoKQGTLK1qGSo6ogBkKjARP511qPJaHjkFZBxlVCrhUI/s400/calc-banner-fix-11200-600.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Are you ready? What is your footprint?</td></tr>
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With all of these shifting perspectives and not really being sure what our small efforts have been worth (aside from the ankle exercise from those bowling balls), it was a little breath of fresh air to come across ONE metric that firmly and concretely handed me an exact measurement of exactly that—my footprint. More precisely, the measurement of how many Earths it would take to sustain a person with my consumption habits. I was searching for some tool that could help us in our sustainability efforts, and this is what I stumbled across on the web—The Global Footprint Network (<a href="http://www.footprintcalculator.org/" style="text-align: center;">www.footprintcalculator.org</a>). They offer an online tool that guides you through a series of questions gaging your energy use in various realms. How much packaged food do you eat vs. local or homegrown food? What size is your house, number of occupants, and how do you heat and power it? How often do you drive, or fly, or take public transportation? It got more detailed from there. I found it fascinating as I could quickly glimpse in the questions how differently (for example) a rural Haitian person’s life might stack up against a typical American person’s. And my life? How many Earths would it take to sustain everyone if they lived like me? The answer that the algorithm spit back at me was 1.1. Just over one Earth. That is what all of my efforts in the past few years—giving up flying, growing a bunch of my own food, living in a smallish straw bale house that I heat with wood and illuminate with solar electricity, shopping at thrift stores, etc.—amount to, at least roughly. I am living (almost!) within the limits of the Earth. I feel sort of reassured by this pronouncement, mostly because it seems attainable for anyone if it is attainable by me, even if the variables were quite different (for example, someone living in a small apartment in a city taking public transit might have the same footprint). That being said, I know this alone is not enough. If I just pat myself on the back and go back to minding my own homestead, I am not sure any kind of global transformation is going to happen. We need people at the frontlines too—blocking pipelines and holding signs that say #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter, and Stop Gun Violence, and much, much more. These conversations are a beginning for us all. It will be exciting to see what happens next as more and more people, us included, start taking next steps...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-84186546460315296342018-02-07T15:37:00.001-08:002018-02-11T12:55:16.159-08:00Fire and Ice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Winter is such a totally different season in our life on the land. I realize just how much the hours, work and rhythm of our lives shift with the seasons come January, when we return to our Missouri homestead, transformed by a blanket of snow. Our daily activities shift indoors. We find ourselves flipping from “active doing” to “planning and dreaming”. Our cookstove becomes a central element inside our home and freezing temperatures become a central element outside our home, defining what is and isn’t possible. So we tend fires and break ice (mostly in our yet-to-be-fully-buried-cistern). We also read, and reorient ourselves for the year to come. This past month we have spent more time than ever with folks in our community, in conversation about the year of big transitions to come. Twice or three times a week we have had meetings where we work on a vision of how we want to come together as a single community entity. What kind of legal land-holding structure that will take has been a central part of the ongoing conversation, but also the nuances of life together: possible shared structures, decision-making models, processes for joining and departing, co-operatives and income-sharing businesses, etc. The work of creating a life together seems never ending, but then again, this is the season to do it in.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT6xYljkaePfM2S80QbDktkkUuKlRl8_mq7mkC08RHuUMRndHRCNoeHHCLLsiiefbjKDgc9BJAN0HkRjBlsEBGf-YcucnbMzUteXX9-AtBS0f-TWQkLg2t-BWedxg5c3QDl8nMHDXyuF4/s1600/lake.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT6xYljkaePfM2S80QbDktkkUuKlRl8_mq7mkC08RHuUMRndHRCNoeHHCLLsiiefbjKDgc9BJAN0HkRjBlsEBGf-YcucnbMzUteXX9-AtBS0f-TWQkLg2t-BWedxg5c3QDl8nMHDXyuF4/s320/lake.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTpnOvxR3zP0XxIpjSrlwebO1nTGQe1IO-swSpkqYbcdUBb8ntXLiH5Hz8FNNGJ1TAuAJQqALDQYwuRYpA_JOuIDnqDbPKA2_-0M5Z1ift6oi-nNTQmqPoUNBfA52qCknOIncGggix_Ho/s1600/lake2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTpnOvxR3zP0XxIpjSrlwebO1nTGQe1IO-swSpkqYbcdUBb8ntXLiH5Hz8FNNGJ1TAuAJQqALDQYwuRYpA_JOuIDnqDbPKA2_-0M5Z1ift6oi-nNTQmqPoUNBfA52qCknOIncGggix_Ho/s320/lake2.JPG" width="240" /></a> Perhaps to counteract the often serious gravity that sitting indoors hashing out “bylaws” and such has, we have been embracing the recreational possibilities of the snow and ice with some regularity. Spontaneous sledding parties result from the right combination of hill + snow + kids. Frozen ponds turn into ice skating rinks, capture-the-flag fields, mazes and forts (when snowed on), and vast expanses to be explored together. The way ice forms is so exquisitely beautiful and mysterious—and somewhat fraught with the ever-lurking possibility of breaking through as one glides across it. I don’t think I have ever stopped to consider it very much before this year. Sometimes deep, narrow, fissures will break up thick plates of ice, menacing fault lines running through the pond. Out on a bigger lake, we discovered strange white spots appearing like spilled paint layered into the ice. These were such a fascinating mystery until someone pointed out the possibility that they were caused by hibernating turtles and other creatures buried deep in the lake muck below, emitting the occasional air bubble that trapped itself in the freezing ice. Still, other formations remain unexplainable.<br />
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The snowfall is equally as varied and beautiful, sometimes driving down in forceful slivers with the blustery wind, other times wafting slowly in fat flakes with all the time in the world to land. The air seems so still and quiet then, and standing outside, I could swear that I was the only one stirring in the whole natural world around me. Sounds can transport much longer distances then, unimpeded by tree canopy and such. I can hear the clink clink of our neighbor Brian hammering out steel at his blacksmith forge up the way. Or the voices of our neighbors checking on their sugaring buckets hung on black walnuts and silver maples through the woods to catch sap running on warm days that have freezing nights.<br />
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Mike has taken on tapping our trees this year, an exploratory project to see what potential there might be for making our own syrup. Having tried out this project a decade ago when I lived in Vermont surrounded by sugar maples, I feel less than enthusiastic about it: I almost burned down a cabin in the process of boiling down the sap, so my only stipulation is that we do that part outside this time around. Other projects squeeze into nicer days: burning up brush piles, pulling out an old fence line to make way for a garden expansion, putting in orders for planks of wood at a few mills with future projects in mind, and climbing under the house to fill in cavities with insulation that somehow missed it years ago. Indoors projects include putting up shelves in the kitchen, cleaning and organizing, and a big one—educating ourselves about a larger solar system that we are planning to install this spring. President Trump’s increase in tariffs on imported solar panels has somewhat motivated this, as a group from nearby ecovillage Dancing Rabbit decided to put in a rush bulk order before the deadline. A good friend from that community has kindly offered to help us procure used lithium ion batteries from scrapped electric vehicles that he has a source for, which also is helping bring down the cost (and increase performance) on our future system. It is an exciting development for us, to imagine ways in which we can re-invite some amount of electricity back into our lives all while staying off the grid: at the very least, we will be able to run our chest freezer off of power from the sun instead of Missouri’s default source: coal. Ugh.<br />
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While all of this progress in our community and on our homestead has been encouraging, the last theme we have been grappling this month is somewhat darker and harder to know what to do with. It started with a friendly conversation between Mike and an elderly Amish man who runs a nearby business. When Mike told him where our homestead was located the man nodded with recognition and reported to Mike that he knew of it because he has gone hunting with his dogs out our way… hunting for predators. “Why yes,” he reported with some satisfaction, “we shot quite a few animals just a few weeks ago—18 coyote, 6 fox and a bobcat”. That is to say, he let his hunting dogs sweep through our neighborhood and surrounding woods, chasing out predators and rounding them off toward the road where hunters cruise slowly along with their trucks, taking shots from the road. It isn’t just the Amish who sport-hunt this way, another local man reported he did the same along our road as well. There are few things that quite make my blood boil such as this, as I love these inhabitants of our woods, love hearing their yipping and howling on cool fall nights, love the rare flash glimpses we catch of them. My community members feel the same and are equally livid about the slaughter of such important and rare members of our ecosystem. But the Amish hunting culture and mindset is a hard thing to change—when someone in their community caught sight of a mountain lion a few years ago (an extremely rare and wonderful thing as they begin to repopulate this far east), and reported it to the conservation department (who denied the possibility perhaps in a preservation effort), a group of Amish men hunted it down, delivering its body to the conservation department with a “told you so”. I imagine they quite enjoyed doing it as well. What does one do with this kind of practice, occurring right here, on our road, in our woods? It is part lack of understanding about the important part predators play in the balance of an ecosystem, and part cultural inheritance, something very hard to change….<br />
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At any rate, a few weeks ago one of our neighbors found a frozen Great Horned Owl down by the train tracks, caught by a train perhaps mid-swoop. It is a magnificent bird that I have rarely seen, much less up close—the patterning on its feathers, the long flinty talons, one gold eye still cocked open. It is one of the earliest birds to nest and lay eggs, right around this time of year actually. We all crowded round and admired it for awhile, showing all of the kids so they might understand its specialness and remember. After a little while it was buried down in the woods. With so much death in the air, it is hard to remember that in a few short months, rising up from that grave site will be mayapples and morels, frog song filling the air, all below the great canopy of oaks leafing out again. For now, the stark black and white of winter continues on....<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perhaps coyote tracks in the new snow?</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-23713915710701739302017-12-21T20:05:00.003-08:002017-12-21T20:11:02.100-08:00Made by hand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”</span></b><br />
<b> - William Morris</b><br />
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I find myself thinking about the above quote in the run-up to the holidays as I inevitably have joined in the consumer frenzy of shopping for gifts. I think a person could scarcely avoid it at this time of year, as everywhere one looks—from our inboxes to store windows—there are gift suggestions galore. This also happens to be the month that Mike and I take away from our homestead in Missouri to rejoin urban civilization: our chance to stock up on certain home essentials that we don’t have ready access to in our rural community back home. So what do I know to be useful or believe to be beautiful? How does a person discern what that is amidst all the excess commercial crap that gluts the aisles (and our homes) around us?<br />
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I think this question has become increasingly hard for me to answer with a child in the picture. She craves and needs new stimulus, experiences and objects to learn by, and I don’t quite have a sense of discernment honed in about what makes for an interesting, useful toy—one that “we can get some mileage from” as my neighbor Teri puts it. Caris is beginning to be the age where she will point to anything in a store appropriately color-coded as kid material with an enthusiastic, “dat one! Dat one mama!” Until I pick it up and hand it to her (temporarily), or maneuver us safely out of sight. Truth be told, before she was born, I always dreamed of making her toys, and books, and clothes—her very world—much like I have taken on making just about everything else in our house. But several half finished baby sweaters and a headless doll speak for themselves… it is simply much harder to find time to be a maker once one is a parent.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carding wool before spinning it</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brian at his forge</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brian's dinner bell-- AcornHillHandcrafts.com</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cynthia's handmade broom</td></tr>
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Though there is a small ache in my heart each time I let go of a project I wish I had the time for, I am learning to celebrate the small amount of making I still do have in my life, as well as the beauty of handmade objects from others makers. Our friend Cynthia recently gave us one of her handmade brooms, for example. Our friend Ian’s blacksmithed candle-holder graces our wall. I never did find time to make Caris a baby quilt, but my Aunt Jane did, and I felt the love she poured into it each time I swaddled her in it. At a friend’s wedding recently, I admired her stunning beaded and sequined dress, only to learn it was made by her aunt. There are small acts of making everywhere, care and craft spent giving form to raw materials: ingredients turned into meals, wool spun and knitted into hats, wood whittled into a spoon. To me, this is love manifesting itself, and I deeply honor each choice to make instead of simply click and purchase. But the life of a maker is not easy in this day and age.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cynthia Main coopering a barrel</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My father making beeswax candles</td></tr>
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Our friend Cynthia, another talented maker (see sunhousecraft.com to check out her incredible craft work), and I were lamenting this a few weeks ago. We live in a world now where pretty much anything that could be handmade can be made much more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently in a factory elsewhere. This definitely decreases the need for makers in our society: a whole range of once livelihoods are now the stuff of hobbies. My mother and her sisters grew up making their own clothes each year before school started—sharing patterns, buying cloth and notions, and excitedly wearing their new creations to school. This arrangement was born out of necessity, but it led to their being the creative, talented, craftswomen they are today. My mother taught my sister and I to sew as well, and I was eight when I made my first outfit (a faux jean skirt and reversible matching vest, tre chic!) I have been occasionally making my own clothes since, but somewhere between now and then, the economics of it all shifted and it has become cheaper to buy clothes instead of making them. By the time you purchase the fabric, pattern, etc., you might be on par with what a pricier piece of clothing costs new. The same holds true for almost every other craft form. It is hard to compete with a world of cheap, factory-made things intended to be disposed of after a few seasons.<br />
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So year after year what I find to be enduringly beautiful (and useful!) in my house are the handmade items—the art on my walls, the furniture and cutting boards, the quilts, the ceramics, the forged drawer pulls and towel rods, the brooms, the whittled spoons, the hand knit sweaters, and so on. I look around and see the effort of people I love in these objects, their hands transforming the materials into function and beauty. So in this season of darkness, awaiting the return of light, what better way to spend the chilly evenings than in a small act of creation, lit by the warm flame of a hand-dipped beeswax candle?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicdjkdpRsjhL_ENQvWGhjc69q3GQxcxMXycImgbArkVq6nvoRlugoYXvR_A2T3CK0xuLADZlvoZdHGYmrBuXwCMAw134wIwUNqCx1vazL7rV8A6MS66M38Xwpg8QUZqAtIKXhDimEB14k/s1600/21551_263324671970_2781185_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicdjkdpRsjhL_ENQvWGhjc69q3GQxcxMXycImgbArkVq6nvoRlugoYXvR_A2T3CK0xuLADZlvoZdHGYmrBuXwCMAw134wIwUNqCx1vazL7rV8A6MS66M38Xwpg8QUZqAtIKXhDimEB14k/s400/21551_263324671970_2781185_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sarah and her daughter Etta painting by candlelight</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-32584247961114675412017-11-02T14:37:00.001-07:002017-11-02T14:37:13.869-07:00Fall crunch time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Fall is here for sure now in Missouri. It has been here for well over a month, but I have been in so much denial that it has been anything more than "late summer" going on that it has almost passed me by. Thanks to Mike's erratic organic inspection work schedule, and multiple friend and family visits to usher in new marriages, and new babies, our fall projects and work have been sadly neglected. Now an undeniable chill in the air and increasing numbers of bare branches just can't be argued with any more... our season of "doing" is drawing to a close. Ready or not, fall is here!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn4jYM0C_n7TRAgYIL9nMs46EkcmObw7vMh-yW0iHgmPGOIuvXu29F-3_C98VZQSwKDiw5SEqmZcjbS0xewwQLE0sdX4XWgWZKmwP75Xtx7cRX6uc58JlknNJ6cvk7z0ZqoWM_f6eV0oY/s1600/_MG_0102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn4jYM0C_n7TRAgYIL9nMs46EkcmObw7vMh-yW0iHgmPGOIuvXu29F-3_C98VZQSwKDiw5SEqmZcjbS0xewwQLE0sdX4XWgWZKmwP75Xtx7cRX6uc58JlknNJ6cvk7z0ZqoWM_f6eV0oY/s320/_MG_0102.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
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In accordance with the shift in weather, we have been scurrying about trying to eek out a little more firewood for the stack, play catch up in our garden beds to harvest the last peppers, the last broccoli, and dig up the sweet potatoes before the frost gets the best of it. I deposit my daughter in the sandbox and run to fill a wheelbarrow with compost and straw to put one more bed to sleep before she notices I am gone and starts calling for me. What our garden lacks in storage crops we easily make up in bulk purchased local produce, but this year, I have to blink and pinch myself that we finally have a decent fall garden-- straight rows of mature leeks, beds full of dozens of varieties of hardy greens (bok choy, tatsoi, mizuna, komatsuma, etc.--none of which my auto-spell-checker seems to like!), and root crops like beets and carrots and daikon radishes coming on strong. We actually have bell peppers for the first time ever--the big sweet red ones that cost a fortune in the organic section of the grocery store! The last of our amazing purple-podded pole beans are hanging on too, ending their staggering four months of ample production. I am now convinced that a garden is the single greatest way to get kids to eat their vegetables, since Caris grazes her way around its labyrinth beds, snagging beans and lettuce, and biting right into ripe cucumbers. I am also now convinced that giving our soil some love and care at the end of a season in the form of composted animal manure is well worth the hassle of throwing on boots, grabbing a shovel and wading into our Amish neighbor's goat pen!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinrQRTgcd397LbpQMI7NQtrUWOI0tI5Zh41-u4N6UQCnw9DZ1VJRtulb0OYVk5P2Y95x0gqyr0v8c5rLgv1jsRtjN_CHzsCj7RTxzj9bVnPfCscs7-hvqlrDHwPz9FcP6RkFC9yzw4rtM/s1600/_MG_0100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinrQRTgcd397LbpQMI7NQtrUWOI0tI5Zh41-u4N6UQCnw9DZ1VJRtulb0OYVk5P2Y95x0gqyr0v8c5rLgv1jsRtjN_CHzsCj7RTxzj9bVnPfCscs7-hvqlrDHwPz9FcP6RkFC9yzw4rtM/s400/_MG_0100.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAEmZ9R8HFGgak1_qCOggMQV4H3wzzZ8_vDYXpy_6xSmAgjJViSnCsl0D90rDFrcyF4lpfhfRSSPK5BVLpHfJy3Sdf2zNPkiHFYX7E0jFGT6KhhtHpczmrGLSl1TaxFrcjueyG1ggbJiU/s1600/IMG_0114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAEmZ9R8HFGgak1_qCOggMQV4H3wzzZ8_vDYXpy_6xSmAgjJViSnCsl0D90rDFrcyF4lpfhfRSSPK5BVLpHfJy3Sdf2zNPkiHFYX7E0jFGT6KhhtHpczmrGLSl1TaxFrcjueyG1ggbJiU/s320/IMG_0114.jpg" width="213" /></a> Another fall ritual is awakening our cookstove from its summer slumber. When we started noticing how cool our house was getting inside, we realized that we needed to hastily clean our chimney pipe out and get the firebox ready if we were to have any warmth going forward. Would Mike climb on the roof (with a bruised and torn hamstring) and I disassemble the stove pipe and hold a bag to catch the ashes? Or vice versa? And who would sooth our freaked out daughter? Nothing a pair of handy, strapping, young Amish neighbors can't solve in a pinch... Amos and Rudy helped put on our roof years ago with the sure-footedness of mountain goats, and the way they throw up a ladder and go bolting up a steep pitch is nothing short of awe-inspiring (at least to this novice homesteader!) A half hour and a sooty chain later, the deed is done and our stove is lit, and with all of their easy confident advice ringing in our ears--<i>you don't have to do it every year, just when the draw slows down... hold a mirror below the pipe... drop the chain down--</i>and their sincere refusal to take a single penny in compensation--<i>We are happy to help you out! No, we won't take your money, Julie, put it back!</i>--we are as warm with gratitude as we are with warmth from our stove. (We of course figured out how to slip them a few bills later!)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNaus-G5BeUI21jFeo0BvfGJOJzCrHHND0tVKEahkwVRd9Jb12Zkd8hzsI78vTCaOQrvLDKYWBYr0q654TXEMLP4RPIMs-ssRk5SsR6nxdkPTTX8qf1HlsnBAPw_VJ_mJafQpOCPQiyaw/s1600/_MG_0161.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNaus-G5BeUI21jFeo0BvfGJOJzCrHHND0tVKEahkwVRd9Jb12Zkd8hzsI78vTCaOQrvLDKYWBYr0q654TXEMLP4RPIMs-ssRk5SsR6nxdkPTTX8qf1HlsnBAPw_VJ_mJafQpOCPQiyaw/s400/_MG_0161.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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We aren't alone in the fall rush to get things done--I notice our neighbors also pushing on their projects, squeezing in a little bit more work on weekends and evenings. Regina and John, who are expecting a baby at the end of November, are especially pushing to finish renovation work that will allow them to accommodate more guests at their Catholic Worker farm--installing a shower, bedrooms, a sink and new stove. The sheetrock is flying up thanks to work parties and our handy neighbor Brian just helped them get their plumbing fit just right. I know that baby-count-down well from our own final house push before Caris was born... no such motivator like a woman's pre-baby nesting instinct! Another set of friends also have been working on their cabin, hosting a one-day-plaster-party-marathon before the frost set in. It had been well over a year since the last time Mike and I sunk our hands into a bucket of plaster, picked up a trowel, and set to a wall, so it felt good to stretch those muscles again, joking the day away with the good company of friends in a tight, muddy space.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUJypoRkblOtICM1mn8VTaiGs3hBGAKBNHcOzrqzMyJfxY07hTqJMFwXJ5q4rGIGadiEjccg1ziZvx6yRmdT3P47p6laSZkj3QKllzvF5hnYvGgJ6QZjZsuAzisfBmAMWcwqZ0rZuhtDU/s1600/_MG_0128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUJypoRkblOtICM1mn8VTaiGs3hBGAKBNHcOzrqzMyJfxY07hTqJMFwXJ5q4rGIGadiEjccg1ziZvx6yRmdT3P47p6laSZkj3QKllzvF5hnYvGgJ6QZjZsuAzisfBmAMWcwqZ0rZuhtDU/s320/_MG_0128.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDfglvTpw6HF9X3e1FRH0q1JBhiczxRJJrcSTJspSkq2MKsd6YXkCCGI8YreuFEjmZSq8FGmc8c1grngs2AW_VrRAaPXzRoOx0z10j8LRZVRa2L8cMP3vDPr4vcHvuWkBCd_xvnViy8KY/s1600/_MG_0132.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDfglvTpw6HF9X3e1FRH0q1JBhiczxRJJrcSTJspSkq2MKsd6YXkCCGI8YreuFEjmZSq8FGmc8c1grngs2AW_VrRAaPXzRoOx0z10j8LRZVRa2L8cMP3vDPr4vcHvuWkBCd_xvnViy8KY/s320/_MG_0132.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvCBWa_4nZXe6QX8fYrQLYWs_tuYND0PzCiNeCHo0jl0PRPLaCZ4NKnDQMKJKKEqNSHCN-RvrfASpSw9G0kP3aRxashRJOmhYFr1mE7wWWNcqO1XlnKaYj73_XM3PIUGhNfivzxQQ-qs/s1600/_MG_0137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="438" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvCBWa_4nZXe6QX8fYrQLYWs_tuYND0PzCiNeCHo0jl0PRPLaCZ4NKnDQMKJKKEqNSHCN-RvrfASpSw9G0kP3aRxashRJOmhYFr1mE7wWWNcqO1XlnKaYj73_XM3PIUGhNfivzxQQ-qs/s320/_MG_0137.jpg" width="264" /></a> But what about our big fall projects? I'll admit that forging ahead on our homesteading dreams to-do list has mostly taken a backseat to keeping up with daily maintenance and chores. But in the small gulps of productive time that appear, unspoken for, I dash outside with a drill and hammer to eek out the next step on our garden shed, and we recently rented a mini tractor to try to accelerate the process of moving our top soil pile (marooned years ago next to our pond from that excavation process)to the various places it is needed on our rather infertile, clay-heavy land. Nothing like an earth-works project to convince oneself that big progress is being made! We are setting ourself up for a spring project cultivating an outdoor kitchen area with covered cooking/serving area, a grape arbored sitting area, adjacent herb/medicinal garden bed, earthen pizza/bread oven and kid treehouse nearby as well as a garden expansion. Yes, a lofty goal for sure, but slowly and steadily I am sure we will get there. I can almost smell next year's wood-fired pizza!<br />
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Another fun fall event that we attended was our sister community's 20th year reunion celebration at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. We have formed many friendships with similar-minded folks there who are also engaged in the work of building homes, growing food, raising families and cultivating community. It was amazing to us to reflect on what can be created from a bare patch of land and a founding dream, 20 years later. We walked down neighborhood streets, toured homes, gathered in common spaces, joined in games (village-wide capture-the-flag?) and danced to the music of several bands, all while our daughter frolicked with a small herd of other children, freely wandering the meandering car-less paths. It is always renewing for us to be there and get encouragement and ideas to return with to our fledgling community. Will we ever get there? Here are some photos from the weekend, to give you a glimpse--<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJT6hyphenhyphenGEIfZIAv1JULoMhFaLOOCV5Q7eCICc3W2S6LkfFQfVvojcsjCGxt-iePR815ETuuQst2O5OhatV2R_-xh1Rn2FRiR6ZZezZvGoqJkYpBM0lFHN9b3V0ZP-CQPLJsROHRQls3Y0/s1600/_MG_0084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJT6hyphenhyphenGEIfZIAv1JULoMhFaLOOCV5Q7eCICc3W2S6LkfFQfVvojcsjCGxt-iePR815ETuuQst2O5OhatV2R_-xh1Rn2FRiR6ZZezZvGoqJkYpBM0lFHN9b3V0ZP-CQPLJsROHRQls3Y0/s400/_MG_0084.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0XF91mnDMmRz5DZNhc7_ZLAJg0_aFhhnnjkC6f9bLKyCQLpGBk0N7bPM8e5EZRRuH53UmD0LJ7OK5azceqRZ3d-8eW8j7YLGpSGjRy5xZXeTS1wF8xt5DMvUOgi4RwwL0UJkQh6YKkA/s1600/_MG_0148.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0XF91mnDMmRz5DZNhc7_ZLAJg0_aFhhnnjkC6f9bLKyCQLpGBk0N7bPM8e5EZRRuH53UmD0LJ7OK5azceqRZ3d-8eW8j7YLGpSGjRy5xZXeTS1wF8xt5DMvUOgi4RwwL0UJkQh6YKkA/s320/_MG_0148.jpg" width="213" /></a> Last but not least--acorns! Where we live in Northeast Missouri is the most ridiculously acorn-filled ecosystem possibly imaginable. Oaks sprout like weeds everywhere and anywhere, mostly an irritating nuisance to be dealt with when trying to cultivate a patch of something else, like lettuce, or a path, or a flower bed... something far less productive in terms of caloric generation. My mother once visited and sighed a wistful "I wish we could grow oaks this easily... all the ones I have tried to transplant just die!" <i>Really?</i> I remember thinking, <i>these old things? </i>But they truly are an abundance and every year we promise ourselves that next year will be the year we really get out acorn-harvest on. Well, folks, this year was the year! Thanks to Shaina, a transient, acorn-loving volunteer, who headed up a big acorn experiment with our friend Adam, we now know a lot more about acorn harvesting and processing and cooking! She invited all the women and kids of the community to come out one gorgeous Saturday to hang out and shell acorns, nourished as we went by hickory nuts (another thing we have in ridiculous abundance). It was absolutely lovely and felt so natural, a ritual probably practiced in every primitive culture around the world for all of human history. We ate an acorn pancake potluck feast for lunch that clinched our appreciation--acorns flour is just so good! </div>
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So why aren't acorns a staple crop on par with wheat or corn or anything else that requires yearly cultivation? Oaks yield a staggering 6,000 lb. per acre without any of the tilling, combining, threshing, etc. Probably because the processing work they require is a bit finicky. Some acorns are "bad" or insect-damaged (these will generally float in a bucket of water), and additionally, once shelled (which goes much quicker with a hand-cranked nut sheller, from Davebilt Co.) they need to be ground (with a simple Corona hand-cranked mill) and leached of bitter tannins. This can be done in a number of ways, from hanging a mesh bag full of ground nuts in the tank of your toilet (I know!) or in a stream, or some other clean, flowing water source. Then the meal can be dried and used a la flour! Suffice to say, the nutrient profile of the acorn is pretty darn good and many native american tribes considered them a staple, basing up to 50% of their diets on them. Who knows, perhaps they will make a come-back. They certainly are in our neck of the woods!</div>
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So with that I will end with a note of small regret--that I am perpetually forgetting my camera and failing to capture the most breathtakingly gorgeous of images that constitute our daily life. For example, Regina driving a team of horses across the pasture, with her full pregnant belly and a full wagon load of wood that will heat their home (and her baby) for the winter... The women of our community shelling acorns in the sun... Caris and Mike coming back from the mushroom logs with their daily "discovery," huge smiles stretched across their faces.... The wild geese crossing the glowing evening sky on their way south.... and so on. But every once in awhile I am able to snatch a sweet moment in time, like this one, that I will leave you with! Happy fall!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-20554387126156561852017-09-20T15:23:00.000-07:002017-09-20T15:28:42.677-07:00The wild and wonderful world of plants<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foraged and gleaned pears and mushrooms</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canning, canning, canning!</td></tr>
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Time has passed way too quickly this past month, mostly claimed by the every day demands that make up the stuff of parenting: runny noses, bath times, swings to be pushed, and meals to be coaxed into picky mouths. The balance of our days has been spent frantically trying to keep up with the bounty of our garden and land. With little warning beans and cucumbers become too big and need to be picked and canned (now!) or become compost. A neighbor calls with the offer of an overflowing pear tree, available for harvest if we can get there in time. A flush of mushrooms will go to waste if we can’t find an hour to pick and process them. There is abundance all around us, and I find myself marveling at the miracle of the plant world: one tiny seed transforms itself over the course of months into a fruit bearing hundreds of more tiny seeds. There are such generous design principles at work in the natural world, and we are their lucky recipients. “As it is, plenty,” writes WH Auden. If we can only keep up! Although I do not possess the green thumb of a master gardener (evidenced by a yearly toll of dead house plants), one aspect of homestead living I love is learning more and more about the flora growing all around us: a seemingly never-ending education!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beating the birds to the elderberries down by our creek</td></tr>
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Though our annual vegetable garden keeps us plenty busy, the longer we inhabit our land, the more we come to appreciate the uses of all the diverse native plants that already exist without us lifting a finger. One of those realms of use has been medicinal. As I write that, even my mind jumps to marijuana, which I am not talking about in this case! I am talking about the dozens of plants like elderberry, echinacea, goldenseal, St. John’s wort, mullein, comfrey, garlic, hawthorn, ginseng, yarrow, and so on. The list is long, and learning about their medicinal properties and how to prepare them has been one of my goals this year. I am not alone in this endeavor as many other folks in our community have been on a similar learning journey. We have been joining forces in making tinctures and salves and such of late.<br />
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Surprisingly, the medicinal used of plants is also a point of common interest with our Amish neighbors. One evening when I was out on a stroll with Caris down the lane to a little bridge flanked by elderberries, we heard horse hooves approaching. Ira and Lena’s buggy pulled into view and as they passed us, they stopped and Ira hopped out with a knife and bag. “You weren’t going to get those elderberries, were you?” he asked me. Although I had been eyeing their slow progress ripening with exactly the thought of harvest in mind, it was easy to let them go to neighbors who have been very helpful and generous to us. Lena and I had begun comparing notes about medicinal herbs and their uses this summer, and when I lent her my copy of Rosemary Gladstar’s book <u>Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health</u>, I think it must have opened up another world of possibilities for her. She meekly apologized now for not having it to return since she had lent it to a series of other Amish women who she thought would be very interested. “Where could we get more copies?” she asked me now. Without book stores or internet access, I realize this sort of information doesn’t easily make it into Amish communities. Without hesitation I offered to help her as I understand exactly her enthusiasm!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Horses making a compost delivery</td></tr>
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So, if all goes as it went last year, this winter I will be trying out garlic-mullein ear oil for Caris’s ear infections instead of plying her immediately with antibiotics, and elderberry-echinacea tincture instead of cough syrup, and black walnut-chapparal salve for ringworm (instead of whatever over-the-counter thing it was I reluctantly applied despite the pharmacist’s total ambivalence about whether it could be used on babies.) I confess to feeling rather clueless during our daughter’s first year in the realm of home medicine; her first fever sent me into a total panic, something I am sure every parent is familiar with. It feels good to be a little more empowered and educated in this one area, and to know that the arsenal of conventional western medicines are still available to us when needed as backup. If you too are interested in learning a little more about herbal alternatives, I have found a great online resource is Aviva Romm’s website- <span style="background-color: white; color: #006621; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;">https://avivaromm.com</span>. And if you are reading this having a little skepticism about deviating from the canon of western medicine, I offer this consideration: our water, soil, food-supply and medicine cabinets are now considerably contaminated from over-use of antibiotics (with no new strains available to us) and bacteria is only gaining in its resistance. Europe has much more progressive policies regarding use of antibiotics in livestock (ie-only used when animals are sick vs. to help animals put on weight more rapidly) and in their use with humans (ie, children are not automatically given them for ear infections). Clearly we still have a lot to learn, or perhaps relearn!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caris paying a visit to her favorite Aronia berry bush</td></tr>
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Aside from the properties of plants useful for healing, there are scores of plants that are wild and free, edible and chock full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants for building up our health and vitality in times of wellness too! Some of the most nutrient dense plants our there are those considered to be weeds or are otherwise not found in grocery aisles. Dandelion greens, Curly dock greens, stinging nettles, Aronia berries, and the wide world of edible mushrooms. We just learned this year that Aronia berries are now classified as a cancer-fighting treatment because of their extremely high antioxidant content. This is nice validation for us for having planted a dozen Aronia bushes around our property. And despite their astringent, slightly bitter sweetness, Caris makes a beeline for them every time we go outside in the morning. She is a quick study in the department of wild edibles, and we munch our way through long stroller walks—black locust blossoms and clover heads in spring, mulberries and dewberries in early summer, wild grapes, Aronia and serviceberries in late summer, perhaps rosehips and autumn olive berries in late fall. Beats paying for Flintstone’s chewable multivitamins!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sarah spinning natural dyed wool</td></tr>
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Last on my review of the amazing properties of plants, I cannot forget to mention their dye properties! For some reason, this is a realm that has always fascinated me, and thus I have been experimenting and studying about all that can be done with plant dyes. Plant dyes are the most stupidly easy thing to learn (obvious to anyone who has accidentally given themselves grass or berry stains) and also quite a complex thing: though plants rich in tannic acid (think acorns and oak galls, black walnut, barks of various kinds) have no problem fixing themselves to the fibers of natural materials (like wool, silk, cotton), most other plants need an intermediary chemical to bind with fibers and become permanent. Those chemicals are things like iron, alum, copper, oxalic or tannic acid, and several more toxic ones. Each chemical, or “mordant”, reacts slightly differently, altering the color sometimes considerably. So from one plant (or flower, bark, nut, wood, etc.) you can get a huge range of color. Those are the basics, and start throwing in different techniques of printing and wrapping and using hot or cold baths and so on and you have a hobby that could keep you busy for a long, long time! One fantasy I have is of planting a whole dyer’s garden specifically to cultivate dye flowers and plants. What keeps holding me up is the fact that our land is already so full of wild plants, flowers, and trees ideal for dying that I have more than enough to work with already! Here are some of my latest experiments, learned just this summer, to show what is possible with printing rather than straight dying.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some new natural dying techniques using light sensitive willow bark dye, and maple leaves/ St. John's wort plus iron</td></tr>
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With my apparent enthusiasm for the amazing powers of plants, perhaps it will come as no surprise that one project I have been chipping away at the past month has been planting dozens of perennial bushes, vines, and plants around our house, focusing on things that are either edible, medicinal, dye-yielding, or that provide habitat and nectar for native bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. With any luck, next spring we will be bursting with new growth and new possibilities to keep us busy for a long time to come!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-9955854763384063672017-08-02T09:27:00.002-07:002017-08-02T09:27:23.566-07:00Five Years Anniversary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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July is tough month to leave the homestead. In the past few weeks, both Mike and I have found ourselves called away for various periods of time (for work and family visits mostly), and though our home economic situation is starting to pan out as we had hoped it would, our homestead has suffered for our inattentions. When we finally returned a few days ago, we found that in our short absence, nature had filled the vacuum. The electric strand fence that we had proudly strung around our corn, confident that it would keep marauding raccoons at bay, had shorted out due to the growth of weeds underneath it and the corn had been ravaged, almost down to the last ear. Our tomatoes (my favorite vegetable to grow and generally my baby in the garden) were under attack from above by tomato horn worms and below from blight, reduced in places to skeleton vines. Noooo! An hour’s work culled the majority of dead leaves and produced several dozen fat green worms that Caris and I gleefully fed to the fish in the pond. Still, the tomatoes have clearly taken a hit and look much sadder for it. It is hard not to feel overwhelmed by all of the demands of the homestead at this time of year. It is the turning point where all of our spring gardening fantasies crash and burn as they confront the realities of pest pressure, weeds and neglect.<br />
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Not everything has been a loss though, and fortunately, we were welcomed back to the greetings of many friends and neighbors at a community potluck where we swiftly had a week’s worth of meal invites, parties, game/social dates (for the adults), and play dates (for Caris) lined up. Many others in our community are feeling overwhelmed too, and we realized if we could team up and share in the work load, we would all be happier and more productive for it. So group canning sessions have commenced, and the hope, at least, of more work party rotations in weeks to come.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunday game day has become an institution</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Corn cooked in the solar tube</td></tr>
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One of the big take aways for me from this experiment in homestead living is that living in close community is the way to go. I could reluctantly leave many other parts of the lifestyle—the animals, the garden, the orchard, house building and all of the many other physically demanding aspects of the lifestyle. But if Mike and I were alone endeavoring to do it all, we wouldn’t make it. Instead, we are regularly saved by the good company, help, and wisdom of friends living close by, sharing in our ups and downs. From several older and more experienced neighbors down the road, for example, I received the good advice to triple strand our electric wire around the corn patch and scalp the earth underneath it. We received a trunk load of free organic corn, excess to the farmer who grew it who was happy to see it go to a human mouth and not a raccoon. Another kind neighbor walked me out to her corn patch and picked out a half dozen ears for our supper when she heard our bad news. Instead of feeling devastated, now I feel buoyed to try again next year with my newfound advice and my belly full of delicious corn.<br />
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This isn’t the first time we have felt overwhelmed with the demands of our life here. It has been a constant refrain since we began this project five years ago. Sometimes I only have eyes to see the half done projects and all that we don’t have time or energy to accomplish on our to-do list. I was taken aback by the praise of a neighboring homestead friend who pointed out how impressed she was with what we had built and created in our five years here. “Yes,” I countered, “but our gardens aren’t doing that well and we haven’t made headway with the last big pieces of house construction. We haven’t been able to even make a chicken coop!” (My dream of having chickens has been on hold for years!) She countered back with, “Your bean trellis looks amazing, and sweet potatoes vines are spilling everywhere, your garden looks great to me. And your house… you’ve done SO much.” It is the first time that I stopped to consider that she might be right—maybe I just don’t have eyes to see it. As I considered what we have accomplished, and what might be reasonable to encourage other to try and create from scratch, I decided to do a short survey of our five years of major projects and review what worked and didn’t, what we would do differently. I thought it might be useful information for anyone else who might be considering starting down the adventurous road of homesteading!<br />
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<b><u>Pond</u></b>-<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirIheRJ-fPkB2mwCxGU0EJ-gUNPztqQ-UZ6iHu13L9qyLrQgRVc1dcKh7hvhAC6Fba605924WVE2TrY6_EYZRAc5Z6uJmq6uyuyEaEEWUT2q7-yL24QHNcwSTYU2rWApBzQWwbznbt6pw/s1600/_MG_0427.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirIheRJ-fPkB2mwCxGU0EJ-gUNPztqQ-UZ6iHu13L9qyLrQgRVc1dcKh7hvhAC6Fba605924WVE2TrY6_EYZRAc5Z6uJmq6uyuyEaEEWUT2q7-yL24QHNcwSTYU2rWApBzQWwbznbt6pw/s320/_MG_0427.jpg" width="213" /></a> Although the pond we had dug on our land our first season did not involve much time or sweat labor on our part (we hired an excavator to dig it in three days for around $3000 which we fundraised), it has turned out to be a great asset to our land and a great decision to make at the outset. Our pond helps us stay cool, attracts wildlife, is home to our growing fish nursery, and best of all, is a reliable, free source of water for irrigation downhill, which we use all the time. When we started thinking about the layout of our land, we hadn’t consulted an excavator specializing in ponds (there is some logic to their placement in terms of catchment area and damming possibilities), so I feel lucky that it worked on our land to have it uphill from our cultivated land. If I were doing this again, I would try to choose a piece of land that did have pond site possibilities uphill from where I wanted to move water to. We also lucked out with our Missouri clay-rich soil that holds water effortlessly. I know what the hassle and expense of installing a pond liner or attempting other methods of water retention in other soil types, so it is something to take into consideration. What would I do differently? I would have had a plan ahead of time for moving the mound of top soil that the excavator removed to the side for us to use later as it is a HUGE hassle to move it when we need some elsewhere.<br />
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<u><b>Swales/Orchard-</b></u><br />
Our hugelculture swales are another big earthworks project we started in our first year, by hand digging trenches along contour of a hillside and slowly planting fruit trees into them. They were a big expenditure of time and energy to do by hand, even with the help of friends, so something I would DEFINITELY do differently is to rent a small backhoe to expedite the process. We could have done a month’s heavy work in a day for several hundred dollars more. I would have used that saved digging energy to plant cultivar fruit trees in our first year, instead of in our third. Another lesson learned is to fill a vacuum faster than nature can, so I would have quickly planted a ground covering on top of the swales instead of procrastinating and having many times the work weeding later. Still, the fruit trees we did plant in the swales are all doing well and putting on their first fruit this year!<br />
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<b><u>House- </u></b><br />
Clearly, our house is where we have spent the majority of our time, energy and money thus far. So I was surprised when I tallied the results of all of our construction expenses thus far and found that it came to a grand total of…. drum roll please… $22,500! (That doesn’t include our cistern and we are still building, so I think it would be safe to round up to 25K.) Where did we save the most money? On labor costs first and foremost—we have done most of the work ourselves, and only around $2,500 of that is for paid help during our fall crunch trying to get the roof on. But that saved money translated into four years of our lives working quite hard, which isn't for everyone... We also saved quite a bit scouting used windows and doors, second hand wood for interior framing, subfloor and the underside of our roof, and really cheap local lumber for everything else. Also, the bulk of our walls are strawbales, which cost $1,000 in total and plastered with clay and sand on the cheap. It took forever, but saved us quite a bit. The most expensive part of the house was the roof, costing us $7,000 total from rafters to metal and some labor costs. But no leaks yet!<br />
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What would I have done differently? One thing I definitely consider is whether it was worth using timbers from our land for our timberframe. Visitors and tour groups always rave about the cool look of live-edge round logs, but in a sense, it cost us a year extra of work, rather than just ordering pre-milled square timbers from our local mill. If we had taken the short cut, we could have built our frame our first year instead of our second. And although I love our house with all of its character, and I don’t exactly regret the cool learning process of working with roundwood…. I just can’t say I would recommend it to anyone else. That was a tough year. It also occurred to Mike and I, as we are in the process of throwing up a simple stick frame garden shed, that if we were to build another cabin on our land, we would NOT make it strawbale. Working with straw bales (and plastering them) was another time-costly and frustrating process. We would build stud frame and infill with lightly clay-coated straw or recycled batting insulation which we would plaster on the inside and find used siding for the outside. We probably could have saved ourselves another year doing it that way. Still, the thermal properties of the straw bales have been amazing, and we went through not even two cords of wood to heat our home last year—not bad!<br />
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<b><u>Water/Cistern-</u></b><br />
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Our water systems are one thing I feel glad we have tackled early and have good, redundant systems for. Our rainwater catchment cistern behind our house is one such system. It works well, almost too well, since our cistern is always full. The cistern so far doesn’t leak and last winter, our water supply line to the house did freeze but didn’t burst and we thawed it back out quickly with a heating coil we had pre-installed. So all in all, everything is working smoothly and cost us (including pump and plumbing and some labor costs) around $5,000. What would I do differently? One thing we didn’t consider when installing it all is the future of hot water in our house. We would love to try a solar hot water heater, but we would need a pressure tank that could always be kept full to resupply the hot water as it gets used. Currently with our beloved hand-pump, we can pressurize a water tank, but it slowly dissipates until empty and we pump it back up again. So we are trying to figure out other options, and it seems like the easiest is going to be some sort of manual system, at least for now.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our dream garden shed is finally happening!<br /></td></tr>
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<b><u>Gardens-</u></b><br />
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We have slowly been expanding our gardens and trying different styles—raised beds on contour in one area, flat beds in straight rows in another, etc. Lately I have been wishing that we had invested right away in getting a detailed soil analysis done and remineralizing and fertilizing the soil for a year before planting. Maybe even planting one year of a fertilizing cover crop. I know that soil fertility is something that takes time to slowly build up, and so maybe there is no short cut. But just getting things planted takes quite a bit of our energy, so fertility and compost making are almost always last on the list of what gets done. Still, we continue to eat out of our gardens and produce at least some extra to preserve for the winter. What we are learning is that yet another plus to living where we do is that there are lots of very cheap options for local, chemical free produce and grain (thanks to Amish farmers especially). We just bought a 5 gallon bucket of essentially organic tomatoes this morning from our neighbor for $4 to help off set our beleaguered tomato plant’s lower yields. I think that might buy one fancy heirloom tomato in the city. If it were on the small side…<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONp0aQbeG-w4wq-McPPdg6hgQeRz8aMV7TS1uaruWbc1jqW_iQ5VQ06UC5h5zr3a6rjAlnwnlQIjdqWMu37WxvOlIUt_jUMbnsCYWjE26XwARTmaCpH-ZPgUcZV8vDcZ8lDwusYh9Rnc/s1600/_MG_0490.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONp0aQbeG-w4wq-McPPdg6hgQeRz8aMV7TS1uaruWbc1jqW_iQ5VQ06UC5h5zr3a6rjAlnwnlQIjdqWMu37WxvOlIUt_jUMbnsCYWjE26XwARTmaCpH-ZPgUcZV8vDcZ8lDwusYh9Rnc/s320/_MG_0490.jpg" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_mY0hrCZ2ROhMPu9hDPef50EuNMog5ry8AW1b2CQz8YLBYP5ia7NNqpNE1yMO7m66NlO-8MdM1IrkzMFo1NKM9vm6azjuph5MZs2j0DMNdRcPLoMpuf4-_hO3hx8jmcgw23MZ-CJC58/s1600/_MG_0488.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_mY0hrCZ2ROhMPu9hDPef50EuNMog5ry8AW1b2CQz8YLBYP5ia7NNqpNE1yMO7m66NlO-8MdM1IrkzMFo1NKM9vm6azjuph5MZs2j0DMNdRcPLoMpuf4-_hO3hx8jmcgw23MZ-CJC58/s320/_MG_0488.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
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It has been a long road home and we are still going, but for now, I am celebrating the five years of hard and wonderful work that got us here. Writing this post has actually been a great reminder that we HAVE done a lot and I am not taking a a minute of it for granted! Maybe I will kick up my heels for the afternoon in our beautiful house and actually rest a little. Well, maybe....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-84449881875856918892017-07-01T10:52:00.002-07:002017-07-01T10:56:37.150-07:00What to eat? <br />
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I was flipping through a magazine a few weeks ago and was shocked to read an article about pacific small fish populations plummeting due to overfishing and sea temperatures rising. These are fish like sardines, anchovies and herring, and they are at the bottom of a whole marine food web, so declining numbers are causing seals, pelicans, puffins etc. to starve or face adversity like never before. <i>Crap!</i> I thought, <i>this is the last straw!</i> Earlier in the year I read an article about very high levels of arsenic in rice that sent me into a panic. All rice. Even the organic stuff. I read about it just when we started feeding our baby rice gruel exclusively. Cross that off the list. Now sardines…. Sardines are the one meat I can reliably get my picky toddler to chow down on, and given that just about every other type of fish is now considered too toxic or endangered to eat, I thought we were safe sticking with sardines. But it turns out our consumption is part of the problem. And now it just doesn’t seem right to eat them anymore… my child growing chubby and healthy, while a baby puffin slowly starves? Ack!<br />
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The sardine dilemma is just one piece of a huge food conundrum… what are we supposed to eat anymore? The ethics of food just seems increasingly complex once you start factoring in the footprint of fossil fuels used to grow and transport it, the varying level of toxins that could be in or on it, how humanely it was raised and killed, not to mention whether it is healthy or going to give you a coronary heart attack. Or diabetes. Or celiac disease. Or just a headache standing in the grocery aisle trying to decipher a long and complicated ingredients list. What to eat and what not to eat seems to be one of the most confusing things facing us poor Americans these days.<br />
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Strangely enough, one question that people ask Mike and I a lot when they hear about our off-the-grid lifestyle is whether we are vegetarians or not. The answer is that we are not (you, clever reader, probably figured that one out from all the pig butchering references!) I have finally come to understand the vegetarian question to mean, “you live a lifestyle deeply motivated by ethics of decreasing your fossil fuel use, so do you also base your diet on a similar set of stringent ethics, i.e. vegetariansim?” In that case, yes, we do think a lot about where our food is coming from and make choices accordingly. We aren’t alone. Just about everyone in our community eats with a different health or ethical philosophy in mind, ranging from extreme paleo-style to vegan. Some people eat meat from only local, grass-fed sources. Some people don’t eat any food that isn’t local or organic because it has a smaller footprint ecologically (even coffee and chocolate are out!) There are a range of wheat, dairy, and nut allergies that factor in too. It all makes for one heck of a confusing potluck. Increasingly I find myself bringing salads to be on the safe side of everyone’s preferences because I simply can’t remember it all. And I am not alone—I remember one potluck when someone proudly announced their “vegan burgers cooked in lard from their pigs!” before realizing their error and apologizing to the disappointed vegans.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike making pizza in our neighbor's wood fired oven</td></tr>
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I know we aren’t alone in our food confusion. Food writer Michael Pollan pins the blame on the pseudo-science of “nutritionism” (and the poor journalism, manipulative food industry and government policies that prop it up). He says we are so “anxious and confused about even the most basic questions of food and health, [that we have] a steadily diminishing ability to enjoy one of the great pleasures of life without guilt or neurosis.” Unlike the rest of the world, we Americans don’t have the weight and guidance of a long food tradition either, the way other cultures do to simplify their choices.<br />
I learned this first hand years ago when I was hired to be a cook for some diplomats in Italy, along with another young Italian woman. We would make elaborate traditional meals out of dusty, old Italian cookbooks, fetching our ingredients from shops in town—fresh meat from the butcher, bread from the baker, divine pecorino cheese and olives from another shop, and all the vegetables and fruits we prepared came from the garden and trees of the estate (figs, peaches, and plums, oh my!) Even the wine and olive oil was local and bought in bulk direct from the vineyard. If I ever tried to deviate from a recipe and improvise a bit, my Italian friend would scold me and say, “you Americans always ruin food!” She made things the way her mother did, and her grandmother, which was the way the cookbooks said to make them too. A surprising number of recipes started with melting a chunk of pancetta in the skillet before adding “tritate” (finely diced onion, celery and garlic) and seasonings to get things going. At the time I thought pancetta was a bit gross (a hunk of pork fat just melting in the pan?), but now Mike and I have come full circle to doing pretty much the same, often cooking with lard. Yet being the confused American I am—tossed this way and that by food trends over the years—I grew up on butter, then margarine, then a blend of hydrogenated oils in a little tub, then olive oil, then coconut oil to finally graduate back to pork fat from our pigs. Full circle back to good old saturated fats. <br />
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So we are trying to take a card from the Italian’s book by eating mostly local things we grow or raise ourselves (or our Amish neighbors do). We aren’t too rigid about it though, because, let’s face it, some things are worth importing! So we do buy some specialties from the grocery store and we also have a wild card, an Amish run “Bent and Dent” store a few miles away, carrying a very random assortment of food items that are rejected for whatever reason from grocery stores and sold at a steep discount. You never know what you will find there, but fancy organic fair-trade coffee is a reliable bet. Another sector of our diet comes seasonally from our land—we have a sizable wood nettles patch and wild mushroom and wild berry harvests are frequent. This year, our community is planning on conducting a big acorn harvest experiment, to see how hard it will be and what yields we can get from the many oak trees surrounding us. Mike and I are also experimenting with growing some varieties of corn—flint corn for polenta and grits, and flour corn for pancakes and breads. Our neighbor John is experimenting with popcorn. Our friend Iuval is experimenting with growing and pressing sunflower seeds for oil. Another neighbor, Brian, has been tinkering with cured pork products and hard cheeses. Some of them are really good… I bet they would even pass muster with my Italian friend! As a community, we are slowly recreating a regional cuisine tied to the land and its seasons, and relearning a set of skills that have mostly been forgotten in recent generations.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrew giving a fermentation workshop on wild wines</td></tr>
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In that same vein, a former community member, Andrew, is visiting us now and inspiring us in the direction of fermented food and beverages, which he now makes and teaches about professionally. Fermenting things and eating them is a great way to feed your gut microbiome, which the latest health research seems to be indicating is linked to myriad health issues—as in, a robust microbiome is a good thing! So after delving in with Andrew on some recipes over the past few days in our newly finished kitchen, I thought I would share with you his kraut recipe—my answer to the question of "what to eat?" It is infinitely adaptable, something you probably can’t buy in the super market, and super delicious and good for you. Make that GREAT for you.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet potatoes, cabbage, onions and kale in the garden</td></tr>
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We just happened to have lots of cabbage, carrots and beets ready to go in our garden, so we got to work chopping those up for this recipe, but it will work with any type of crunchy vegetable really: radishes, onions, kale or chard, cauliflower or broccoli, kohlrabi, chinese cabbage, bok choy, etc. You will also need a few spoonfuls of non-iodized salt (look for kosher salt, canning salt, or sea salt) and some jars or crocks to pack it in.<br />
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<u><b>Kraut Recipe- </b></u><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirBmzOIlsI5xOWuPT7cwNsyB8UhZT8uuAGkTL24vE2BfJ6IK3anEtyb1dSayfnn6_kHTMyWE8taL4_O4D0O4iU8u7XtA1YA6Wsd-VVuBX91Kxhq6muxL5pHcVTyjYbyxwi3jhLPTKjdJI/s1600/_MG_0366.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirBmzOIlsI5xOWuPT7cwNsyB8UhZT8uuAGkTL24vE2BfJ6IK3anEtyb1dSayfnn6_kHTMyWE8taL4_O4D0O4iU8u7XtA1YA6Wsd-VVuBX91Kxhq6muxL5pHcVTyjYbyxwi3jhLPTKjdJI/s320/_MG_0366.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
1. Start by chopping or shredding up your vegetables into a big bowl. You can experiment with bigger or smaller chop size.<br />
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2. Once it is tossed together, it is time to measure and sprinkle on salt. You want just enough salt to keep certain kinds of bacteria from growing, but not enough that the good bacteria can’t grow. Andrew recommends 2 1/2 Tablespoons per 5 lb. of cabbage (or whatever).<br />
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3. Now that it is salted, squeeze the vegetables and mash them a bit until it starts looking like some liquid is coming out of them. Andrew gives it the “squeeze test” to check. If you are working with something too firm to produce liquid, like a bunch of carrots or radishes, Andrew recommends making a separate brine that he pours over the vegetables in jars. For this, he uses 1 Tbsp salt: 1 cup water.<br />
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4. The next step is packing the jars. We decided to experiment a bit with blends of different veggies, adding some fresh garlic to one jar and more beets to another. Andrew then packs quart jars full of the juicy vegetable mixes, sort of mashing them down as he fills to eliminate air space and make sure the liquid gets in everywhere.<br />
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5. To keep everything safely submerged under the brine, Andrew folds an outer cabbage leaf into a square and tucks it down on top of the rest to help keep it all from bobbing above liquid level. The liquid should cover everything. If you don’t have enough because, say you used an older, drying-out cabbage, then just make a bit of brine to make up the difference.<br />
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6. Now you can either rubber band a piece of cloth on top of the jar, or screw on a lid and place the jar in a bowl because it may overflow a bit as it gets fermenting. You should put it aside and check it maybe once a day or two to “burp it” (if you went with the lid), and check for bubbles. By day 3 or 4 you can taste it. It will likely be pretty salty and young still—crispy and mild. You can eat it at this stage, or let it go longer. Maybe by one month, you might start noticing a white scummy something on top. Don’t freak out, this is normal. Just skim it off and let it keep going, making sure that everything is still below the brine level.<br />
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We Americans tend to be a little mold-phobic, but consider that this very vegetable ferment is what Captain Cook packed into barrels and brought to sea to feed his crew for two years. They were fine. They didn’t get survey because of it. Eastern Europeans consider any kraut younger than six months to be pretty much just coleslaw—too crispy. It softens as it ages, which is where you get the type of soft, stringy kraut often piled on brats and such. If you are the type of person for whom the very thought of some living, burping, blooming thing in a jar gives you the creeps, then you can always ask someone else who knows what they are doing to check your stuff out for you. Or you could just buy some from someone else who makes it. But at any rate, don’t short change your GI system, eat fermented vegetables! Kimchi is basically this recipe with some different things added— ginger, Korean hot pepper powder, fish sauce, and usually daikon radishes too. But I think the fun is in the experimentation, and if you make small batches, you have less to lose if something goes wrong or doesn't taste that great.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike making a batch of elderflower wine in our newly finished kitchen</td></tr>
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<br /> Happy fermenting! And if you are intrigued about trying out more fermented things, Sandor Katz is the best source for more information-- <u>Wild Fermentation</u> and <u>The Art of Fermentation,</u> his books, are staples in our kitchen. Andrew Cobb, our friend who guided us through this recipe, ferments and brews kombucha in the Houston area and sells his delicious stuff under the name "Sipping Sister," perhaps one day available at a store near you!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-90636523782670496842017-05-21T10:26:00.000-07:002017-05-21T10:31:30.016-07:00Adventures of a Free-Range Baby<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixciro7FJzPXMzXf7QcsMApn53LJBvAUWqjWemmYjQYnY-dyldk8fB81GFhmPjhDtdE6ccakYv9NyT0-442Z-MTjaAokKJxVUPvB4qXXZEc-LEJ_NOKKxHd5dUhHpNByG_zky5zMORjLo/s1600/_MG_0250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixciro7FJzPXMzXf7QcsMApn53LJBvAUWqjWemmYjQYnY-dyldk8fB81GFhmPjhDtdE6ccakYv9NyT0-442Z-MTjaAokKJxVUPvB4qXXZEc-LEJ_NOKKxHd5dUhHpNByG_zky5zMORjLo/s400/_MG_0250.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Containment... one parenting strategy at work</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj952grmef4z0Wh0b8GXVYhi1mbFVP_7K_Ti36xqebPUgi0X1x5gcBCsFRNbBzvP6gBhD13mlzTCvdE6oehxvMw-zn8JAuJ8oA0yuIN2wWUP5iELgU-DPx7ww9aVTog3YXd2Aehow_7z4I/s1600/_MG_0136.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj952grmef4z0Wh0b8GXVYhi1mbFVP_7K_Ti36xqebPUgi0X1x5gcBCsFRNbBzvP6gBhD13mlzTCvdE6oehxvMw-zn8JAuJ8oA0yuIN2wWUP5iELgU-DPx7ww9aVTog3YXd2Aehow_7z4I/s320/_MG_0136.jpg" width="213" /></a> It has been a little over a year now that the birth of our daughter sent our homesteading life into a new direction with a new pace. There is no denying that our plans have slowed down to a turtle crawl from their former rabbit-like turbo speed. We are in the slow lane, chipping away at what we can each day, and thus, we have reluctantly adjusted our expectations. In the early months, I learned to be pleased if I got one boringly domestic task accomplished each day: “I got the diapers washed! Cross the dishes off the list!” We could slowly eek out a project during assorted nap times. We were two people reduced to the capacity of a half person. We learned that what we suddenly had lots of availability for were social things that didn’t require arm capacity or punctuality. We could sit around and visit and take walks and such. We could travel. We could even sit in meetings if Caris wasn’t too fussy, taking turns bouncing her up and down and retrieving her pacifier. Somewhere in the course of the last year, my internal clock has shifted. I have chilled out and adjusted to the new erratic, spontaneous flow of our life. Goals are loosely held to generously set deadlines. Unexpectedly, little windows of time open in the day for things to get done, but they can never really be counted on in advance.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Porch roof underway...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And finished!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caris "helping" on the worksite</td></tr>
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It never really occurred to me that anything else than this slow-lane-with-baby adjustment was possible, especially out here living simply on the land, but I felt thoroughly schooled the other morning when I stopped by my Amish neighbor’s farm to buy some strawberries. Something has been eating every one of our meager patch’s berries before we can get to them, but Lena and Ira have buckets brimming with them. And hundreds of little vegetable seedlings for sale from their greenhouse business to replace all of the ones I have managed to stunt or kill from neglect at our homestead. They also have plenty of milk for sale from their sizable goat herd. And then there are the rest of the animals on their farm. And did I mention they have seven kids under the age of 10? And Ira works construction jobs quite often too. He happened to be home and very congenially asked me, “so what has been keeping you busy?” After hemming and hawing a bit while I went through my mental list of what had previously seemed to be quite the juggling act: a single baby, a small garden, random house construction projects, community meetings, chores and art-making in the margins… hmm. I finally settled on an evasive, “oh you know, this and that!” Considering that they cheerfully manage seven times what we do, I can’t complain. It gave me a new perspective though, an awareness that we are novices learning how to live off the land compared to our neighbors who have had a lifelong education and the wisdom of generations in living-off-the-land skills.<br />
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Mike and I didn’t embark on parenthood with any child-rearing philosophy in mind. But the active, determined nature of our daughter has set the direction of our parenting style toward “free range” more than anything, plus pieces of gleaned advice from various friends and neighbors. We give our daughter more freedom to follow her free will than probably most kids her age have. She probably has more access to dirt too. We take her to the garden with us and set her up with some tools, a bucket of water, and some cups and let her experiment with different combinations of elements—straw and dirt in bucket; water and dirt poured on woodchips; water poured on shirt; dirt, wood chips and straw in mouth, etc. This sort of thing occupies her for a few minutes and then she is off, non-stop walking everywhere with great determination. There is no fighting it… so we let her free-range outside with us, using a zone-defense approach: I track her when she is in my zone until she wanders closer to Mike, and then she is his to track. We tag out constantly and manage to both get light work done with this arrangement, with only a few panicked moments leaping to our feet to avert her path from the giant poison ivy patch. At other times we plan out blocks of time that one or the other of us is fully on-duty to free up the other partner for more focused work. It helps too that there are always other friends with kids at home over yonder hill, and sometimes we join forces or swap child-watching times with other parents. This is one of the perks of living in community—especially when all together, there are many eyes and hands to watch and help parent children, what anthropologists call alloparenting. Just another way of saying the truism, “it takes a village to raise a child”.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So those warning are on the bucket for a reason!</td></tr>
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Despite the parenting leg up that community provides, and having more or less two stay-at-home parents, I sometimes wonder whether our rustic lifestyle tips the scales in the other direction. Right back to the arduous slog that parenting sometimes is. Here is an example of something I can’t imagine happening in most people’s homes: I was taking a bucket bath in our tub, balanced precariously between the leg of prosciutto overhead (which is its own saga..) and a bag of dirty diapers behind me. Not exactly glamorous to start with, but such is life in a small house. Enter adorable toddling daughter who is both eager to get into everything, and to not let me out of sight. “Please don’t freak out and need me to pick you up right now,” I remember thinking as I poured hot water over my head, eyes shut, and what a relief, she didn’t! She quietly occupied herself while I washed soap out of my eyes. I am still learning that a child “quietly occupying” themselves usually doesn’t yield anything good. When a few minutes (perhaps seconds?) later I recovered sight and looked around, I was dismayed to discover the room covered in piles of sawdust that she had carefully relocated from the sawdust bucket (for the composting toilet). Worst yet, I was covered in sawdust flakes that she had been softly flinging at me in the tub. And I was out of clean rinse water in my bucket! To laugh, or cry, or scoop your little rascally daughter into your soggy-sawdust covered arms and hug her? Just saying… I can’t imagine this scenario happening outside a very rustic homestead, and it is pretty on par for us.<br />
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So the trials and tribulations of parenting on a homestead? Is it worth it? Despite the frustrating moments sandwiched between dirty diapers and prosciutto leg, I think so. There are plenty of magical moments that make it worth it. This afternoon I gave up on doing anything productive and joined Caris for a romp in the sandy creek bed on our land. Slow flowing water meandered around us in little pools, dappled sunlight streaked through the giant trees up on the banks, birds and butterflies darted through: for an hour I forgot that life was anything short of paradise. I am glad that she will grow up knowing what monarchs and swallowtails look like in person. And knowing the names and calls of dozens of bird species, and which plants are poisonous (even if she learns it the hard way) and which are medicine. Yes, all in all, I am glad we are raising her here, in this way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-13675801677026621822017-04-11T17:56:00.001-07:002017-04-11T17:57:28.059-07:00Designing a village<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike inspecting the mushroom logs</td></tr>
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It has been raining for weeks now. We went from a winter drought to a spring deluge in short order, and now we are waiting for breaks in the rainfall to leap into action outside and start seeds in the garden, get trees planted, and work on projects. Yet, the dreary weather has been good for two things—the fruiting of our mushroom logs, and sitting around a table with our neighbors to discuss the future direction of our community.<br />
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The future of our community on Frontier Lane has felt like such a massive conversation to attempt to have. Everyone who has moved here has a lot invested in regrouping around a unified vision, post-exodus of the founding couple of our community and several other families who will be dearly missed. The ten of us who are interested in remaining have been excited to discuss ideas about moving forward. But still, there are so many huge moving parts to the equation of a community. What type of community structure will allow us all to thrive together, outside of the mainstream culture, and build upon what everyone has been working so hard to create already? Should we be focusing on economics, perhaps a shared income source? Should we focus on physical structures, like a shared building that could be created to meet everyone’s needs? Or should we think about systems—cooperatives perhaps, for homeschooling children, sharing vehicles, maybe even meals, or for sharing livestock and animal care? Should we be using a tractor or a team of horses? How should internet and electricity fit in? Private property vs. shared property? Should there be an alternative currency? And how many more people do we hope to have join so that there will be just the right number of people without being too many to function relationally altogether? And so on…<br />
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It is a lot to think about, I know, and honestly, given how often intentional communities fall apart, maybe it is a little idealistic even to be trying. But it is also exciting to imagine the possibilities. A blank canvas far larger than the size of a single homestead—a village, a new culture even, a model of sustainability. What we have been discovering so far is that life feels much more fulfilling when it is shared daily with a community of other people. I suspect humans are hardwired for a kind of tribal life that isn’t exactly encouraged in our modern, developed world. (Interestingly, the Amish community is organized by tribes or church communities—fifteen to twenty families in relative proximity to each other make up each church group, and if they grow larger than that, they split into two churches and keep growing.) On the flip side, it has felt overwhelming to Mike and I in the past to try and live in communities where all meals, chores and buildings are shared and there is very little autonomous space or time allocated to be individuals. Striking the right balance feels important. We are therefore giving this process our full effort, hopes, and dreams.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salvaged building materials taking over the driveway</td></tr>
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I realize that this process requires risking a lot too. We have had to consider what it would be like if we failed as a community and were the last homesteaders on Frontier Lane—not likely, but possible. Still, taking steps forward in uncertain situations is our only chance of realizing the future we want to create: that truly has been the lesson we learned several years ago when Mike and I were faced with an entirely different upheaval possibility. We received a letter in the mail letting us know a high voltage transmission line was slated for essentially our backyard. Truth be told, I think I spent a week curled in fetal position, paralyzed with foreboding, after that letter showed up. After crying on the shoulder of our wise, fierce, elderly neighbor Glinda, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “these things have a way of happening if you keep your head stuck in the sand. It’s time to start organizing”. As reluctant as I was to heed her nudge toward resistance (fetal position is very comfortable, thank you!), we did start organizing as neighbors to confront the proposed line. We connected with more and more people who were also looking for a way to defend their land, and despite the David-vs.-Goliath odds against us, almost three years later (and a heck of a lot of work), this past week an appellate court judge sided with our group against the energy company… No local permission, no line. Hallelujah! Glinda has since passed away after a long fight with cancer, but I suspect she knew how it would all come to pass.<br />
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Buoyed by the good news about the ruling and possibilities of a community to come, we are launching optimistically into spring. Seedlings are emerging, frogs are striking up their chorus, baby red tail hawks are making their little gull cries from the forest—the world is made new again. We are as busy as ever launching into projects, adding more balls to an already full juggling act. We have been salvaging materials off of an old house in town for future projects, working on our kitchen cabinetry, putting on a porch roof, starting a garden shed, and getting our garden going, no small task. Clearly, we aren’t getting anywhere fast with any of these projects, but somehow we manage to slowly keep accomplishing things, along with the usual suspects—dishes, laundry and naps (mostly Caris). On that note actually, I should wind this down and join her since I am getting over a cold (another joy of living in community—shared illnesses!) Happy spring!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-90160681926871682262017-02-28T14:38:00.000-08:002017-02-28T14:38:02.804-08:00Home economics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For the last month we have been nestled back in our cozy straw bale home in Missouri, submerged back into the rhythms of our simple life here. Morning light streaks through our bedroom window and wakes us, (or rather, our daughter, who then wakes us by gleefully pouncing on us.) One of us will then reluctantly lumber downstairs to chop up kindling to start the fire in our stalwart engine, our Ashland cookstove. As the stove warms, so does our breakfast (and dish water, and lunch meal often too), and our day is underway. On these bleak winter days, amidst bleak and uncertain changes going on in our community and our nation, I focus on gratitude for small things: the bright red beacon of a cardinal sitting on the garden gate, the surprise visits of friends and neighbors, the way the sun lights some angle of our home, the joy of our daughter learning something new. These are small but buoying things to focus on instead of losing oneself in the undertow of uncertainties swirling around us.<br />
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The rhythm of chores inherent to homesteading also helps us stay present and productive—we have to keep moving and doing, cooking and chopping, digging and tending—rather than stagnant worrying, and wondering about the future. This is something I love about homesteading, though I realize from the outside, it looks like a lot of thankless, hard labor. I suppose it is, but regardless, every morning I am excited to get up and going on the days projects, I suppose because they are ones we ourselves have dreamed up, or because each project has a gratifying completion—something we can see or hold in our hands at the end of the day or week as reward for our efforts.<br />
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Every season or month has its projects and tasks, and it seems February—with spring around the corner—is the cozy month for dreaming and visioning for the year to come. Recently I’ve noticed everyone in the community swapping seed catalogues, gardening books, and brainstorming big projects for the year. At a potluck dinner a week ago, talk turned to gardening and everyone sheepishly disclosed their latest vegetable fantasies for the coming season: “flint corn”, “alpine strawberries”, “rutabegas”. Our own garden fantasies for the coming year include building a garden shed and expanding to our second garden area with storage crops like corn, dry beans, potatoes and squash. Another gardening goal is compost, lots of compost. These dreams have been fueled by two books published by Chelsea Green (anything by them is excellent): The Resilient Gardener by Carol Deppe and Will Bonsai's Guide to Gardening. Both of them are seasoned and opinionated old-timers who know their stuff. Not just know it, but who breed, grow, store and eat their own stuff year round. Suffice to say, we are inspired to great gardening ambitions. Surely, to end a fall garden season with stores of roots, beans, grains, bushels of fruit and nuts and cold hardy vegetables growing under row covers is a deeply satisfying vision hard-wired into our genes. At least, it feels like it. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We have running water!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bacon curing in the bathroom</td></tr>
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Besides getting swept away with garden fantasies, Mike and I are headed in new directions with our vocational energies this year. We are each embarking on different ventures that we hope will yield more financial stability for our family. The financial equation is something that almost every homesteader has to tinker with: rarely is it possible to make your living entirely off of the land. Even our Amish neighbors who are masterful at growing crops, raising animals and putting up prodigious amounts of food have side gigs like carpentry, milling, repairing small motors, making buggies and the like. Having a child has meant that Mike and I can no longer do renovation work during winters in the city, saving up for the year to come, so a shift of home economies is in order. The puzzle for us has been to figure out what work would be rewarding to us, what would allow us to still mostly homestead, and also be viable in a somewhat depressed NE Missouri economy.<br />
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For Mike, the answer seems to be free-lance organic crop inspection, working for certification agencies. This kind of work would mean some travel for him now and again, while I keep the home fires burning. But perhaps not far—apparently there are around 480 organic farms in Missouri alone! Organic farming is one of the fastest growing sector of the agricultural world and certificates get reissued to farms yearly, meaning lots of work for inspectors. Meanwhile, Mike and our friend Cynthia continue to dabble in coopery (barrel making) when they get the chance to, and have dreams of ramping up production in the near future.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ella making copies of a penguin lino print she created</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPDgVHSwxZIgLJNuEO7iCyg8XWwJGHPokZFA2OFllBVgxb4UKaVZMaZthshuLFW29-1WnN8Acf6ygtxodjrNSrU8Qbf-jBwz47cMD8aeM5VkENfuiZaTxlqp7jVvTwks6m2JO6UtS7CK4/s1600/_MG_0606.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPDgVHSwxZIgLJNuEO7iCyg8XWwJGHPokZFA2OFllBVgxb4UKaVZMaZthshuLFW29-1WnN8Acf6ygtxodjrNSrU8Qbf-jBwz47cMD8aeM5VkENfuiZaTxlqp7jVvTwks6m2JO6UtS7CK4/s320/_MG_0606.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
As for me, I am venturing into the art world: I am beginning to teach weekly art lessons out of our home for the community kids and, during baby nap times, making my own artwork for a show I will be in this coming summer. The show will feature not only my work, but my maternal grandparents, who were both prolific artists on top of doing many other things (including building their house and growing much of their food). I feel honored to get to show with them, and it definitely has me working overtime to meet my next artistic deadline. So we will see! This year will be our litmus test for whether we can sustain ourselves financially on our Missouri homestead. Undoubtedly there will be other economic ventures in our future—perhaps more value-added goods from our homestead like honey, garlic, mushrooms, or organic meat or produce sold to our wonderful new local foods cafe, Take Root. But for now, we are underway. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Everett carving his hummingbird print block during art class</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Regina trying out Mark and Alyson's water pump</td></tr>
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The other huge demand of the coming year seems to be community brainstorming and rebuilding after the departure of several families. Conversations are beginning, ideas are being thrown around, surveys of needs and dreams and possibilities are all underway. I am beginning to feel excited about the new direction we are taking, as well as a deeper sense of solidarity with our remaining neighbors. Recently, we all went on a weekend retreat to an ecovillage nearby, Dancing Rabbit, where we have many friends and allies. The much larger community there (comprised of three adjoining communities—Dancing Rabbit, Red Earth CLT, and Sandhill Farms) is further down the road than we are in every sense, and we have the advantage of learning from their successes and failures. We learned our cistern building strategy from several folks there, and our Community Land Trust model comes from Red Earth Farms as well. We soaked in the inspiration and good company and returned re-energized for the work ahead.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Retreat at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, in their beautiful dance hall</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rocket mass heater at Red Earth Farms</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cool stair design at Dancing Rabbit</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dancing Rabbit ecovillage- a mix of communal and private natural buildings (white one is straw bale!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The straw bale Milkweed Mercantile Inn and Cafe building at Dancing Rabbit</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark and Alyson's straw bale building with recycled pallet wood roof trusses showing</td></tr>
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As you can tell, another year is slowly making its contours known to us. We have a lot that we are juggling and surely more to come, but for now we are able and ready for our busy 2017 homesteading season to begin!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-16841820633704813732016-12-31T14:13:00.002-08:002016-12-31T14:13:32.118-08:00Hope for a New Year<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our garden beds getting mulched for next year's garden</td></tr>
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I find myself sitting down to write, finally, in the last few days of the year. This is the third time I have attempted to pull together the incoherent strands of my life into a December blog post, each attempt failing on account of the fact that life lately has not fit into a convenient narrative or theme. The shocking election results and the new direction that they implicate for us as a nation have left me grasping for solid ground. Quite literally. Mike and I retreated to our garden the morning after; and while multiple of our conservative neighbors seemed to be out shooting their guns in celebration (we are surrounded by hunting land after all), we worked the earth, perhaps reassuring ourselves that at least the basic ingredient for survival cannot be taken from us, whatever changes may come. But in reflections since that day, I have come to feel certain that this election forced many, many people into polarized camps backing candidates that do not fully represent their values. They voted either because they were desperate for change, or they were voting for a single important issue, or even voting against something they were afraid would be worse. A two-party system does a poor job representing the diversity that is our country, and an even poorer job fixing the intractable problems that effect us all.<br />
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News of a Trump presidency was swiftly followed in my life by the unexpected death of a much beloved uncle of mine. I scarcely had time to absorb the shock and wake of sadness that followed news of his death when Mike had to depart for a month of seasonal work, leaving me to manage with our baby. I felt so overwhelmed by the responsibilities of single parenting (on a half-completed homestead, in a state of muddled grief) that I decamped for my parent’s home in Wisconsin for several weeks, and then the home of Philadelphia friends for several more weeks. Being constantly surrounded by people who love you, and unconditionally support you, is a wonderful heart-balm for all sorts of hard times, this being no exception. In that same vein, we are now visiting Mike’s family in Ohio before returning to our Missouri homestead. The mood here is festive and celebratory, full of parties and visiting guests, and we have lots of support with our nine month old daughter. And still. My own inner state is dissonantly contemplative and yearning for signs of hope to start the new year with.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perhaps the last Thanksgiving feast with many of our community members</td></tr>
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In the interests of full disclosure, I realize I am omitting one more strand, one that sits heavily on our hearts as Mike and I look forward toward 2017: our Missouri community is in the midst of major upheaval as well. Several of our neighbors have announced plans to move. The community as we had all dreamed it could be has not coalesced soon enough to assuage concerns about children’s educations, and other reasons to deem the grass greener elsewhere. Perhaps this has been a failure in priorities, or perhaps in community organization, or perhaps in simply not being enough people to form a critical mass that could sustain all of our community needs… There will be much soul searching to come to get to the root of what went wrong, I know. So on top of major changes facing our nation, Mike and I (along with our remaining neighbors) are looking at a major shift in the structure and nature of our beloved community, a shift that will likely take some time, healing and re-visioning to resolve.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mural in process at Take Root Cafe in Kirksville, now completed!</td></tr>
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How does one begin to make sense of a world changing all too quickly? The words of one of my dear friends and mentors, Dee Dee Rischer, recently struck a chord in me following a visit with her and her family in Philadelphia. “<i>This is what I can do in a future filled with uncertainty. Share space. Grow food. Stay in compassionate relationship. Pray and pray more. Stand somewhere, even if it is the wrong place</i>.” She is one of the voices I turn to for guidance when I feel most in need of a compass, and fortuitously, this time she placed in my hands a book that she just finished writing— <u>The Soulmaking Room</u>—about how difficult passages in our lives help make us into our best and truest selves. It is so timely for me, I feel it worth mentioning here (www.soulmakingroom.com has more). I think she is such an excellent writer and Christian leader (she and her husband Will O’Brien have been mentors for countless young people, including spiritual heavyweights like Shane Claiborne) that she should be more known. The humble life of simplicity and servitude that their family lives is probably not the best platform to leverage a readership with. Instead they pour their energies into social justice causes, inclusion of the poor and homeless through work with Project Home, and the creation of a small co-housing community in the city that shares meals, garden space, prayer time and a hospitality space for those who need a temporary space to live. Another beautiful model of what is possible with community. So perhaps more direction is on its way through her writing… Hope enough for the time being.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike and our daughter Caris at his November birthday celebration (playing pin the mushroom)</td></tr>
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I also have been trying to learn from my unflappably happy daughter and the little beacon of hope that she is to so many. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with worry for her future on a planet that is increasingly being dumped full of substances toxic to all life, with an ozone layer being punched full of holes by greenhouse gases. There are too many nuclear weapons, and guns, and people bent on killing other people. She is so small and fragile in the face of these huge things, but they aren’t hers to worry about yet. So I try to shut off my mind and watch how she navigates the world: she makes no distinctions or judgements between people or objects or places. She receives everything with curiosity and joy, which is contagious. I catch strangers staring at her with sheepish smiles, obviously caught in a moment of connection I wasn’t supposed to witness. Old men soften as they touch her tiny fingers, and her dimples seem to have mighty heart-melting power all on their own. It is just amazing to witness this sweet force—I have seen even construction workers break into the biggest of toothy smiles in her presence and start cooing! I am beginning to understand what the Christmas season is all about—the miracle that a new baby is and the hope they represent for people. I used to picture the stately Magi bowing in serene reverence for their new messiah, baby Jesus. Now I picture them grinning and cooing, their hearts opening.<br />
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So Caris's joyful new life energy will be carrying me along with her into the next year, and giving me a reason to look forward instead of back. May 2017 be a hope-filled new start for us all!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-9151670231447092412016-10-06T19:02:00.000-07:002016-10-06T19:02:30.486-07:00Got water? Fall is here. It feels official. Within the course of a week our wardrobes have shifted from tank tops to sweatshirts, from bathing suits to long underwear, from flip-flops to wool socks. One day, last week, I remember sweating in my lightest of clothes wondering when the heat would ever end, and now, just a week later, we are lighting the wood stove to take the edge off the chill. I don’t know why this shift comes as a surprise, I suppose because the notion of four equal seasons is engrained in my mind. In reality, it seems like there are more like two seasons, at least here in Missouri—the voracious, humid, teaming-with-life “warm” season where Missouri becomes a veritable jungle. And the other season is the inevitable retraction of whatever magic sap had animated everything to life, rendering the natural world full of dry and brown skeletons, to be eventually blanketed with snow. Two opposite pulses—an in breath and out breath—with perhaps one sparkling month on either end that feels near perfect in terms of climate.<br />
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We are in the midst of one of those months now—late September/early October. Not only is this the most beautiful time of year, it is also the busiest for us. We are invariably attempting to wrap up outdoor projects before the November cold sets in, and simultaneously the garden is hitting its peak of productivity, with peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, beans, basil, lemongrass, kale, sweet potatoes, and cucumbers all demanding our harvesting attention. Following harvest, responsible gardeners usually clean up their garden beds and give them a coat of compost and mulch before waving them goodnight. This didn’t exactly happen for us last year since we had pressing home construction and pregnancy concerns outcompeting any thought of the state of our garden. So a little garden TLC is overdue this year… And that is just the garden. Then there is a whole world of apple, pear, persimmon and autumn olive (think small, native, tart berry) gleaning and harvesting out there for those with the wherewithal to take it on!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Autumn olives</td></tr>
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And yet. Once again we find ourselves in the thick of other projects. There is the community cafe mural painting which I am in the midst of. There is the front entryway and closet area, a summer project that we finally just finished. There is more firewood, and more canning. And of course, our adorable and much beloved daughter who can move at the speed of baby light from stairs to hot stove now that she can crawl (yes, we have grown eyes in the backs of our heads!) But that is the little every day stuff. Our big project this fall is our water system.<br />
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We are determined to finish our home water system this year. Hauling buckets of water in and out of our house has lost its charming “Little House on the Prairie” novelty. It has become a bit of a drag. We stare wistfully at our not-yet-functional faucets in sinks and bathtub sighing, ‘one day’. And finally “one day” became now, thanks to the persistent nudging of my aunt and uncle who wanted to help us tackle such a key home improvement. They generously supplied the catalyst for the project: our water pump. It is a Bison hand pump, and probably the single nicest thing we now own in terms of how well it is made and how integral it will be in our future home functioning. Once the pump is installed, within five minutes of easy levering action we will have a full 20 gallons of pressurized water awaiting our every water whim. What now stands in our way to aqueous-nirvana is seemingly a hundred plumbing connection pieces that we have been trying to hunt down in our latest DIY oddessy. I am realizing there is a reason plumbers charge so much for their services… Ugh. There are dozens of different plumbing systems, each with their own pipes and connection pieces and methods of attachment between them. Then there are the pieces that allow conversions between systems. Suffice to say, we are knee deep in teflon tape, PEX shark bites, male threaded converters, pressure gages, shutoff valves and more. And they ain’t cheap…. But that is okay, we are soldiering on, fueled by the dream.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Connecting cistern to house</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the train out west!</td></tr>
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Harnessing the element of water on the homestead seems critical to me in order to have true self reliance in an era of increasing water scarcity and climate instability. We have seen first hand how irregular one year can be from the next, water-wise, here in Missouri: drought years followed by record rainy years. This past month we also went out to visit my sister and her husband in Colorado. As we drove through the beautiful, arid mountains with my sister, she filled us in on some of the very complex backstory to water rights in the west. Only recently was it made legal to collect water in backyard rain barrels in Colorado, mostly because every inch of rainfall is owned and spoken for ten times over based on ancestral claims. Much of the Colorado river is diverted in a massive feat of engineering to Los Angeles; rarely is there enough water left for the river to make it all the way to its natural tributaries in the Sea of Cortez. And of course, the source of the water is dependent on Rocky Mountain snow pack, so warmer years mean not as much runoff. If water were used wisely, it could be stretched much, much further, but it isn’t easy to convince a grass-loving culture to change.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIcnuQ_BSm0gG75UcZJi8Vqix0InBtblboCDAbbq4ZQHqPyxl-eAZ_1RSHxnSlsB5Zpg6X3ahSvQ8cKVE2omjfq_6UaM6dnrismSy2AfyHaptz_KH8oSDC92fUNm0xk4ahzTBmS750Xc/s1600/_MG_0323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIcnuQ_BSm0gG75UcZJi8Vqix0InBtblboCDAbbq4ZQHqPyxl-eAZ_1RSHxnSlsB5Zpg6X3ahSvQ8cKVE2omjfq_6UaM6dnrismSy2AfyHaptz_KH8oSDC92fUNm0xk4ahzTBmS750Xc/s320/_MG_0323.jpg" width="213" /></a> I could see this first hand when my sister and I would go for hikes around her home: just when it seemed like it was just us, the sagebrush and the pinions and junipers climbing up the mountains, we would round a hill and a bright green golf course would pop up before us. I was shocked to learn that in her town of New Castle, water use is five times greater in the summer than in the winter. The difference is due to irrigation of lawns and golf courses composed of water guzzling Kentucky bluegrass. If more people were like my sister they would replace non-native bluegrass with native grass varieties and native plants that don’t need irrigation, a practice called zero-scaping. But evidently just about everyone wants their front yard to look exactly the same, the whole country over, despite huge variations in local climates.<br />
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Well we are “going native” with our land here in Missouri. This is another way of saying that we moved onto land that already had native grasses and wildflowers on it and we aren’t doing much in the way of mowing. Not only are native species beautiful, at least to us, they are pretty useful for dye plants (for me) and for nourishing birds and butterflies that migrate through this area. Most folks here prefer to climb atop riding mowers and mow huge swaths of their land around their houses, but we (in our community) have been trying to educate people about the importance of wildflowers like milkweed for the declining monarch population. At any rate, having a pond that can gravity-feed downhill to source many of our homestead water needs (like watering animals and gardens) gives us a huge water buffer in drier years, and thus a fair bit of resiliency long-term. But for those without pond-digging potential at their homes, even having a few rainwater collection barrels under gutters would allow just about any home owner anywhere to mitigate some of their backyard water use. Embracing water-thrifty native varieties of flowers and plants instead of non-native ornamentals is also a good way to conserve water and save time standing around with a hose!<br />
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At any rate, our quest for homestead water security is nearing a close. The next chapter might involve figuring out what to do with too much water: finding a way to responsibly divert the greywater coming out of our house downhill!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-86741289608086531622016-09-01T18:48:00.000-07:002016-09-01T18:48:43.846-07:00Yes we can!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TkSIdDvDX3C8tMlxFyy9xHNi3vpkQKwNumEB54GY-mKPl1ernpCcB7U_7Ft6NcHah-djD9KG7gVjZzWHt3l5319VE1CelMl9t09qFNHxEyypcKyMUlH0PG_RMhW658kMMEU_nATBZ-E/s1600/_MG_0195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TkSIdDvDX3C8tMlxFyy9xHNi3vpkQKwNumEB54GY-mKPl1ernpCcB7U_7Ft6NcHah-djD9KG7gVjZzWHt3l5319VE1CelMl9t09qFNHxEyypcKyMUlH0PG_RMhW658kMMEU_nATBZ-E/s400/_MG_0195.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfRynvnf4BL8m2mHjymh5yJxmuBLaA3lKMpnzp8CiGE-OOaCYXXFVQpsAtlV8xqo_lI0js7j8TBtlzvQbVX7OwsZXhkOi8gbHkuleWIm8lVo8Ed5Ttmv_qdNZbF430JtQ59gCil80UpSA/s1600/_MG_0212.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfRynvnf4BL8m2mHjymh5yJxmuBLaA3lKMpnzp8CiGE-OOaCYXXFVQpsAtlV8xqo_lI0js7j8TBtlzvQbVX7OwsZXhkOi8gbHkuleWIm8lVo8Ed5Ttmv_qdNZbF430JtQ59gCil80UpSA/s320/_MG_0212.jpg" width="213" /></a> Or perhaps it should be, yes, we ‘can’…. mostly vegetables. August, as any avid gardener or home preserver knows, is the month of putting up the bounty of the season. And for us, that has meant weeks of canning sauces, pickles, and veggies of all sorts. In years past, we have always made a meager stab at canning while focusing mostly on the hard work of building our house. But this year, we are focusing a bit more on food preservation, and our garden seems to be cooperating. Once Mike tamed the wild and unruly weeds that had taken our garden hostage last month, we started doing daily harvests, bringing in basket after basket of produce. One day I looked around at the amassing cornucopias in our kitchen and realized it was time to hop to! Out came the canning pot and the bins of empty jars we had been saving up and we began to chop and boil. Many hours and seemingly every clean dish in the house later, and.... preserves!<br />
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Pickled beets, dill and bread and butter pickles, tomato sauce, tomato salsa, pesto and pepper relish—we now have plenty of all of these. But the true bumper crop of the year for us has been beans. This is a total reversal of last year’s garden when marauding rabbits mowed down every last bean plant that I sowed… and resowed… and resowed! This year though we seem to have escaped the rabbits’ notice and the beans have been prolific. We planted several kinds, but one in particular has astounded us—an Asian long bean variety called Chinese Red Noodle beans have grown into a veritable bean tree. They are great for pickling because their 18” long beans can be lined up and chopped into perfect jar sized lengths for pickled dilly beans. And they keep coming! All of our friends are also busy keeping up with their gardens and our get togethers of late involve comparisons of tomato blight and squash beetle woes, and recipe and ingredient swaps. It is both an overwhelming and rewarding time, watching the stores build up for winter… potatoes, onions, garlic, apples and hard squash are also rolling in. Not to mention firewood!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike in action with the "Leveraxe" (thanks Zach!)</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIe9fAyZhNfdq1IYT-i7x4NU72zDpoWVp3NGw8sx4RNx4mcYfImbIfpxoTvHue6jh1QwtURhVdfoNJaDICAMLCg7tVRl05hk1dkANceyDHKVmAwY5rA2ulpXtdwdeQD1L64niheJjX1kA/s1600/_MG_0185.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIe9fAyZhNfdq1IYT-i7x4NU72zDpoWVp3NGw8sx4RNx4mcYfImbIfpxoTvHue6jh1QwtURhVdfoNJaDICAMLCg7tVRl05hk1dkANceyDHKVmAwY5rA2ulpXtdwdeQD1L64niheJjX1kA/s320/_MG_0185.jpg" width="320" /></a> Besides trying to keep on top of our garden, we are also trying to keep our heads above water on all other fronts of the homestead—firewood gathering, water hauling, laundry and diaper washing, baby bouncing, dishes and cleaning, and various other house projects that lurch forward and stop in submission to our baby’s nap schedule. Just when one sector seems to be going well, another drops behind, creating a perpetual sense of never quite being on top of it all. Throw in to the mix a mural to be painted, a full community social calendar, and seemingly unending car trouble and you have our life this last month in a nutshell! For the most part I would not want to give up any of it (actually, definitely the car trouble part), but our days feel very full in a different way than they used to, pre-baby, when we could work with total focus on building into the dusk of evening and then wash up in the dark and light the rocket stove to begin cooking a simple candlelit dinner before falling into bed.<br />
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With baby Caris now in our lives (almost 6 months old), we are first and foremost beholden to her always-changing schedule of eating, playing and sleeping. This makes for an erratic day-by-day: some days we will have 2.5 hours of solid nap to be buzzing away with power tools and then the next she will refuse to nap for longer than 15 minute segments. She is both a good-natured baby (“the smilingest baby ever” is a compliment she often gets) and extremely active. She skipped right over “sitting” and is determinedly on the verge of crawling and standing. She also gets very bored with the same old toys, which means I am always tearing through the house in search of something to give her to explore that won’t spear her in the back of the throat or choke her. While we used to be able to plunk her in her seat for little stretches to cook or eat a meal, she has figured how to twist and squirm her way to the ground in short order, meaning most of the time our needs have to be squeezed into little 5 minute windows where she is happily occupied with something. We also tag out with each other, rendering us each into one half of an able-bodied person. I have to wonder at our Amish neighbor up the road, Magdalena, who is home alone most days with 6 children under the age of 8 (plus pregnant). Every morning she drives her older kids to school in a buggy past our house, just as we are all lumbering out of bed and trying to conjure some kind of breakfast into existence. I look at her huge garden, clean laundry flapping in the breeze, contended flock of small children, and paddocks with every animal you can think of and wonder…. how the???<br />
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Though motherhood and homesteading have been way more fulfilling than I could have imagined, I occasionally feel the call of the unencumbered life, beckoning me in the form of young single friends who report on their adventures. Today a friend called from Tillers International, a traditional skills school in Michigan, waxing poetic about all the tools he was hand making and the team of oxen that he has learned to work with, tilling the fields and hauling logs from the forest with. “Oxen!” I think, “if only I could go off and learn how to drive a team of oxen!” But no… I am pretty sure babies and oxen are mutually exclusive. Another few friends came back to report on time spent in assisting the Lakota Sioux in their resistance of the North Dakota oil pipeline at the Sacred Stones camp up in, you guessed it, North Dakota. And several more friends have decided to go up and join the resistance efforts. And part of me yearns to hop in the car with them to help in whatever way I can. But then I look at my tired baby, and the weeds, and the piling up dishes and think… reality check! I have to remember, for years of my adult life I too was that unencumbered adventurer, but throughout it, in my heart I craved roots, which I now have in abundance. Roots, and one happy little shoot who will have a mouth to feed this winter! So for now, back to the garden for another round of harvesting and canning. Yes we can!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-73080581990340925542016-08-04T07:32:00.000-07:002016-08-04T07:32:30.375-07:00Big Questions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Each month, I start writing a blog post by reflecting on what has been going on in the last month at our homestead in Missouri. But this past month we have mostly been away from our homestead. We have been traveling far and wide, visiting friends, family and attending a wedding. So I have been puzzling about what to write this post about instead. To be honest, when I leave our homestead life in Missouri and step into other people’s homes and lifestyles, I tend to reflect on our choices. The perspective gives me a chance to zoom out on our life and think about what has been working and not working, where we are going next with it all, and how it fits into both our ethos and the bigger picture of our lives and the world we live in. I know… it is a lot to take on. My brain hurts a little from trying to work it all out, but I thought I would write about the big picture nonetheless!<br />
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Contributing to this mental taking-of-stock have been several losses that have further made us consider our lifestyle and consumption choices: within two days we had our computer and car die, leaving us in a bit of a technology lurch. These two machines have been our techno-crutches as we have transitioned into the simple life. We found ourselves asking whether we should replace them or not, and with what? We had always assumed that by the time our old car died we might be at a place where we wouldn’t need a full time vehicle… maybe there would be a community car cooperative we could join or something. Owning and driving a vehicle has always felt like an icky but necessary component in our lives as we haul building materials and possessions too and fro and transport ourselves seasonally. Many of our friends and neighbors don’t own vehicles at all, biking or carpooling instead, which furthers our sense of guilt about being gas-guzzlers. At the nearby ecovillage, Dancing Rabbit, there are several car-sharing coops where you pay per mile to use a truck or solar-charged electric car. Sounds great! We would sign up if we didn’t live 45 miles away. Our community has talked about starting something similar… But right now? Were we ready to either start a car cooperative in our community or take the carless plunge?<br />
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And what about a new laptop? Again, we have many friends who don’t have one at all and use library computers if any. We also have a neighbor who uses her computer quite a bit—online craft sales, blogging and networking are crucial to her and her husband’s livelihoods. We fall somewhere in-between with our computer use, going online a few times a week when in town, and otherwise using it mostly to write with and store photos and other downloads. It can be an amazing tool, but not without a cost! We had gotten around the ethical question of a computer’s production footprint (heavy metal mining, Foxconn factory working conditions, etc.) by buying a used one and sharing it. But now? Were we ready to deal with that ethical can of worms again, on top of the car dilemma?<br />
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This question—how much technology do we want to be consumers of?—kicked off a series of questions in my mind about how I want to live, and I began looking around for answers as we traveled. Other questions that I have been ruminating on are as follows-<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Is the simple life really simple? Or is it more work and more complication? What would make for more simplicity in both lifestyle and process, and therefore more peace and ease? </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Are our choices making a difference in the world? Or are we actually distracting ourselves from making real change in a different way—by engaging at a policy level, a macro level, working within the mainstream?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> What does a right livelihood look like for us? We need at least some amount of money to live off of to supplement the cost-saving benefits of homestead living and building your own house, but what would both fit into our unconventional life and feel just? </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> What kind of community do we want to help create here? How much interdependence and how much space is most sustainable? (Underlying this question is a bit of unease brought on by some of our neighbors considering moving elsewhere…)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> And lastly, how do we want to bring up our daughter? How do we want to educate her and how do we fit that education into our homesteading and working lives? </li>
</ul>
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Oh lordy! I have contemplated these questions all over the place! On quiet country lanes strolling our baby amidst crickets and wildflowers. In a hip city neighborhood while peering into a mommy-and-baby yoga class. In the houses of old friends. In hotel rooms. At truck stops. In cars and trains. Surrounded by extended family. And alone, at night, watching our baby sleep. I have thought about other intentional community models: the Amish, the ecovillages, the co-houses, where we know other people trying to live out their answers to similar questions. I have thought about what our lives might look like if we lived in the various places we have been visiting, mentally trying on each one. I am sorry to say that I haven’t come up with any stellar definitive answers. Just for-the-time-being answers. Mike, my partner, pointed out that nobody has these things totally figured out… that we just keep living with the questions, along with the best of intentions. Which is probably true, (sigh).<br />
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So for now, we acquired a “patch” car. One that some family friends were wanting to let go of for a price we could afford. It will see us through until we can make the car cooperative a reality and we can quit private car ownership for good. But we have started the conversation with our neighbors and are looking into the nitty gritty of joint insurance and ownership. And we did buy another computer—a refurbished laptop, which feels a little like saving a less than perfect computer from the scrap heap. I guess we aren’t quite ready to go computer-free, though I wish computers were made to last longer and were more fixable.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ZNa54NLLvrcZX4UjkLfb4HgrM-D_C-akrH-296axxzIHcyG7PmSJoSkm7xJ7c5eVVMWdUA9W31p5MXhmIvXaW0XkY9-QYVIKx1PKo244UJDe8Y7P7KJM4I8Ai44IZ_YccAwOgZFPF-w/s1600/_MG_1135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ZNa54NLLvrcZX4UjkLfb4HgrM-D_C-akrH-296axxzIHcyG7PmSJoSkm7xJ7c5eVVMWdUA9W31p5MXhmIvXaW0XkY9-QYVIKx1PKo244UJDe8Y7P7KJM4I8Ai44IZ_YccAwOgZFPF-w/s400/_MG_1135.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkIm7DdQB-P36KZDxGaDj-knSmVWQk8_NpdoUDqiOs7fvjWdSlKT6HoUj26VqnKNP77jFaZb8USyLXWCakTUiew4PFU9qgzxLPvBezrbfcN94FmVQwBr9Xijp3pHjdqsP6Spw-bvNoI4/s1600/_MG_1138.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkIm7DdQB-P36KZDxGaDj-knSmVWQk8_NpdoUDqiOs7fvjWdSlKT6HoUj26VqnKNP77jFaZb8USyLXWCakTUiew4PFU9qgzxLPvBezrbfcN94FmVQwBr9Xijp3pHjdqsP6Spw-bvNoI4/s320/_MG_1138.jpg" width="213" /></a> As for our homestead return, we pulled into our driveway this morning and unloaded our luggage back into our quietly waiting house. The weeds have grown monstrous in our absence, as has the vegetable garden—beans spilling over their trellis, tomato plants flopping over their cages, sweet potatoes vines climbing into the pathways. Our to-do list floods back into memory, a hundred projects await. Big questions seem like a luxury suddenly! In the morning we will awake and dig into our land and community once again. And it occurs to me that maybe these are questions better asked and brainstormed in a community. Or perhaps while weeding a garden…<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Summer's bounty, foraged and grown!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-48070792153623726052016-06-23T16:09:00.002-07:002016-06-23T16:09:47.407-07:00Summer's arrival<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Summer is here in Missouri, and seemingly all-too-soon its
unsavory features are here as well—the humid heat, the ticks and chiggers, the
onset of drought, the voracious growth of invasive understory weeds, and more.
This part of the year often feels like a battle to stay on top and in control
of our immediate surroundings. And that battle feels even harder to wage with a
baby in tow. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A little while ago I was pacing with a stroller back and
forth on the path leading up to our house, attempting to lull our sweet baby to
sleep. To both sides of me were unfinished projects, a rather discouraging
reminder of our limited capacity these days. I was feeling rather glum about it
as well as our relative lack of progress this spring, when it occurred to me
that three months ago I was pacing this same path in the midst of labor,
stopping to grab my back during painful contractions. The land around me then
was a tapestry of gray and brown under a haze of drizzle. Now, a season later,
the same land is transformed: bright greens dappled with flowers under a blazing
sun, with two of us instead of one. And in that interim, though I can’t exactly
point to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">when</i>, I realize we have made
some small progress creating our homestead.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqHSY10K1NFqxY9Gf0me8aWnInDMc-C0krQeHGoT2T2scERJvY6bsX0XnhsHBa-LCoOdI947s9cJSjPtCgTOwzB9fLaT2IkdVfzduJsLRsLdnPzs6zOiqDuFFN-mYsidMuDSBDG8I8_I/s1600/IMG_0344.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqHSY10K1NFqxY9Gf0me8aWnInDMc-C0krQeHGoT2T2scERJvY6bsX0XnhsHBa-LCoOdI947s9cJSjPtCgTOwzB9fLaT2IkdVfzduJsLRsLdnPzs6zOiqDuFFN-mYsidMuDSBDG8I8_I/s320/IMG_0344.JPG" width="320" /></a> What exactly have we done? For one, we managed (barely) to
keep up with the demands of the spring gardening season by getting starts and
seeds in the ground, adding mulch and compost and even digging a few new beds. The
spring garden push can be incredibly time consuming, so much so that our
neighbor Teri (a veteran gardener who grows much of her family’s food) planned
both of her children’s birth dates for late fall, after the garden work was
wrapped up. She was a little anxious on our behalf, with our baby’s March
birthday, and I understand why now. Let’s just say this isn’t going to be a
bumper crop year for our little garden. But we got the basics in: tomatoes,
cukes, potatoes and sweet potatoes, peppers, eggplant, kale, beans, swiss chard
and basil. Surmising our unmoved pile of compost at the top of our driveway
(which we envisioned whisking down the hill to the garden in short order), I
plunked into it our squash seedlings, which are now happily growing there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another big spring event was the arrival of our STUFF. My
parents recently decided to sell their Philadelphia house, and so all of our
worldly possessions stored there made the trek across country to our new
Missouri house via a moving van. And not too long after, Mike’s mother brought
a van full of our stuff we had stored at her house. Wow, it doesn’t take long
to fill a house! And a deluge of stuff<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>is
a force to be reckoned with. Books, dishes, tools, craft supplies, mementos,
furniture, etc. have come piling back into our lives from some former time. No
amount of Marie Kondo-style organizing and down-sizing really makes it any
easier to deal with, especially when all you have are assorted short nap-times
throughout the day to make sense of it all. Suffice to say, unpacking has taken
a chunk of our spring time and energy! (And, I might add, I am extremely glad
for our foresight in designing plenty of storage spaces…)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another focus this spring has been Mike’s fledgling
coopering business, which he has been working at quite a bit lately, along with
our good friend Cynthia (who learned coopering at the traditional craft school,
Tiller’s). They plunged into the endeavor of making five-gallon white oak
barrels two winters ago, in partnership with another friend’s craft distillery
business (which demands such barrels for aging certain types of liquor). It
turns out Missouri is an excellent home for a coopering business, as many of
the nation’s barrels are made here or sourced from oak from here (of which
there is no shortage). And it turns out that coopering is a good business to
get into because of rising demand for barrels from both the wine and spirits
industries. At the same time, coopering is a complex precision craft—steam bending
beveled staves, charring the insides of the barrel, and fitting a lid on both
sides, and then checking for water-tightness. The amount of trouble-shooting is
monumental, and they have been streamlining their process somewhat by
outsourcing a few steps to one of our Amish neighbors who has a woodworking
business and a full workshop to boot. It is hard for Mike and I not to dream of
building our own workshop on our land, but at the same time, pragmatism hangs
heavy over our lives these days! So instead, Mike has converted our former tent
platform into his open-air workshop. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I, on the other hand, am plunging into my own creative
endeavors, one of which is painting a mural for a new café opening nearby.
Though I haven’t painted much since we broke ground on our house, my interest
in painting was reawakened recently when I was unpacking boxes of art materials
and older work into my studio space (aka the second upstairs room in our
house!) When a friend soon after asked me to show some of my paintings at an
outdoor art walk event outside her new café, I decided to go for it. This led
to a flurry of connections and ideas, one of which is the mural. The café is an
unusual one, sourcing all ingredients from local organic sources and offering
the finished product for a sliding scale amount. The mural has to touch on
those themes, plus additionally needing a kid-interactive element and tying
into the unusual space and what exists there. So during nap times, I have been
tinkering at a design for the mural which I will start on later this summer.
You know, in my spare time… <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBhDEEN-h3IAHmvlrLwBlylHOD3FsO3Z9_Vob8JWKdEctrbJoZegn-6T9zNEzT2nRVoeD-ZK9CpnTjxZFqBvOw1n2O_s-XKSVkg6IzJisIg_tTmtqIwLf25B606uKOTcrM1J3yiLxpc4k/s1600/_MG_1102.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBhDEEN-h3IAHmvlrLwBlylHOD3FsO3Z9_Vob8JWKdEctrbJoZegn-6T9zNEzT2nRVoeD-ZK9CpnTjxZFqBvOw1n2O_s-XKSVkg6IzJisIg_tTmtqIwLf25B606uKOTcrM1J3yiLxpc4k/s400/_MG_1102.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaDtzxdmCpMT99n95YOlJZyXzidKWbN6htzQA7MrWzYiKPwlbRabuALw27RDJCuaPc3UoEdpGVjvaXKmUpIqWReweutKNNfNGmkAUaKnecfrZDi-q8V2gth9vpBFZHOGu-WLiTKQnybJY/s1600/_MG_1105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaDtzxdmCpMT99n95YOlJZyXzidKWbN6htzQA7MrWzYiKPwlbRabuALw27RDJCuaPc3UoEdpGVjvaXKmUpIqWReweutKNNfNGmkAUaKnecfrZDi-q8V2gth9vpBFZHOGu-WLiTKQnybJY/s320/_MG_1105.JPG" width="320" /></a> So when all of this endeavoring is not happening, having the
addition of a wonderful baby in our lives has actually made for additional time
spent socializing with our friends and neighbors. If you can’t be reasonably
productive in a given time because of your children, you might as well be
unproductive along with your friends and their children! It is in this
department that I find myself immensely grateful to live in a close knit
community. The few days I have spent single-parenting alone in our house have
been, well, difficult in their isolation. For the most part however, there are
few days that pass without social gatherings of some sort—potlucks, pond
parties, work parties, kid performances, birthdays, craft gatherings, music
gatherings, house tours, discussion groups, friends dropping by, etc. While I
used to find it tiresome to keep up with everything going on while trying to
make headway building, I now realize this social schedule is ideal when you
have kids. These gatherings often involve lots of extra hands to hold babies
and lots of extra eyes to track kids, hence a little break for us tired
parents. We aren’t the only ones struggling to find time to tackle bigger
projects… and that is where work parties came into existence!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjGfng8peAMqerFnQa6KUbGeOQlcRK9BfmCuQ5DNfdNCaGXwckYFEb92ve39pcmMrKGzYPsAb2c2afd_3XPf9utdATksDxRNJVQYGfPRDbfAJsyfR9FrG8VdoA7PvMQhoEc6Upgvur1g/s1600/IMG_0373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjGfng8peAMqerFnQa6KUbGeOQlcRK9BfmCuQ5DNfdNCaGXwckYFEb92ve39pcmMrKGzYPsAb2c2afd_3XPf9utdATksDxRNJVQYGfPRDbfAJsyfR9FrG8VdoA7PvMQhoEc6Upgvur1g/s320/IMG_0373.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A few months ago, a group of us neighbors met to discuss a
couple of possibilities—one was the idea of hosting a revolving work party so
that once a month one homestead would get an injection of help on a big
project. We were June’s host site and in one morning we were assisted with
finishing cistern burying and building a retaining wall for a clay bank.
Everyday we have passed by these two projects-waiting-to-happen and wondered
when we would ever be able to get to them, so hallelujah for the push forward!
Mike’s mom and friend Barbara were visiting and taking on baby and cooking
duties, so Mike and I were both able to join in the work. Pond jump and potluck
followed, and for a brief time we basked in the headway made. Little by little
we are getting somewhere: our baby is growing, our plants and trees are
growing, our homestead is inching toward something like completion. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-90047454130540016852016-05-16T15:57:00.002-07:002016-05-18T09:47:34.501-07:00All about poop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpX2iGez1nZveY-OBW0zgvKVpOddc1AtXzDftplyj-xdi9ytmbi8kCQa48KunGAiQxk7iLqSXcFDfgK1EfF_VaNgvAoBuaCiuYBc8KZ7CcnbQO2KsBylI7li4HohetTa6GnnD7IR37ZTM/s1600/1503865_746578475359939_1023177553_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpX2iGez1nZveY-OBW0zgvKVpOddc1AtXzDftplyj-xdi9ytmbi8kCQa48KunGAiQxk7iLqSXcFDfgK1EfF_VaNgvAoBuaCiuYBc8KZ7CcnbQO2KsBylI7li4HohetTa6GnnD7IR37ZTM/s400/1503865_746578475359939_1023177553_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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My April update had turned into my May update… such is my
life these days in the slow lane! With most things lately, parenting a newborn
baby has meant slowing way down in the productivity department. I sympathize
with this momma tortoise, because that is about where I am at, moving at the
speed of molasses with a needy little one in tow. To be fair, I had mentally
scheduled us a few months of “get absolutely nothing done on the homestead”
after the birth, so I am pleasantly surprised that we are accomplishing just a
little more than expected. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdpynH3tr5w8qPxjiUTP4nyv6dodtmXEpeKogKtFq8AUJnYtrlNj-15Ij5SWPLPyb-pqDPLFxBIGUmZrYfF_Q_vDt7vf2CAL9wYNMMaAtY4zv5hxCOZvo7ib0CWg70h1_7jkcTaAd1nTk/s1600/_MG_0936.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdpynH3tr5w8qPxjiUTP4nyv6dodtmXEpeKogKtFq8AUJnYtrlNj-15Ij5SWPLPyb-pqDPLFxBIGUmZrYfF_Q_vDt7vf2CAL9wYNMMaAtY4zv5hxCOZvo7ib0CWg70h1_7jkcTaAd1nTk/s320/_MG_0936.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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It has helped to have an absolutely fabulous little baby to
care for, who is generally good tempered
and a good sleeper. As soon as she goes down for a nap, I stealthily tip toe
away and furiously set to getting chores and assorted to-dos done in the
unknown window of time before I hear her little groggy cry calling for me.
Another god-send has been the handwoven baby-wearing wrap that talented weaver
Connie Westbrook made for us. Several times a day, Caris consents to being stuffed into the
folds of cloth hugging her to our chests, where she dutifully passes out while
being jostled around in the course of eating, doing dishes, taking walks,
talking with friends, working in the garden or the like. Each day, all planning
goes out the window and we don’t quite know what to expect, thereby being
pleasantly surprised when we stay on top of more that we thought possible.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Much of our new role as parents seems to revolve around
tending our baby’s needed inputs and outputs. Breastmilk in (requiring very
little effort on my part) and a mustardy yellow poop out. I don’t think I had
ever given poop very much thought in my life, but lately it has been featuring
prominently in my days... And nights for that matter. Because I am now the
adoring servant of a 2 month old, I don’t resent this new proximity to her
poop. Rather, I have accepted it as part of the package of parenthood, as has
Mike, who swaps out with me tackling her excretions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Since we have been getting so many inquiries about what we
are doing for diapers and such, here goes an explanation….<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus far, we have opted to use various
hand-me-down cloth diapers from friends, being the eco-thrifty people we are.
While it is tempting to save ourselves the trouble of washing diapers, the
thought of what the total pile of dirty disposable diapers would look like if
it was sitting on the floor of our house was too overwhelming (diapers make up
somewhere between 2-5% of landfill waste… yuck.) There are some cool hybrids on
the market now—biodegradable “Tushies” or flushable insert + cloth cover “G
diapers”—but they aren’t cheap, thus every few days we pull out the scrub brush
and washboard and clean cloth diapers the old-fashioned way. Total cost= $0. Total
time it takes= 1 hour every other day. Is this trade off worth it? To us, for now, yes. I thought I would dislike the task of diaper washing, but
it has become much like washing dishes… a mildly off-putting yet strangely
meditative task once you get into it. The sun and clothesline help bleach out
stains and disinfect before the diapers repeat their thankless duty. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Our daughter’s poop is only one stop on the poop tour of our
homestead, lucky you! The next stop is our composting toilet. This might be the
most off-putting feature in our unconventional home. Because we don’t have a
flush toilet and septic tank, and also because we figure we can put the poop to
better use than hibernating underground until pump-out time, we have opted for
a “humanure” system. It is pretty simple—do your business in a dressed-up
bucket, cover with sawdust, and then empty once a week into a specially
designated compost pile to decompose. (This is the low-tech version of a
composting toilet. There are many companies that make fancier versions
requiring less hauling). Does it smell? If using the right amount of sawdust, I
will say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not really</i>… After emptying
the bucket, we will wait several years for our humanure pile to heat up and
decompose to the point where all pathogens are killed before using it around our
fruit trees. I do know people who use it in their gardens, but I personally would
rather not risk the direct contact with produce. We instead opt to put <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">other</i> animal’s decomposed poop on our
garden beds! (We were very excited to receive a recent load of finished horse
compost for our garden.)<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the thought of
humanure makes you a bit grossed out, let me point out that first, it is a very
old and venerable practice. Traditionally, in China, farmers would put
outhouses on the edge of their fields so that those passing by would leave
their contribution to the farmer’s field’s fertility. Second, humanure is an
industrial-scale modern-day practice in the US! If you live in a city or suburb
and you have ever wondered what happens to your poop after you flush it down
the toilet this is it--cities treat sewage until it is safe to apply
agriculturally and then sell it to various rural localities and fertilizer
companies. Each city has a different brand name for their fertilizer. For
example, from Minnesota you can buy the twin cities’ municipal solid waste
under the name “Minnegrow 5-4-0” from your garden supply center. The only
cringe-worthy part of the whole operation really is the increasing amount of
pharmaceuticals and antibiotics that get passed from toilets back into the
soil and from there into streams and rivers. That is cause for concern. If you,
like me, find this topic strangely fascinating, I recommend listening more
about it from the archived Radiolab broadcast, “Poop Train” at- <b><span style="color: #295623; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.0pt;">www.radiolab.org</span></b><span style="color: #295623; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.0pt;">/story/<b>poop-train</b></span>
. Also check out <u>The Humanure Handbook</u> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by Joseph Jenkins to learn more about
composting your poop. But all this is to say, I like knowing the source
contributors of our soil’s fertilizer and keeping them very local!</div>
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The next stop on the poop tour is our outhouse, situated in
the hugel-swales of our orchard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
designed our outhouse so that it was light enough for two of us to lift and
move from location to location as holes filed up. The screened-in sides keep
things nicely ventilated and flies out so that one can have a scenic and not
too stinky depositing experience. As the shallow holes fill with manure and
sawdust we bump the outhouse down the row of trees, leaving little fertility
pockets along the swales. Each outhouse in our community has its own clever
name and slightly different system. For example, our neighbors use their “Saloon,”
(emphasis on “loo,” thus named for its swinging doors.) Down the road is the
“Phu Ping Palace,” (pronounced, you guessed it, “poo-ping,” named after a fancy
skyscraper in Bangkok.) Ours is called “Poo with a View” for its scenic outlook
over our homestead.</div>
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Well, if I haven’t grossed you out too much yet, for the
last stop on the poo tour is over the creek at the neighboring homestead. Our
neighbor Brian just finished building a brick and cob oven in their outdoor
kitchen and has been firing it up for baking bread and pizza. The secret
ingredient in the exterior plaster? Their cow’s poop of course! Animal manure
is used around the world as a strengthener in clay plaster and earthen floors.
Perhaps because its fine fibers or enzymes, it seems to add extra strength
without the stink you might expect. The only reason it isn’t in our house’s
plasters is that we don’t have a ready supply to manure the way our neighbors
do with their cows, Crème Brule and May Apple. At any rate, the results are
delicious and hopefully for our stomachs, long lasting!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-53685217383027636942016-04-06T17:45:00.001-07:002016-04-06T17:45:18.251-07:00Oh Baby!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQfdM_3_lPSNGDYOrltdL8OKkuD8JnzW2_Gtd92YR-9hZ6wKvjvT5tG-1yb0vp2CRtvVirymWYvymhJLx23tVQHXcJWFXlRUbDgSShNdP4lMBo6r6b-yZ1eoirR14c_aFercrnCOKR0g/s1600/caris+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQfdM_3_lPSNGDYOrltdL8OKkuD8JnzW2_Gtd92YR-9hZ6wKvjvT5tG-1yb0vp2CRtvVirymWYvymhJLx23tVQHXcJWFXlRUbDgSShNdP4lMBo6r6b-yZ1eoirR14c_aFercrnCOKR0g/s320/caris+hands.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our last month
here at the homestead has flown by in a succession of visits by family and
friends and midwives, and now, spring seemingly has arrived in the wake of
events and I am realizing it is time for another update! Commanding central orbit
of all of the last month’s activity and attention, of course, is the newest
addition to our family, our baby daughter Caris, who is now a happy, healthy
three-week old sleeping on the sofa next to me as I type. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my last post
I wrote of my sense of impending urgency leading up to her birth, trying to get
everything prepared for her arrival. As the days ticked down to her due date,
my parents and sister arrived from out of state to help us with our last minute
preparations and to aid our transition to parenthood. Together we finished the
stairs, our bed frame, hanging doors and sheetrock, cleaning and sorting
through boxes of hand-me-down clothes and diapers to set up some sort of
baby-readiness station. Throughout this process, I admit to feeling
increasingly nervous about the part I was going to need to perform, that is,
the birthing part. We had planned for a homebirth and had been working with a
team of midwives to prepare for it. (Perhaps that additionally contributed to
my franticness to get our house finished and ready: both for her birth and for her
life afterward!) At any rate, whether I was ready or not, our baby was ready to
come out by her due date. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had contractions
start several days in advance of the date. Days <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> nights I should add, which made sleeping a rather miserable
affair, with short 5-minute intervals of sleep punctuated by painful contractions.
Contractions that did not meet the criteria of “active labor” because they were
not progressing much in intensity or frequency, but that unfortunately
prevented me from keeping any food down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the time our midwives arrived to help progress my labor, I was
exhausted and had to rally the strength to get through the next phase of active
labor. Let me fast-forward through one long painful night that took my every
last ounce of energy and… our daughter was born! Right in the center of our
house, and right on the morning of her due date as it turned out. The nice
thing about home birth is that our bed was only a short stumble away and I
could collapse into sleep in our comfortable, familiar home knowing I wouldn’t
have to move for some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioAccQrGN4k8ge2Lm05MZOfBjE8cA-N-L8n7xnN3Bw7iPr5ulCXa3Tof8H6_Mj7Ubf2NoIKRE86pTs-ENf4zSoc8vPFJo_ijvzPuQ3zeeGcOc69PohgDosTsGJyOA5JXzMZMgPyEpJR8A/s1600/floor-kitchen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioAccQrGN4k8ge2Lm05MZOfBjE8cA-N-L8n7xnN3Bw7iPr5ulCXa3Tof8H6_Mj7Ubf2NoIKRE86pTs-ENf4zSoc8vPFJo_ijvzPuQ3zeeGcOc69PohgDosTsGJyOA5JXzMZMgPyEpJR8A/s320/floor-kitchen.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About that
not-moving… While I had been looking forward to having a period of rest after
all the frenzied work of construction and labor, it turns out I have a hard
time surrendering to non-doing. Despite having the distraction of my beautiful
little daughter beside me, I was itching to DO something within days of her
birth. Even now, weeks later when I am restored physically from the birth, I am
nonetheless limited by my new role as “lactating mammal responsible for a constantly
hungry newborn”, and I still find myself struggling to let go of the drive to
do other things. Fortunately for me, having family around has helped ground me
in my new set of priorities. While I rested post-birth, dishes and diapers got
washed, seeds were started, garden beds prepped, meals were cooked, and most
hugely, our first floor was sanded, oiled and waxed. For this, the baby and I
transferred our residence to another house for a week while sawdust flew back
at the home front. The linseed oil finish brought out the rainbow of colors and
grain of our red oak flooring, a total surprise to me when we moved back in and
I saw it for the first time. At any rate, I realize looking back that we would
have been quite lost without the help of family this past month, frantically
trying to keep clean and fed while in a zombie-like state of sleep deprivation
(which is kind of where we are at now that family has departed!) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1tTqyDhNdq_06Ye5FtGRyHMubix2R8BIEAjO1rF0qLPeto4D_RTonAOcFObtITmlP9QksYuZiOr-zaAQ8sr_mEzD8Dld90ie1paXexc5ilp1J61ky4k4p6TRyT2wDyrKEyYfCVFa5SIU/s1600/floor+oil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1tTqyDhNdq_06Ye5FtGRyHMubix2R8BIEAjO1rF0qLPeto4D_RTonAOcFObtITmlP9QksYuZiOr-zaAQ8sr_mEzD8Dld90ie1paXexc5ilp1J61ky4k4p6TRyT2wDyrKEyYfCVFa5SIU/s320/floor+oil.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5LJxNKH0Bib2A7OG5oAoCVtd6znYS-aE3ZYGyTt_336bXnHnU3gMOaYK0eDBXPqyiVbyJS4RqkZYQD1VdGFftQEMl-CcTWysWooO2CZlL69fMBapw3FZrNlpreIwQCp9kNZW32v9dtYo/s1600/mike+stairs2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5LJxNKH0Bib2A7OG5oAoCVtd6znYS-aE3ZYGyTt_336bXnHnU3gMOaYK0eDBXPqyiVbyJS4RqkZYQD1VdGFftQEMl-CcTWysWooO2CZlL69fMBapw3FZrNlpreIwQCp9kNZW32v9dtYo/s320/mike+stairs2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike’s parents
also came for a week to help out, cook gourmet meals for us, and meet the baby.
With them came several pieces of our stored-away furniture that they had
squeezed into their minivan with Tetras-like precision. After years of sitting
on rough wooden benches, a soft sofa is truly amazing. And instead of balancing
our plates on laps, we have a real live table to set things down on! Yes, it
now feels like we are living in total luxury with our fancy bed, easy chairs,
bathroom, rugs and table… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I write this
with much gratitude for the role both of our families have played in our lives
this last month. I realize looking back that we would have been quite lost
without their help, frantically trying to keep clean and fed while in a
zombie-like state of sleep deprivation (which is kind of where we are at now
that family has departed!) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment, it
is hard to remember our lowly beginnings huddled in a leaky tent. It is hard,
even, to connect all the steps that led us from there to here, finally inhabiting
our mostly finished home with our baby. Not that our work on the house or the
homestead is done… far from it! Although it is uncertain when we will be able
to resume projects with anything like our former vigor, the thought of them lingers
in the back of my mind, on pause. Yes, finding the right balance between taking
care of baby Caris, keeping up with chores, and taking on new work will take
some effort, but we will figure it out, one day at a time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyyZqg9087tjO2ytMwv97pbqlF1Lz4PVDmZXB1oo4aeV8iDh2wYrx9izzCCUpaUu6hmZbwLk2pxFZCzwQgorMLFu_SQWiXLBatnNijLnUbQ1giDu6im6YudqxgrYDrE1Kpg5BAm5qByHE/s1600/mikecaris.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyyZqg9087tjO2ytMwv97pbqlF1Lz4PVDmZXB1oo4aeV8iDh2wYrx9izzCCUpaUu6hmZbwLk2pxFZCzwQgorMLFu_SQWiXLBatnNijLnUbQ1giDu6im6YudqxgrYDrE1Kpg5BAm5qByHE/s400/mikecaris.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-35036379907952442812016-02-29T07:56:00.001-08:002016-03-26T11:21:52.906-07:00Last minute preparations<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m writing this post from a hospital bed where I have been
marooned for monitoring after a successful “external cephalic version” that
flipped our formerly breech baby. While I am overjoyed to now be carrying a
healthy head-down 38 week old, I am also feeling increasingly panicked about
the impending responsibility of bringing a tiny helpless baby into our
homesteading lives. As we walked into the OB floor of the hospital this
morning, we passed a newborn being wheeled down the hall and my stomach burst into
butterflies. Ack! How are we possibly ready for such a little being to become
our reality? I would gladly accept the sore feet and back, the uncomfortable
sleepless nights, and the constant need to urinate in exchange for a little
more time to prepare. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6LezJs6t61x5pnOGMT3gSW5JbP8Q-L_rAtY0JOSRMcndHV9tT2C1GZEuCNOMmfiBmvBPydJO3_oOEvxiCB8u-UBeagt0JaTLDJOrD_u3VoW35U1CCydbJ1oTv6AyzaCOO9Mdo62FZ0MA/s1600/clutter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6LezJs6t61x5pnOGMT3gSW5JbP8Q-L_rAtY0JOSRMcndHV9tT2C1GZEuCNOMmfiBmvBPydJO3_oOEvxiCB8u-UBeagt0JaTLDJOrD_u3VoW35U1CCydbJ1oTv6AyzaCOO9Mdo62FZ0MA/s400/clutter.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before, total chaos!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One reason for this is our house—while we have made good
progress in some regards, I can’t help but look around and think “this is not
ready for a baby to inhabit”. Perhaps it is a failure of imagination on my
part, because I know others have birthed babies into far less comfortable
settings (ahem, away in a manger?) In fact, two of our good friends who are
moving onto land in our neighborhood this spring just found out
that—surprise!—they are expecting an addition way sooner than they intended to
be, complicating plans for building a small house and completing a masters
degree program. While I feel confident on their behalf that there will be a
imperfectly perfect way forward and that all will eventually be well, I can’t
seem to muster the same faith in our relatively settled situation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQd2JQgS1aeUNIK6wmr14J0TefiWIxrgDjzNdwuP8yqsLdI3TOG1xQFLJj5st6dmi1oTu_OEoJ6cJ0HYQML4Yy0V1tUJFBJ_nQEZ5srC4BmMLI8K2DBaVSCL6aOaDkbhmS-onASjctyuI/s1600/vanity+install.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQd2JQgS1aeUNIK6wmr14J0TefiWIxrgDjzNdwuP8yqsLdI3TOG1xQFLJj5st6dmi1oTu_OEoJ6cJ0HYQML4Yy0V1tUJFBJ_nQEZ5srC4BmMLI8K2DBaVSCL6aOaDkbhmS-onASjctyuI/s400/vanity+install.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOlhqNAPVbwmWKvwAD9bdxn6HOjlmQurcnCbPpsmdOS6CccygIbTIPKGBhCRefvQGwBBG2Os4QpYKZkGgtp6p72tb0RKx_UJHrpRKDcIXpYSzrZCDOjz3wSzF_4oiM1Esj5jYNh35O3Aw/s1600/shelves.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOlhqNAPVbwmWKvwAD9bdxn6HOjlmQurcnCbPpsmdOS6CccygIbTIPKGBhCRefvQGwBBG2Os4QpYKZkGgtp6p72tb0RKx_UJHrpRKDcIXpYSzrZCDOjz3wSzF_4oiM1Esj5jYNh35O3Aw/s400/shelves.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shelves in the closet? Happy thought indeed! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve gone through a series of conjectures about what missing
piece of our house will yield a sense of calm preparedness in me. First I
thought it was the flooring: I thought if that was just finished, our house
would feel ready. But once Mike installed the final piece, all I could see was
the clutter of tools and boxes all over the nice finished floor. So I built
shelves in our closets and went on an organizing mission to get everything up
and away. This definitely improved the lay of the land, but the feeling has
lingered. My next thought was perhaps having the bathroom completed would help
the house feel ready for an onslaught of midwives and family and visitors? So
we commenced with plumbing and tiling and bathtub moving, as well as sink
vanity and compost toilet construction. While the room still needs a door, trim
and running water, it feels useable. Still. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2Y3ibja0B-fxtydrW5TXwMqcTjicmxPk6LnVFX5LRIFiDZjgpMLl0cXsmj_0QkzczIldWbY0YXw0Lh9KqAXGHBUDqE7VlL4YroRuC2O1Efsz8yAw5zrkZp9D-Rcagys7SUptU5EvkyI/s1600/mike+pour.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2Y3ibja0B-fxtydrW5TXwMqcTjicmxPk6LnVFX5LRIFiDZjgpMLl0cXsmj_0QkzczIldWbY0YXw0Lh9KqAXGHBUDqE7VlL4YroRuC2O1Efsz8yAw5zrkZp9D-Rcagys7SUptU5EvkyI/s320/mike+pour.JPG" width="213" /></a> The next glaring deficit has been our stairs, inside and
out. We have been using a step ladder for years to climb up and down to our
deck without trouble, but now all I could picture was tripping on the rungs
with an infant in tow. So one warm day I determined to finish a set of stairs
and dragged Mike into assistance with heavy lifting. Another check off the list.
But what about inside? Those stairs are now screaming to me “death trap!”
Meanwhile Mike has been heroically handling our heavy duty chores—hauling
buckets of water from our cistern (which is nearly full of water, but still
awaiting a pump to eliminate the middleman step), chopping and managing the
firewood and stove, and more—all while also installing flooring around the
house. He just finished our upstairs bedroom with beautiful black walnut flooring. Now,
as you might have guessed, I have my mind set to building a bed frame and
closets, perhaps wishful thinking at this point unless I can transform myself into
superwoman!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4JyKeaAn8M4WRHueuDGhAdlz0585eHa4Wo-61DXFrL7QZKuzxQzFuJz7ezd0SWyWxmBySgA_UDJ-0SV_ga48UdM4VVV6al7yTZXVIs15rkW8x6X2VyuuvSEf2lxl8MN8QXvMOmvg9Kc/s1600/stairs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4JyKeaAn8M4WRHueuDGhAdlz0585eHa4Wo-61DXFrL7QZKuzxQzFuJz7ezd0SWyWxmBySgA_UDJ-0SV_ga48UdM4VVV6al7yTZXVIs15rkW8x6X2VyuuvSEf2lxl8MN8QXvMOmvg9Kc/s400/stairs.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGscqjYrgLixPY-o6a8ZJP32tiImFMqkp5gq5Di8AvW_uDHElKdInJBqMgT04IU026VDeulA8AcOBauSUreiCBjtYVPDFN5SqgEMxuhZCJw_0tGmcOIuOR9uxd17lrlKXDVFHEBGc1rVo/s1600/_MG_0857.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGscqjYrgLixPY-o6a8ZJP32tiImFMqkp5gq5Di8AvW_uDHElKdInJBqMgT04IU026VDeulA8AcOBauSUreiCBjtYVPDFN5SqgEMxuhZCJw_0tGmcOIuOR9uxd17lrlKXDVFHEBGc1rVo/s320/_MG_0857.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have been postponing unpacking our bed, linens, clothes
and baby paraphernalia until the floor was finished. In fact, our changing
table has been housing our tool and fastener collection for the better part of
a year and has only last week been liberated for domestic duty. Surely having a
bedroom set up will help me feel nested and ready… right? While we are forgoing
the pregnancy right-of-passage of decorating a nursery, it would probably help
to have some signs of an expected baby somewhere in the house, I would think. I keep telling myself there will be time for unpacking before the baby comes, and if not? If the stork comes early? Then hopefully my friends are right when they point out that all the baby really <i>needs</i> at first is us. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAyZ6Kb9dosd6eZccyOzia6tz6tm2vhhuZbDoeMp0NbZ0-cbRckWU9rX4BJqemlguU30vkUhBqxw5YVoZ4lvRtbY9dr64AdR1KOj8gI4W-ldC9crqF63UKWZM0T02rGmugsRQtZENYcDQ/s1600/black+walnut.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAyZ6Kb9dosd6eZccyOzia6tz6tm2vhhuZbDoeMp0NbZ0-cbRckWU9rX4BJqemlguU30vkUhBqxw5YVoZ4lvRtbY9dr64AdR1KOj8gI4W-ldC9crqF63UKWZM0T02rGmugsRQtZENYcDQ/s320/black+walnut.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
In case you haven’t noticed the trend, the list of to-dos
seemingly grows longer the closer we get. I know there isn’t enough time for the
house to be completed by the time I am full term, and inevitably I too will
have to surrender to imperfect perfection. Oddly, the deadline is
ambiguous—perhaps in a few days or perhaps in a month? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I write these words to the clicking metronome of the fetal
heart monitor—the computer beside me sounds out the beats per minute. 141. 138.
A kick or two sends it up to 155 and eventually back down to a flat line lull. The
baby must be asleep. Watching the four tiny chambers of the heart earlier with
their rapid flutter of valves pulsing in the swirling black and white
ultrasound image was a visceral reminder that my will—to finish our house
projects and clean and prepare—is only one will in this equation. There are now
two wills at work in this body (one that very stubbornly wanted to remain head
up until this morning!) and I have to make room. Our friends who are parents
assure us that loss of control in the birth process is the first in a long
series of surrenders that impress upon you your total vulnerability in the
relationship: you can’t control how the birth goes or the health of the baby.
You have to let go over and over and over as they learn by pushing further and
further away from you, indefinitely. Perhaps accepting that is the hardest work
of being a parent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Coincidentally I just got the all clear to rejoin the
outside world again, so I should wrap up and keep moving forward with the
day—into the unknown, yes, but also perhaps to squeeze in a little more plastering
while the light holds and I still have a little more time!<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-38710976161750558902016-02-04T18:15:00.000-08:002016-02-04T18:15:08.536-08:00Winter homecoming<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHMDInNvQ97SovqjNvd4BRMtig_bm7JwvqIOfsZI-RQ_Ezmg6ux3HhCMVpWkAxcCP9-MOzNuPkzxICZs2-DHVbVlU-QOqzkLSTns1FqyCHs283IkXlqseXPZrB1U_1kCh2DtTTXxNfqsk/s1600/snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHMDInNvQ97SovqjNvd4BRMtig_bm7JwvqIOfsZI-RQ_Ezmg6ux3HhCMVpWkAxcCP9-MOzNuPkzxICZs2-DHVbVlU-QOqzkLSTns1FqyCHs283IkXlqseXPZrB1U_1kCh2DtTTXxNfqsk/s320/snow.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
Mid- January,
Mike and I packed up our old conestoga wagon and made the long trek back to
Missouri, arriving in the midst of our first Missouri winter! It has been so
amazing to be here in this beautiful spare landscape at this time of year,
especially because we can enjoy the beauty of it from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inside our own home</i>. I know how basic that sounds, but I have been
reveling in the fact of it: the snow is falling outside, the wind is howling,
rain is pounding, and the elements are performing their messy winter alchemy
while we are dry, warm and protected inside this space. Okay, okay, you get my
excitement about our home-dwelling reality... So what about the details? Is the
stove working out? The cistern? <o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me say that
things did not start out well. When we first drove up to our house, we had no
idea what to expect. Our neighbor Brian had kindly offered to light a fire in
our stove earlier on our arrival day, and so despite the frigid temperature
outside, we had hopes of entering a toasty house. Wrong. It was just above
freezing inside, only slightly warmer. Still, bundled under every blanket we
had, we slept warmly that first night with high hopes for our stove’s
performance the next day. But the next few days of feeding the stove all day
didn’t bring up the temperature inside beyond 50F.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we both began to despair that we had
failed. Maybe we hadn’t insulated well enough, we overestimated our stove’s
heating capacity, we designed for passive solar heating all wrong. Mike pointed
out one night that he could see his breath. We were sitting mere feet away from
our stove. Something was definitely wrong. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what is a frustrated, shivering person supposed to do but
problem solve the situation? We couldn’t produce more heat, so how could we
lose less heat? I thought about the concepts in "Passive House" design: create a
super-tightly insulated envelope so that not much heat or cold needs to be
generated to condition it with. To determine the weak, leaky points in the
structure, a series of blower tests are used, along with thermal scanners to
see where air infiltration is happening. Although we didn’t have access to such
equipment, we felt through the house for drafts and such. Perhaps not
surprisingly, around several hastily installed windows and doors there were
some noticeable streams of cooler air coming in. The glass on our double-pane
windows was also frigid, and then there was the most glaring opening we hadn’t
bothered to close in our haste to leave: the hole for the stovepipe going
through our roof. Goodbye heat, hello cold drafts! There was very likely a thermosyphoning
effect going on between the two. The last point we considered was that our
thick clay-plastered walls were acting as a thermal mass, retaining the cold as
we tried to introduce heat. That effect would reverse with time, but it took a
good week or two.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzmqkMxCKgFJ3Z5_a3ABpJMOQV8sDr6jg39mhkvHDDf8hRzaq1anhEcgQ50oHBPXho-tZG5isna1YWEbm-sBs0jyHAltejTw6TqFpctU_GlPeX8rRtuT6YKALiwZveJ-dRl2QbMm8xxg/s1600/shades.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzmqkMxCKgFJ3Z5_a3ABpJMOQV8sDr6jg39mhkvHDDf8hRzaq1anhEcgQ50oHBPXho-tZG5isna1YWEbm-sBs0jyHAltejTw6TqFpctU_GlPeX8rRtuT6YKALiwZveJ-dRl2QbMm8xxg/s320/shades.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
So after some work installing weatherstripping, spraying
several cans of “Great Stuff” insulation, making thermal shades we can lower at
night, and sealing up the hole around the stove pipe, I am very very relieved
to report that we are warm! Which presents its own problem... how to regulate
our stove to yield temperatures above 55F (which seems to be the temperature average
when not running the stove for a day) but below 85F (a miserable temperature to
try to sleep in), all while also meeting our cooking needs for the stove? A
programmable thermostat really has its charms, which are hard to replicate the
old fashioned way!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz6-35145rKUhdCu-IOzJrw15R2qLit6SLprjsNDaW5ZmylIMnrf7Iw-qD-ZCd23jFydBvIlcR8kroPKbzV9Dec26y2OyKYiWpye8kq0YkPoIL_b9pTc_qDITEBo-LHti9DNThBuqQIBY/s1600/stove+temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz6-35145rKUhdCu-IOzJrw15R2qLit6SLprjsNDaW5ZmylIMnrf7Iw-qD-ZCd23jFydBvIlcR8kroPKbzV9Dec26y2OyKYiWpye8kq0YkPoIL_b9pTc_qDITEBo-LHti9DNThBuqQIBY/s320/stove+temp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1dFe8OXtnPI8O1q7dbaSVDvyNIp-ASSxEWMl_ED4rn3BKjlLYrfF74yEokhs90D8-xiIlfb6Pp4ryCZgAzXevdQ2g2OZ9pncaFQrNviAmyWeiImr8cn0cv67tk-g6kWJT5FUkyOhMcc/s1600/roots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1dFe8OXtnPI8O1q7dbaSVDvyNIp-ASSxEWMl_ED4rn3BKjlLYrfF74yEokhs90D8-xiIlfb6Pp4ryCZgAzXevdQ2g2OZ9pncaFQrNviAmyWeiImr8cn0cv67tk-g6kWJT5FUkyOhMcc/s320/roots.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have had a learning curve cooking on
the stove as well. Our stove gets very very hot, which has yielded some burned
dishes and skin (yikes!) as we have gotten used to its subtleties. There is a
perpetually shifting range of temperatures on the cast iron cook top, depending
on where you place a pot or pan, closer or farther from the firebox. The stove
box is also somewhat fickle, ranging from 200 to 700 F (!), but we have found
most temperatures cook most baked items decently if left in the right amount of
time. Finally we have been able to cook pies, roasts, pizza and other baked
dishes that we hadn’t been able to cook decently in our outdoor kitchen. Also,
thanks to the cold temperatures outside, we have had “refrigeration” via our
cooler. For the most part though, food-wise we have been eating lots of our
stored root crops from last year’s garden—sweet potatoes, potatoes, squash,
pumpkins, apples—as well as canned tomatoes, pickles, beets, etc. And let me not
forget pork! We aren’t sick of it yet but I can see the potential…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb7PoMTNLlkduUaRGmtsHz61tcPx-3RJKedNNgLGAFNpMMKwg0fERT_vv4hJj-pxTGkIX39zF3qzaPjrBaL68FJgsn1RdcP5ZKF98o7W12DIHo-RmiME9eP9SkOrE5FkWKyLJMxJJKyLs/s1600/meal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb7PoMTNLlkduUaRGmtsHz61tcPx-3RJKedNNgLGAFNpMMKwg0fERT_vv4hJj-pxTGkIX39zF3qzaPjrBaL68FJgsn1RdcP5ZKF98o7W12DIHo-RmiME9eP9SkOrE5FkWKyLJMxJJKyLs/s320/meal.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8UG72Frpgq5-isSoE08aZ7HG-SUmTqBhVZ0MsHmLbp7o4PbJoqifgLu38OE2ADOyTdwEcKDsc2PI1Y34JMSSTZUmJKrqpqRJ9hWHHnpNbsWmuOKHYTPby06NcQs7xNH56pSBKKusK1Ko/s1600/mike+floor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8UG72Frpgq5-isSoE08aZ7HG-SUmTqBhVZ0MsHmLbp7o4PbJoqifgLu38OE2ADOyTdwEcKDsc2PI1Y34JMSSTZUmJKrqpqRJ9hWHHnpNbsWmuOKHYTPby06NcQs7xNH56pSBKKusK1Ko/s320/mike+floor.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And though
winter, of any season, is the obvious candidate for taking some down time away
from work—cooking, visiting friends and neighbors, reading by the stove and
making things—our main goal the past month has been to get further along on the
house before the baby is due to arrive and our time, energy, and focus shift in
a new direction. Currently as I write, Mike is pounding away on floor
installation (using a loud, hammer-drive floor nailer… this baby has a
promising career as a drummer I think!) I have been tackling work on the
bathroom, and am determined to see it functional by March. (Let me just say, an
outhouse in January does not have the same allure as an outhouse in May…) To
start with, I have plastered the sheetrock walls with a finish lime plaster
which I then lime-washed with some blue iron-oxide pigment mixed in for color.
Lime is a great natural finish for areas where certain hygienic qualities are
desired, as well as breathability, as it won’t trap moisture. My friend Sarah
pointed out to me that the cheese-aging cellars in France where she lived and
worked were lime plastered for that reason—no strange mold strains growing
there! So, perfect for a humid area like a bathroom. Next to come are
wainscoting and a tile floor and then our tub can finally get installed. Let me
just say that bathing in a galvanized wash tub is also losing its farmhousy
novelty!</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the baby
grows larger and larger, my range of motion and energy are shrinking, but I am
still awkwardly and slowly able to work. I guess this is around the time in
their pregnancies that many women go into a frenzy nesting and cleaning their
homes. While I might like to be at that point with our home, our reality is
much clutter, work mess, and assorted piles/boxes/furniture endlessly being
shuffled around. Still, I can’t complain, especially when compared to the birth
stories of many of our neighbors and friends in nearby communities who welcomed
babies home to tents or walls of unplastered strawbales and the like. The
babies don’t seem to notice, go figure. And to see their beautiful children and
homes now, I know we will be there too someday soon… all will be well!</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At any rate, we
are still making time to relax and have fun in our last child-free months. Our community
gets creative in winter. For example, with ice skating tag in a giant snow maze
at our neighbor’s pond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I cautiously
pushed a chair around like a walker so I wouldn’t topple over, which was pretty
soon seated by a small girl too young to skate!) Yes, it is hard to imagine what our lives here will soon look like with a little one in tow. But we give thanks for all the community support around us, near and far, helping us figure out the way into parenthood!<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-38385411655156950402015-11-21T13:40:00.002-08:002015-11-21T13:40:56.781-08:00Season Finale: Moving In<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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{page:WordSection1;</style> Our fall season on the land has fully fallen: we just closed
up the house and packed up our car to head east for a little winter break.
Truth be told, September, October and November have flown by in a flurry of
activity, and subsequently I have fallen way behind in my updates.
So—warning--this could be a marathon blog post. But like all good season ending
episodes, there is an unexpected twist at the end, so keep reading! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikcl2QUxU8hoUhSel9_BQ44u0n_FDebzUi7KAXygmAObG92fhqgMPReS7ls_bBYKjmp0-S-fQMEe4RlD_dOqQKpSz-g3B_xIzKBRligpOu4HLME8ZlO8X_aOostaDZODcYJ_8J8PujPoM/s1600/chimneyoutside.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikcl2QUxU8hoUhSel9_BQ44u0n_FDebzUi7KAXygmAObG92fhqgMPReS7ls_bBYKjmp0-S-fQMEe4RlD_dOqQKpSz-g3B_xIzKBRligpOu4HLME8ZlO8X_aOostaDZODcYJ_8J8PujPoM/s400/chimneyoutside.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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First and most importantly, we finally moved in to our
house! Far from being my dream moving-in scenario (fully finished floors and
walls, closets and shelves, all polished and ready for our belongings to be
unpacked), our “moving in” is happening in fits and starts. We semi-finished
one bedroom first—one clean space amidst the construction chaos—to sleep in.
That means the wall surfaces are still rough plastered and partly sheetrocked,
and the floor has underlayment nailed down but not a whole lot else. We set up
extra strawbales as a bedframe and relocated the contents of our
falling-apart-at-the-seams tent into the space and spent our first chilly night
indoors (still chilly, but less so). It was then that I realized two things:
having relative quiet whilst sleeping is such a luxury, and we weren’t quite
there yet since our house apparently already had several occupants. Mice. Ugh.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsCWWSwVph3_NqgaAkD3u5yZ3LxNgldok4YKGOBPArMcd_MTlLH3qL60hO1lJkwWp1oThk9R0wgDdenvrTqXnVtkN4gHbj8qozO_m6Ef88trJHk9pSdM-WzI1bY7zrZA9-6Diyao9Efc/s1600/firestart.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsCWWSwVph3_NqgaAkD3u5yZ3LxNgldok4YKGOBPArMcd_MTlLH3qL60hO1lJkwWp1oThk9R0wgDdenvrTqXnVtkN4gHbj8qozO_m6Ef88trJHk9pSdM-WzI1bY7zrZA9-6Diyao9Efc/s400/firestart.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Campsite cooking on the rocket stove</td></tr>
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Thus far we have coexisted with a lot of animal and insect
co-inhabitants to varying degrees of annoyance and tolerance. I can shrug off
big black rat snakes, marauding opposums, bats, hornets, and even palm-sized
spiders hanging on the outside of our tent. But mice? I have never gotten past
the point of total revulsion with them. Once when I was “home” alone, a mouse
chewed through our tent and I came back to find it running around on our bed. I
slept in our car that night until Mike could come back and get it out. Anyhow,
fast forward through many hair-raising encounters with mice to the glorious
point in our tenting existence when two stray cats showed up at our campsite.
Within a week there were no more mice within a 20 ft. radius. Hallelujah! Apparently
they all had moved into our house instead. (For the record, they are now out
again, escorted by traps…)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbsAgEFniR63jd0fGY6w96oPa3Sen9lv8sRb64dgY-v4Xfgyncce-6cfNP9MLyzoHd1xiEBOXoZk8zkkoIFncnxeN07FToHYvH9f7fWj1yZxVmKCFLlTKLKHPc4rmB1EbNewcT1iZUAPk/s1600/cats.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbsAgEFniR63jd0fGY6w96oPa3Sen9lv8sRb64dgY-v4Xfgyncce-6cfNP9MLyzoHd1xiEBOXoZk8zkkoIFncnxeN07FToHYvH9f7fWj1yZxVmKCFLlTKLKHPc4rmB1EbNewcT1iZUAPk/s320/cats.JPG" width="320" /></a> Not that our cats have been without their own challenges.
For example, once in a classic “Pepe-la-Peu” style error, a local skunk started
courting our black and white cat: every morning for a week at 5 am, the skunk
would let off a blast of “come hither” scent in the direction of our campsite.
This is not a pleasant smell to wake up to, but what could we do? We soon
learned that if we pulled on surgeon’s facemasks in a state of half-lucidness, we
could sleep through the worst of it. Yes, I’d say there is quite a bit that I
won’t miss about campsite living: trying to start a fire in our rocket stoves
in the driving rain, the spring explosion of ticks, the soot, the mildew, the
flies… (I bet I’m really selling you on the great outdoors, aren’t I?) </div>
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But honestly, the vast majority of our experiences living
outdoors have been amazing. There are so many moments of jaw-dropping beauty
and wonder that I have lost count. Waking up to the sherbert sky of sunrises
and the beating of hummingbird wings. The dazzling night sky that arrests you
when you stumble out of the tent at night. All of the perfect mornings spent in
the sunshine and crisp air, eating pancakes and reading to each other, stopping
to watch a hawk or V of geese or inchworm on its slow path. Waking on the first
morning of frost to find a glittering world transformed. A low-flying night
heron swooping in overhead on its way to our pond. I have to wonder if I will
notice as many of these small wonders once we are living indoors… </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bT0S-Nlea2eFiXyo6m7GFMJERwiHkfIkkysAcfBcIOODGyrTBQPVRi2iYDJ7Qr9y7dvUIwA1cCZfGlfQhtiVfUtZgmNDqsyhPEx484kWpSnYdXWvbVvkVENvEiC7Gmz-Bj7JwoyHiGA/s1600/cistern1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bT0S-Nlea2eFiXyo6m7GFMJERwiHkfIkkysAcfBcIOODGyrTBQPVRi2iYDJ7Qr9y7dvUIwA1cCZfGlfQhtiVfUtZgmNDqsyhPEx484kWpSnYdXWvbVvkVENvEiC7Gmz-Bj7JwoyHiGA/s320/cistern1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julia applying the watersealing "surface bond" coating</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWKKBixB_VBZPciarbkKzvR0VyteSsmT7UDEVHYibSV9nnYpvlQo2IW2JBNBRRl0lMqUjvT0uJxKNfZeP-o1Dp6y76RlYgVH72lO7yCwcQPPFJpHIeJg6n3vQ_6b07y9Lqdpn7nGRGoIU/s1600/cistern2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWKKBixB_VBZPciarbkKzvR0VyteSsmT7UDEVHYibSV9nnYpvlQo2IW2JBNBRRl0lMqUjvT0uJxKNfZeP-o1Dp6y76RlYgVH72lO7yCwcQPPFJpHIeJg6n3vQ_6b07y9Lqdpn7nGRGoIU/s320/cistern2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Form work and rebar ready for the cistern roof pour</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf44w7lrC9Yi4tj5jUgQrzAY5tQNHlSBhD9NFJf3kdklrCGStBdxQ46bD8p0cXIwXgwhUuY1zCuMymluGtvmGiFek6FRCOa9ZuF4OQVYGyfh5mgeYKHsnczGaIqGlw_kMdwTAUFiMkb7o/s1600/cistern3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf44w7lrC9Yi4tj5jUgQrzAY5tQNHlSBhD9NFJf3kdklrCGStBdxQ46bD8p0cXIwXgwhUuY1zCuMymluGtvmGiFek6FRCOa9ZuF4OQVYGyfh5mgeYKHsnczGaIqGlw_kMdwTAUFiMkb7o/s320/cistern3.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Post concrete pour, the overflow pipe sticking out</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQB5M4vp2lhyphenhyphen7qKognqO_ukWq1uVkUJdUtuQ6livmMfdFWFVXBswTnjr7ZMgDmPTj5mJ9sXPIVA1JUU_0tDxl8yZeiBkTkDX1794oeOj1DeW6dAb0Kwl9aLw6nDCpGyUBf6umCUaWvDnU/s1600/cistern4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQB5M4vp2lhyphenhyphen7qKognqO_ukWq1uVkUJdUtuQ6livmMfdFWFVXBswTnjr7ZMgDmPTj5mJ9sXPIVA1JUU_0tDxl8yZeiBkTkDX1794oeOj1DeW6dAb0Kwl9aLw6nDCpGyUBf6umCUaWvDnU/s320/cistern4.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike and the trencher, digging out for the clean-out drain pipe</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfHHF85KXnLya4250yLUlwhemxFb0CzvrRD3CgSJIzOy74O1_rLi58Ehyphenhyphen5Rrp4pq89PfNWUvMQWCiKX0zwZFzpXjeu16Z777cNZ6j97C6z6vSc3jJVpmXdXvYtTJmEmf-Fr1TS7v0N7Mk/s1600/cistern5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfHHF85KXnLya4250yLUlwhemxFb0CzvrRD3CgSJIzOy74O1_rLi58Ehyphenhyphen5Rrp4pq89PfNWUvMQWCiKX0zwZFzpXjeu16Z777cNZ6j97C6z6vSc3jJVpmXdXvYtTJmEmf-Fr1TS7v0N7Mk/s320/cistern5.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clean out drain pipe going downhill</td></tr>
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But I digress. Our “moving in” progression was furthered by
two more major developments. The first was finishing our water cistern and
setting up a wash station inside (yay!). This process probably deserves its own
blog post since it was so involved, but suffice to say, a big learning curve
behind us, we now how have a tank holding rainwater behind our house! The
second development was finally getting our wood stove fully installed. This seemed
like it would be more straightforward than it actually was. Moving the stove in
was fairly easy… that is, with a neighborhood of people helping. I built the
hearth out of slate while Mike ground the rust away out of the old stove and got
it in shipshape with new firebricks. Neighbor Don came with his tractor and
hoisted the stove to porch level and from there a team of strapping young
friends completed the move indoors. The complication came when it came to
installing the stovepipe itself. It had to snake up to our roof through two
stories and around several key load-bearing beams. Guessing angles and taking
the plunge of actually cutting holes through the floor and the roof metal
(ack!) was difficult and took three trips to an Amish-run stove parts store in
Iowa to get just right. The cost of the pipe too was a doozy, almost three
times what our stove cost (ack again!) But the feeling of heat emanating from
the stove when everything was finally installed just right? Priceless. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4I3-bxSYEA0SIIYgeAMjsFydJNTONQG46STwy41Mtc2FMpdvlkzEpRqvyzQa67aPvjbRmLyx1HEcqHZmP17sd2-Ch5hcwhIqst_GEYkzO7qBg9JsCsH0SxeC9tg_4p_tDpAQqXLcsm80/s1600/mike+stove.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4I3-bxSYEA0SIIYgeAMjsFydJNTONQG46STwy41Mtc2FMpdvlkzEpRqvyzQa67aPvjbRmLyx1HEcqHZmP17sd2-Ch5hcwhIqst_GEYkzO7qBg9JsCsH0SxeC9tg_4p_tDpAQqXLcsm80/s320/mike+stove.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fitting the stove pipe</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJ_Xe9Qu_ClRmxlD9-UjAiKW-xRyiWUIN6brPOxKolnsc1-MVaEQE8vQOAhnpkHBHeI1VTVHuVefc5QYkmXtB0MlfQeE-2GEiVRQqfE7vm9roX_7VuQgUwR-uy1v4vd_D0WD7qVMydeE/s1600/stovemove.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJ_Xe9Qu_ClRmxlD9-UjAiKW-xRyiWUIN6brPOxKolnsc1-MVaEQE8vQOAhnpkHBHeI1VTVHuVefc5QYkmXtB0MlfQeE-2GEiVRQqfE7vm9roX_7VuQgUwR-uy1v4vd_D0WD7qVMydeE/s320/stovemove.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moving the stove in</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwh9uydBVEpCtpHEUO5MMsXsMMUWo_LgXuxYOWR2c6Y9Xu_zo3AbWV9c-f0t8QeGeW4DJ6RqTYUXoaaTuqY9-DyYXB6Hn3iKlIIqhCBPF-UMTlVWYwN10ZMvyaW-nJkF5VlzkYdQTV78/s1600/cutroof.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwh9uydBVEpCtpHEUO5MMsXsMMUWo_LgXuxYOWR2c6Y9Xu_zo3AbWV9c-f0t8QeGeW4DJ6RqTYUXoaaTuqY9-DyYXB6Hn3iKlIIqhCBPF-UMTlVWYwN10ZMvyaW-nJkF5VlzkYdQTV78/s320/cutroof.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making the cut through the roof (teeth gritted)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGdKh3veZZG_bqQL2bJP1nKkXnckjNDjtEARQjEzfD0_CWV-_WdBsGnbRLcWrWzd37l3gBCOXkI6P4bY_8ZrjmQD89NbzF2mHdlxLS7x_8S6x-rBn9Gi_6Mj48QTa34bkL1o-pc_RWFnI/s1600/chimney.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGdKh3veZZG_bqQL2bJP1nKkXnckjNDjtEARQjEzfD0_CWV-_WdBsGnbRLcWrWzd37l3gBCOXkI6P4bY_8ZrjmQD89NbzF2mHdlxLS7x_8S6x-rBn9Gi_6Mj48QTa34bkL1o-pc_RWFnI/s320/chimney.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Installing the chimney cap</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYhlafG3p-9XYaPsVeez6bGsZmTcjTExE1ki4w1VFEZiZb2X6z6oMO_bVb88dc11RlHDDBPPVbWBc8GyGIzbrhAXrZ9BdOiuoXVgP29_6HhJCW70IheVgbpCC6qjpQHlIYVCnNUlOpQI/s1600/firestove.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYhlafG3p-9XYaPsVeez6bGsZmTcjTExE1ki4w1VFEZiZb2X6z6oMO_bVb88dc11RlHDDBPPVbWBc8GyGIzbrhAXrZ9BdOiuoXVgP29_6HhJCW70IheVgbpCC6qjpQHlIYVCnNUlOpQI/s320/firestove.JPG" width="320" /></a> I love this stove. It seems like the warm heart of our home
is finally in place. I love cooking on it (imagine a giant hotplate with zones
of heat, from “rapid boil” to “crock-pot slow cook” to “keep my mug warm”). I
love that scrap wood from our land can power it. I love that it heats up our
house in no time and keeps things toasty all night as it slowly releases its
heat. I love that there is a water tank that sits on the back of it that keeps
us in steady supply of hot water. I can’t imagine why these stoves were phased
out in favor of kerosene and then gas ranges, except the one obvious caveat
about it: someone needs to be around to keep it going. And without a personal
Mrs. Patmore in the kitchen, I suppose that is an inconvenience. Still, it is a
perfect fit for our house and homestead and I feel grateful for the heat it
provides us. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2aOcpP01X9Y_w-6-n8rYStoZAc-gJ-g78qwEeGxVfudSJtJagfeUBbP0QiBiikdsSBVhPVLnu7pWvwUNFRvu82Tve7LyS37kzdV253-sRtocAqrfGVYuOoI-xvNIg_JbiImZGMZFb7Xg/s1600/pancake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2aOcpP01X9Y_w-6-n8rYStoZAc-gJ-g78qwEeGxVfudSJtJagfeUBbP0QiBiikdsSBVhPVLnu7pWvwUNFRvu82Tve7LyS37kzdV253-sRtocAqrfGVYuOoI-xvNIg_JbiImZGMZFb7Xg/s320/pancake.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike cooking pancakes and Autumn Olive syrup on the stove top</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_tZYAJM152zopjhbxVfj5uKwoGdjny49b5ILhE8_ZNbu4KRPJgkXKGueFRVB1-JEVmZgfoxMsMLNwATzePwGUbG3YZwQ1z36WS_JEG2zLsV5cA0YI0RFCTma3rpFh3tINQIOPlMvLuEU/s1600/dadfloor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_tZYAJM152zopjhbxVfj5uKwoGdjny49b5ILhE8_ZNbu4KRPJgkXKGueFRVB1-JEVmZgfoxMsMLNwATzePwGUbG3YZwQ1z36WS_JEG2zLsV5cA0YI0RFCTma3rpFh3tINQIOPlMvLuEU/s320/dadfloor.JPG" width="320" /></a> Other developments on the house have been finishing our
little dormer window area, starting the finish flooring (thanks to Mike and my
father who have been nailing away at it, row by row), starting the finish
plastering (now up on 2/3 of our downstairs walls), getting sheetrock up and
mudded in various parts of our house where lath and plaster just wasn’t in the
cards, and installing a gutter along our roof so that we can begin catching
water in our cistern (thanks to our friend Augustine!). </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gutter installation</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our friend Beth leading a finish plaster demo </td></tr>
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My parents came to visit and were once again willing to help
with construction. My mother pointed out to me that home construction has been
a long family tradition, since her parents bought an old farmhouse on
Washington Island, WI and hauled her and sisters up every summer to work on it,
little by little. It took them ten years to complete and move in, during which
she would sleep up in the creepy unfinished snake-and-mouse infested attic, so
I suppose the construction compulsion is in my genes. My epigenetics too, since
my mother was a construction project manager, working on sites up until the day
I was born. </div>
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I have been thinking about this a lot lately as I have been hard at work,
hammering and sawing and hauling this and that: the complicated and intricate
relationship between genes and in utero environment that partly shape who we
become. Am I attracted to the creative, hands-on process of building a house
because I spent so much time at construction sites in utero and as a young
child, tagging along with my mom? My preschool teacher would take notes about
my play tendencies—“playing alone with blocks again”—and my friend’s parents
would also predict that I would become an architect or builder. And here I am, to
nobody’s surprise. </div>
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So I have to wonder about my own child, how is all this
filtering into his or her life? Because, you see, I am pregnant! And have been
for five months now, five months of almost non-stop construction. This has not
always been easy, balancing the needs of a growing fetus (rest and non-stress)
and the need to have a functioning home to raise a baby in (requiring much
activity and accompanying stress!). But we have come a long way this year, and
all has gone well so far with the baby’s growth. Now I can feel that the baby
is quiet through the active parts of the day and moves around and kicks quite a
bit when I am not moving. Has the noise of hammering and saws whirring become a
muffled lullaby to this baby? Or has it been an annoyance? I have so much curiosity about this most amazing
miracle unfolding within me, and it truly has added another dimension to an
already full and special time in our lives. This baby and its arrival will
become a part of the story of this house, and vice versa.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The second floor awaits our return...</td></tr>
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So with that revelation, I will leave you until mid-January,
when we return to finish work on the inside of our house—the final push before
a different kind of "final push", as it were. Until then, happy holidays and may
your lives abound with small wonders too!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-46537226901224280212015-11-05T20:37:00.003-08:002015-11-05T20:37:40.924-08:00Three (not so) Little Pigs
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We woke up early this morning with anticipation of the day to come. Today is butchering day! (Warning: somewhat graphic images of the day follow). As I write, a fire has been lit under the scalding tank, scraping bells are ready, and our friends and neighbors who have volunteered to help are probably eating breakfast and will begin trickling over. Only our pigs are blissfully unaware, and are probably sleeping in.</div>
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In the interest of full disclosure, our pigs are no longer
“little” and they are no longer “three” in number, but that is how they started
out back in early summer; three very cute little pigs. Now they are enormous
hogs and one has already been harvested a few weeks ago and delivered to Mike’s
parents in Ohio where he may already be making appearances on a breakfast plate.
That was Stubby (yes, we named them against our better judgment), and being the
mischievous bully ringleader, he has not been missed by the other pigs or us
(he often “hogged” all the food). He was adept at breaking out of their
enclosure and leading the other pigs in romps through our woods and fields as
we went chasing after them, coaxing and trying to round them back to the pig
pen. So needless to say, he was an easy choice for first culling. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The day begins--scalding tank is heated and the pig has been killed</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pulling the pig into the scalding tank</td></tr>
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Our other two pigs on the other hand were quite sweet and I feel
sad at their parting. Smally and Spotty have definitely grown on me over the
months, despite their horrible smell and their oafish clumsiness, stepping in
their food dishes and knocking their water over time and time again. We have
raised them on a diet of mostly ground corn, apples, whey left over from our
neighbor’s cheese making, and food scraps, plus whatever they discover rooting
up the ground since we never ringed their noses. Our good friend John Arbuckle
has further perfected his hog raising system, planting fields of forage crops,
and then rotating his pigs around in them. Doing this, he has managed to
decrease their need for outside grain inputs considerably, to a quarter of
former rations. Let me just plug his awesome pig product here, ROAM snack
sticks (http://roamsticks.net/roam-snack-sticks/), made from pastured happy
pigs, coming to a health food store near you. (Let me also just point out that
the alternative snack sticks on the market are made from pork bought at
discount when it is<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> recalled</i>. And yes,
the FDA apparently allows this. You truly get what you pay for in our food
system!)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rolling the body back and forth in the scalding tank by using chains</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Using bell scrapers to remove the hair</td></tr>
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I have come to appreciate pigs as ultimate food composters.
I used to feel frustrated when some food item went bad before we could eat it,
but now I think, “bacon!” and toss it without remorse into the scrap bucket.
Imagine if every restaurant or cafeteria had a few pigs out back to take care
of food scraps… We would have a much more efficient, closed-loop food system.
Instead, we send almost all food scraps to landfills where they become methane,
a potent greenhouse gas, as they break down, and farmers grow massive amounts
of corn and soy and other grains that go to feeding hogs (and other animals) in
CAFOs. That would be “Confined Animal Feeding Operations”, not very nice places
to be in if you are a pig, or a human for that matter.</div>
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We have been learning more this year about food systems, and
looking into all of the uncomfortable dark corners that most people would
prefer never to become aware of. One fascinating read if you too would like to
delve deeper is <u>Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat. </u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author, Barry Estabrook, mentions a hog CAFO
that he visited near us, “Smithfield Foods” in Milan, MO. We were aware of
Smithfield’s existence before now, mostly because we know an elderly couple of
environmentalists who have the total misfortune of having built their homestead
on land that became adjacent to the CAFO. You can imagine how their air quality
quickly deteriorated as the manure lagoon started filling from the excrement
from thousands of hogs. That lagoon spills over in heavy rains, washing into
the local watershed and seeping into groundwater. Ugh. Our friends have filed
and won lawsuit after lawsuit against Smithfield and yet Smithfield just keeps
paying out and returning to business as usual, undeterred. They are one of the
largest CAFO operators in the nation, running several of the 20,000 CAFOS that
currently exist in the US.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The pig is hoisted up to working level as baby Johanna and Regina watch</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike and Brian saw the pig slowly in half after removing the head and organs</td></tr>
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We have also been hearing about the human side of Smithfield’s
operation from labor organizer and former CAFO worker Axel Fuentes. He makes an
appearance actually in <u>Pig Tales</u>, and he also made an appearance recently
at a local event viewing and discussing the film about hunger in America, <u>A
Place at the Table</u>. He is part of the Latino community in Milan, which has
exploded to 4,000+ since Smithfield started in the last decade. Most of these
workers are illegal immigrants lured over to the US by promises in
advertisements in newspapers and billboards that these factories put up in
Mexico and other countries. The reality they find is pretty horrible (if they
make it) and then they become trapped here. </div>
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Warning: don’t read this next paragraph if you want to keep
eating cheap meat as usual, as it is a bit graphic!</div>
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At the film viewing, Axel Fuentes said something I find very
disturbing. He pointed out that we quite literally still have slavery in this
country, in fact, in the very county I live in. Illegal immigrants are abused and taken advantage of in all sorts of ways. At Smithfield, they work 12 hr. shifts and
have a single 5 minute break in that time. That means many of them wear diapers
because there are no bathroom breaks. And the work is dehumanizing,
desensitizing, and brutal. I can’t begin to imagine. As a society, we can do way way better
than this! </div>
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So! With that cheery news in mind, there are alternatives!
There are so many amazing small family farms springing up all over this country
with hardworking people like my friends John and Holly Arbuckle treating their
animals with dignity, honoring their animal instincts for rooting and pecking
and being able to move around. These people deserve way more support and
frankly, they deserve to make a living whereby they can support their families
from farming income. (CAFOs set meat prices so artificially low that it is hard
to compete. Farming is mostly a labor of love as most farmers are just breaking
even at slightly higher prices!) I know there are ways to access these
alternatives in almost every part of the country and it is worth making a
little more effort to seek them out. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5KsIeCU2F9O2kU6G79_ICp5nSKZzMt0rgTNpyjo0EZ_ZqUdKW6FgmPVSa9DhINP32oTdE6ZHxawwOX41bWHcIRUsgE0IYK5Zj4PWmb4ywCESgkxVDfChCIiQR7aM4lV6CZ45aguBCTEc/s1600/_MG_0696.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5KsIeCU2F9O2kU6G79_ICp5nSKZzMt0rgTNpyjo0EZ_ZqUdKW6FgmPVSa9DhINP32oTdE6ZHxawwOX41bWHcIRUsgE0IYK5Zj4PWmb4ywCESgkxVDfChCIiQR7aM4lV6CZ45aguBCTEc/s320/_MG_0696.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dan and Mike work on carving up one pig into smaller cuts of meat</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4S3fzq0t1peESFJiZo8BjH5w8NGOrubl7CycH7WCwGEcunp4W2wMu5YeAnJCHnmOhwVOlnQZ62UZi0i0hfgCHVKcvLmLBvM0uL0D7A5O0ne7gX4W-iBsPkSC2fHQhrCvAR4-0Uk5PlM/s1600/_MG_0698.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4S3fzq0t1peESFJiZo8BjH5w8NGOrubl7CycH7WCwGEcunp4W2wMu5YeAnJCHnmOhwVOlnQZ62UZi0i0hfgCHVKcvLmLBvM0uL0D7A5O0ne7gX4W-iBsPkSC2fHQhrCvAR4-0Uk5PlM/s320/_MG_0698.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teri, Brian and Steve work on the second pig, ribs in the foreground</td></tr>
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Well, this is all getting a bit preachy and big picture, and
as I write, the little picture is unfolding right outside: a group of neighbors
has gathered to relearn forgotten skills and participate in a new yearly ritual.
Our Amish neighbor Jake is going to be leading the first part of the process,
scalding the skin and scraping the gristly hairs off (after the pigs are
quickly and humanely killed). Then our friend John will help give pointers for
butchering each hog into many smaller cuts which will be wrapped and frozen. While Brian and Teri have raised pigs before and have more experience, this is our first year and the help is really appreciated! Once wrapped and labeled, we will store the meat in a chest freezer at our friend’s house with
hopes of one day powering a freezer with solar panels at our house. While this
day will be hard in ways, we are taking our turn doing the unpleasant work of
eating meat so that someone doesn’t have to 12 hrs. a day, 7 days a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85trTzieAR4N03dlg9vCu3TnRsJiavJ9Xw2zrcgaEFLZcrMBgXKRTay3vSuBWrE_MQN7dH4ZF-EM1v6OjyFHL0tcOSs6YXenH_9xxInxNrvkV0uUUJGtwf4ZljX-WuoajmOBH1RmcmZo/s1600/_MG_0701.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85trTzieAR4N03dlg9vCu3TnRsJiavJ9Xw2zrcgaEFLZcrMBgXKRTay3vSuBWrE_MQN7dH4ZF-EM1v6OjyFHL0tcOSs6YXenH_9xxInxNrvkV0uUUJGtwf4ZljX-WuoajmOBH1RmcmZo/s400/_MG_0701.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brian, John and Mike holding future prosciutto? </td></tr>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Note from the end of a long day: Success! As the photos show, the day went really well. We are really fortunate to have many hands in the community willing to make light work of our arduous task! </span><br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-24124525509768398882015-09-26T06:53:00.000-07:002015-09-26T06:53:09.947-07:00Moving up and down<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriQfuMagibbwXfnfdnIyAZXVLKVg_7knR7Vk4pvXq9Tisqf8LsrxSlrqZK8Au_spbL8N_Rk3YfGP8JZlXRLm5BaJhJEw14F5fWEJJn4PP4IzygtPfr8wcRfQincCL9hCK9LMSM-Z9v_A/s1600/floor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriQfuMagibbwXfnfdnIyAZXVLKVg_7knR7Vk4pvXq9Tisqf8LsrxSlrqZK8Au_spbL8N_Rk3YfGP8JZlXRLm5BaJhJEw14F5fWEJJn4PP4IzygtPfr8wcRfQincCL9hCK9LMSM-Z9v_A/s400/floor.JPG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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I am squeezing a blog update into what has turned out to be a very busy September. We have been leaping forward and making discernible progress on multiple fronts, inside our house and out. First, we have a second floor! It is official, as you can see, and has totally transformed the space inside the house (not to mention greatly increased safety when working upstairs!) We looked for some time for second-hand wood to use for the second floor subfloor, but we ended up purchasing some newly sawn oak from our local mill, run rather appropriately by an Amish man, Ivan Miller. Ivan has supplied our house many times with necessary components, from our joists to our porch decking to our wainy-edge siding, always squeezing our little orders in a timely fashion in between his massive orders for mostly pallet wood. (It is a little saddening to see such beautiful large oaks milled down to pallet components, but such is the demand that keeps him and his fleet of sons in business!). At any rate, we are grateful for such an affordable local resource a few miles from us, and our house is far more beautiful and sturdy for it.</div>
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3RomAxTV100XmhPfuq9JzyZ9WXlrl8FUpknTCJthZJIUZ63M7RYr_PMVeu5NozJ9XIdzPJ4L5D8suzaygtBmsWwmx1SZKCaQGd4I1NEj2f8W-edPLetCj4SJewsZLPWn_-QypJf39uw/s1600/mike-floor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3RomAxTV100XmhPfuq9JzyZ9WXlrl8FUpknTCJthZJIUZ63M7RYr_PMVeu5NozJ9XIdzPJ4L5D8suzaygtBmsWwmx1SZKCaQGd4I1NEj2f8W-edPLetCj4SJewsZLPWn_-QypJf39uw/s320/mike-floor.JPG" width="320" /> </a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wypQLzDxGEKBUPQssfS0HjBfaOs5TsZoSCKMYfOgp9wNoa6zB1LLdidF0zrqmAYTO21YdKVz0RZPIX6CbVhWtP994MS0vShmgiEGRwsMkh6BZ8Atye-hX53t0GYSNWSpY9nCVA5NrOM/s1600/mom.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wypQLzDxGEKBUPQssfS0HjBfaOs5TsZoSCKMYfOgp9wNoa6zB1LLdidF0zrqmAYTO21YdKVz0RZPIX6CbVhWtP994MS0vShmgiEGRwsMkh6BZ8Atye-hX53t0GYSNWSpY9nCVA5NrOM/s320/mom.JPG" width="213" /></a> Credit goes to Mike for laying the second floor while my mother and I have been a plastering machine the last few weeks, (make that month+). While we finished the first floor plastering, Mike raced us to finish half of the upstairs so we could get started there. Then as we worked on that half, he raced us to finish the second half. While we were pushing to execute these goals, I did a somewhat imprudent thing. I agreed to teach a half day "natural building" class to a group of 25 students who were taking a two-week Permaculture class up the road. The class was to have a hands-on component and I thought it would be perfect to work on building our upstairs partition walls, trying out lath caging with woodchip-clay infill, as well as another technique of stuffing straw-clay in temporary plywood forms. But all of this meant considerable prep work: stud framing the walls and ripping down scrap wood into lath, as well as getting the floor complete enough for 25 people to work on. And deadlines never go over very well in this building process, nor in Mike and mine relationship. Nonetheless, despite some considerable stress and long hours leading up to it, the class went well and 25 people were unleashed on buckets of slip and bags of straw. It was a frenzy of woodchips flying and buckets being passed every which way, but in the end, we filled the walls half way and had a successful demo. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSTOe1tRY7QUHJdPQLFaooa9Tn3ihkSS7qutcC3wByvDGe0nNehIRn5EC0x0imOdTHyho7iRRWOaVEThf3AxaOiQQET2Uk4X0bbbj0cmk9hrWjz4Oc0EeMq14I385FY-H0AfTO2hqjlXc/s1600/lath.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSTOe1tRY7QUHJdPQLFaooa9Tn3ihkSS7qutcC3wByvDGe0nNehIRn5EC0x0imOdTHyho7iRRWOaVEThf3AxaOiQQET2Uk4X0bbbj0cmk9hrWjz4Oc0EeMq14I385FY-H0AfTO2hqjlXc/s400/lath.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqBioAQU3jp-Ph1XmZ2JvvMBjlZKwr2PHVu6jNTau73zAh3rhsW8NJv3rB0HL7ERx7PB2n9Pv0PcZy1LwAg9P0UJ-UKHqiLu8QNaAzAIXwbck1RgCTim_KTzdTJA6DbSSNkThKvhTel10/s1600/window.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqBioAQU3jp-Ph1XmZ2JvvMBjlZKwr2PHVu6jNTau73zAh3rhsW8NJv3rB0HL7ERx7PB2n9Pv0PcZy1LwAg9P0UJ-UKHqiLu8QNaAzAIXwbck1RgCTim_KTzdTJA6DbSSNkThKvhTel10/s320/window.JPG" width="213" /></a> When the stress of trying to meet our goal of finishing the house gets to be too much, it has been nice to sit and begin to imagine what each of the finished spaces will look like. The bones and flesh of each space are now there, and as light moves through the house on sunny days, it is easy to mentally fill in the details. This is fuel enough to keep me going for now, because truth be told, I am really beginning to fall in love with our house. It is my favorite place to be actually, even despite the fact that it is a mess, looking rather like a giant muddy dog shook itself off in every room. After a few more necessary components get scratched off the to do list (ahem, heat and water?), we will really be in the home stretch, trimming windows and putting on our finish flooring. Okay, it will be a long home stretch, but it is all relative anyhow. <br />
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So on top of all of this progress inside the house, we decided to take another leap forward while the great weather and available assistance were all favorable. Thanks to our fairy-godmother parents stepping in to help organize necessary funding (our house funds start drying up at this time of year before their winter replenishment), we have been able to start another construction project. You know, in our spare time... And that is, our water catchment cistern. Our plan has always been to catch rainwater from our roof and funnel it into a below-ground cistern that we could pump into the house from. Neither of us are masonry experts or plumbing experts however, so our learning curve has been pretty steep on this one. At first it seemed so overwhelming that we just mentally kicked it down the field into next year. But then the thought of daily breaking the ice on our pond this winter and carrying 5-gallon buckets the long walk back to our house started nudging us back into the "wouldn't it be nice just to get it done now?" mentality. I mean, we had the hole already, how hard could it be?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3vr0UhsACz93G9jmcNgfm8B47gIQHSw9kfOtbNneq76_5t2K8SpjaF1E0h1fCE3go-IYeMOhWblvQmXSX4sA4rUpywxFY_rqpgWFiNcYRtr4yZFe8u-yenrhuO6oJ8CLAh7pNDRiz_4/s1600/tamp.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3vr0UhsACz93G9jmcNgfm8B47gIQHSw9kfOtbNneq76_5t2K8SpjaF1E0h1fCE3go-IYeMOhWblvQmXSX4sA4rUpywxFY_rqpgWFiNcYRtr4yZFe8u-yenrhuO6oJ8CLAh7pNDRiz_4/s320/tamp.JPG" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwf-h91swhW1jgkeNCk8Y_S99XGW-uIKmz-LCiAcKUA7SQeHoY5hXfHNrpqbBbWupQgtv4-8n7Lera-h0EdG8oVLsK1Kbnuna_F3EQJD2W95RIpEg4qyxmCd3byvg1wxo9f2TieAqERg/s1600/busty.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwf-h91swhW1jgkeNCk8Y_S99XGW-uIKmz-LCiAcKUA7SQeHoY5hXfHNrpqbBbWupQgtv4-8n7Lera-h0EdG8oVLsK1Kbnuna_F3EQJD2W95RIpEg4qyxmCd3byvg1wxo9f2TieAqERg/s320/busty.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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Immediately, we started consulting everyone we knew who had some knowledge about cisterns. It turns out one of our sister communities 45 miles away, Sandhill Farms, had just undertaken a large cistern project the year before and everything about it had been successful. At the lead of the project was an experienced guy named Laird, who had several cistern builds under his belt. He downloaded his brain on the topic to us, and we soaked up the details of construction. We also read Art Ludwig's book, <u>Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Ponds and Groundwater</u> and soaked up his recommendations as well. We consulted plumbers and masonry contractors and lined up a team of semi-experienced helpers and took the plunge. The first step was squaring out our hole and ensuring the ground would hold a gazillion pounds of pressure. I stepped into the role of project manager while Mike would lead construction. Whenever stepping into unfamiliar terrain, every step seems like it could be a misstep. And here too, we have been second-guessing ourselves every step of the way. Is it firm enough? Maybe a little more gravel. And a little more. Next was setting up formwork for our slab floor pour. We ordered "readymix" to come delivered in a truck with a godsend of a driver who took one look at our questioning faces and jumped off the truck to start showing us what to do with the giant puddle of concrete. That went well too thanks in part to him. Our blacksmithy neighbor Brian worked a little rebar magic for us on his anvil and helped with the pour and within a few hours we were breathing sighs of temporary relief.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVWSr5tjpfgziXV-VVidLbUXOYCLO0sOvKesotE5oOYiGpIGoFrq0rg3GfK8uFNQ07UMqUkCCb14PgNKf5Tc7wpin0VtpcfyNUwNzYkYABD9W_N8RnFHbtFoqFnmDIEG1LYOuDQjN9cw/s1600/slab.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVWSr5tjpfgziXV-VVidLbUXOYCLO0sOvKesotE5oOYiGpIGoFrq0rg3GfK8uFNQ07UMqUkCCb14PgNKf5Tc7wpin0VtpcfyNUwNzYkYABD9W_N8RnFHbtFoqFnmDIEG1LYOuDQjN9cw/s320/slab.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5RoyAK1jNBXenGUNIkJQlA4LIJH72Db3ZxruWqv7Rfi_mYxZNt8U1ImWyWDbOyCuH2RS4UX9sS561GmK32MDlsTitMNpBWDU7bDwdOOPs6XudmY2y-C9IJEh_si1A34_im_U8RYbnoM/s1600/truck.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5RoyAK1jNBXenGUNIkJQlA4LIJH72Db3ZxruWqv7Rfi_mYxZNt8U1ImWyWDbOyCuH2RS4UX9sS561GmK32MDlsTitMNpBWDU7bDwdOOPs6XudmY2y-C9IJEh_si1A34_im_U8RYbnoM/s320/truck.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SkeNirexPHG-_SWzqQd5ZNetpMQmkkttsVvDAZn-IKCX8hRVgjvleCQ-bzjhS7PVfiCwpCeL6Sj9xLv_SbsmiVlhU3h-DFN0motn8So0H4gNB_GNj6taPkwbIuPdIUjtgHH9ETO8KHU/s1600/level.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SkeNirexPHG-_SWzqQd5ZNetpMQmkkttsVvDAZn-IKCX8hRVgjvleCQ-bzjhS7PVfiCwpCeL6Sj9xLv_SbsmiVlhU3h-DFN0motn8So0H4gNB_GNj6taPkwbIuPdIUjtgHH9ETO8KHU/s320/level.JPG" width="320" /></a> The next hurdle would be the walls. We decided on the safe strategy of copying exactly what had worked for our Sandhill friends, and that included borrowing our friend Tyler from them, who had been on their team last year. Thankfully he was more than willing to join us for a week (it doesn't hurt that his sweetie Cynthia lives just down the road from us). Tyler and Mike started laying out the blocks, the key being leveling each course and block, as well as grinding the blocks smooth for a tighter fit. Every third hole gets rebar running the height of the wall as well as concrete mortar. The goal is to then do a fiberglass-reinforced surface-bonding cement plaster inside and out along with an additional water-tight interior coat. And what I have been doing in this crazy cement circus? Alternating between trying to finish the plaster inside and running around sourcing all of the pipes, obscure ingredients, to keep things on track. On top of needing an inlet and outlet pipes, the cistern also needs a clean-out valve and overflow pipe. Another puzzle has been figuring out how the outlet plumbing will clear the airspace between our house (on piers remember) and the 2.5' underground safe zone where ambient ground temperature will keep it from freezing. Luckily it turns out the Home Depot plumbing department consultant is someone I know (Sparky from Neighbors United!) and has spent hours with me hashing out ideas. We are going to try a series of insulation layers around the 3/4" PEX tubing (which won't burst when frozen) with a strip of heat tape for insurance on those extra-cold days.<br />
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So that is basically where we have gotten to! The next puzzle to figure out is how to set up framework to pour a roof over the cistern. And all of this before we start getting into frosty weather which is not great for cement curing. If only we could hit the toggle switch on our superhuman powers of moving twice as fast with twice the limbs.... Until then, we are steadily plugging along. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-85628224834019308482015-07-25T11:48:00.001-07:002015-08-29T11:38:59.030-07:00Pigs, solar panels, vegetables and a ceiling<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge10a9mBOkTDhXbKJx08M92EUrSDfDqKBRyitn3rs6pI2Fv-lfoyiNXekuLcuhIqEYLbYOTu_pnKRg72Bf35BvRVNctY4C6k_uVFCfZHA8pe8J1TnqRf6JLopVySnjJPuMxPwLc0i4nbk/s1600/pig.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge10a9mBOkTDhXbKJx08M92EUrSDfDqKBRyitn3rs6pI2Fv-lfoyiNXekuLcuhIqEYLbYOTu_pnKRg72Bf35BvRVNctY4C6k_uVFCfZHA8pe8J1TnqRf6JLopVySnjJPuMxPwLc0i4nbk/s400/pig.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The pigs arriving by trailer with Teri and Everett waiting in excitement</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKABG4nO6Bo7_rbItaVkq6Vb7BkapG_WYEBDgysjaJ1O3bx0A6t06wqGdIzcqYGAbk48-KL3fkFXiJ1VjomTeZ1uuJL41-7ia1txWWvU1OM2_6_ZgxEpLwq95HzXJ46Mxp_yjE04bOqA/s1600/pig2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKABG4nO6Bo7_rbItaVkq6Vb7BkapG_WYEBDgysjaJ1O3bx0A6t06wqGdIzcqYGAbk48-KL3fkFXiJ1VjomTeZ1uuJL41-7ia1txWWvU1OM2_6_ZgxEpLwq95HzXJ46Mxp_yjE04bOqA/s320/pig2.JPG" width="320" /></a> As some of you readers may have figured out already (from
some photos leaked to facebook… those paparazzi!), everything that I said in my
last post about “the pigs not working out” has turned out to be false. The pigs
actually “worked out” the day after I wrote my last post. Our
not-so-excited-about-more-responsibilities neighbor Brian and I were just
breathing a sigh of relief that we had one less thing to worry about this year,
just as our pig-enthusiast partners, Mike and Teri, were doubling
down on their plot to bring pigs into our homesteading lives. A little ad
buried in our local buy/sell newspaper “The Nemo Trader” announced piglets for
sale for a buck a pound of body weight and before you know it, they were
backing down our driveway: one pig for their family and one for us, as well as
one for Mike’s father. For years I have been putting off Mike’s fantasy of
raising pigs, telling him, “next year, next year…” so I didn’t feel I could
fairly put up a fight against them. But sigh, gone are the pig-free days when I
could walk through the meadow without wafts of pig aroma hitting my nose or I could hear birdsong without squeals and grunts in the background. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2sygM07MGJ2PCHnLHOUBMrqyz8L5ljdLV8WyGaqaMvw9a8Cxx2n4s5rrHOHK0Op_CBlIge8yRCnS1K12RSRcg7X_KMDFgyYpK_H3JFUFjJn-BnsVjlIb2zf7hmdhhS9VTw1fOFZLhxWs/s1600/pig4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2sygM07MGJ2PCHnLHOUBMrqyz8L5ljdLV8WyGaqaMvw9a8Cxx2n4s5rrHOHK0Op_CBlIge8yRCnS1K12RSRcg7X_KMDFgyYpK_H3JFUFjJn-BnsVjlIb2zf7hmdhhS9VTw1fOFZLhxWs/s400/pig4.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The pigs have been working on this synchronized rooting routine...</td></tr>
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Now we are beholden to the pigs, or I should say Mike is since this is his
dream. We have opted to let them root freely, which they love and is usually
kept in check by ringing their noses. That means however that we have to move
their pen and hutch around every few days as they transform their turf into mud
in no time (which they also love, but best to have some of both). Mike
dutifully feeds them our table scraps and overgrown cucumbers twice a day as
well as some grain mixed sometimes with weigh left over from cheese/butter
making if we can get it. Pigs are pretty ideal in that their will eat almost
anything and require very little in terms of fencing/housing requirements.
Brian and Teri and the kids come down to feed them too, and we have pen-moving
sessions as well. It all seems quite manageable, but slaughter-day is still looming,
which I have my doubts about. If all goes according to plan we will be
“harvesting” these pigs around Thanksgiving, once they are very large, and Mike
and Brian hope to do some much of the butchering themselves. If we were
sensible, we could opt to pay a professional to come and do it, but once again
we are testing the limits of DIY culture and planning on the extra mile.
Updates to come on how all that goes down, but for now I am determinedly not
getting attached… no cute names like “Wilber” or anything.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYa15BfCflnlSBF4haiEmzs7K-Y2xzx0BXdD2S4hhAMxlAv0vv1JgHBvHfLudTvRcL0ka_qG6PpGqWeuixWKFYNZvTFE-8deDz9Mz3T9PyyCpjBjZsN09Lumw14nXjOuvFgbHxDOGHg0E/s1600/pig5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYa15BfCflnlSBF4haiEmzs7K-Y2xzx0BXdD2S4hhAMxlAv0vv1JgHBvHfLudTvRcL0ka_qG6PpGqWeuixWKFYNZvTFE-8deDz9Mz3T9PyyCpjBjZsN09Lumw14nXjOuvFgbHxDOGHg0E/s400/pig5.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The demolition post-pig, hopefully a future garden site!<br />
<br /></td></tr>
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What else have we been working on? Well, progress has been
chugging along on the house. We buckled down to business, making a list of all
that needs to be done with highest priority going to those must-haves to get
through winter, like “install stove” and “plaster behind the stove so house
doesn’t catch on fire”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fuzzy area
seems to be our water system. We have agreed we need to at least have a functioning
drain pipes attached to sinks and tub, but we aren’t sure that we can feasibly
get a functioning cistern ready by winter. It keeps raining, our giant hole
keeps filling up, we keep draining it, but at no point has it seemed like, “ah,
this is good weather to cure concrete!” For two winters now Brian and Teri have
figured out a system of hauling buckets of water from the pond and then warming
it on their stove for bathing and dish washing or filtering it for drinking and
cooking. This is not their ideal, but they have managed it for now, until they
too construct a cistern. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We figure if it
has worked for them, it should be able to work for us too if need be. Still,
water on demand would be nice.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj91Oc4FfPf1uJrYUizKCG4c8KmOEeWqii57jbTOQQEUSBAw4OJ0gOYU8wglPy9QB5C1WTe9MxV2Pgu9S3ppSU-YF9yDrdRhajcnYlffNA984j25A3eCvNRjHQKZITTitbiCqNP3q3d7rg/s1600/ceiling.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj91Oc4FfPf1uJrYUizKCG4c8KmOEeWqii57jbTOQQEUSBAw4OJ0gOYU8wglPy9QB5C1WTe9MxV2Pgu9S3ppSU-YF9yDrdRhajcnYlffNA984j25A3eCvNRjHQKZITTitbiCqNP3q3d7rg/s320/ceiling.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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Some big steps have been crossed off of our house list this
past month, and it feels good to have made some progress. Since our insulation
was all blown in, we were able to put up boards and a bit of sheetrock on our
ceiling, which is now all covered. We procured the tongue and groove pine
boards last year (another Nemo Trader score) from someone’s tear-out job. We
simply flipped them over to the unfinished plain pine side and we hope to
eventually give them a lime wash to lighten up the space. Other parts of the
ceiling got sheetrock, where we framed in an attic storage area. After all
that, we were done teetering around on ladders and so we started in on our
first floor framing and finishing notching in joists to finish the second floor
framing. All of this has probably taken as much time scratching our heads as it
has swinging hammers, trying to figure out the subtleties of space allocation
in a small house: an inch in one direction or another could make all the
difference. The big question mark to come this week will be the stairs, a
tricky bit of carpentry in ordinary circumstances for sure, but combined with
round logs soaring through the house and a rotation mid-stair…. Well,
let’s just say this may take awhile. After the stairs however, and our second
floor’s sub-flooring, we should be clear into plastering work for another month
or more. It is slowly coming together and I think by the time the weather gets
nippy again, we should be comfortable and snug inside a relatively finished
space. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NTyQuPMZRHwtVOjuhlA1T4SNvVKySJpUltIZcX-U8MmCyz_QiIqwPp2GIC5iS0Klc1oEvcZ4Ftc-9__u_eJpy6f8b4jCA2yEqtyZDGX3rCIr-eKrHYP4GGpJAdyFRpL-NJuue06aNAM/s1600/joists.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NTyQuPMZRHwtVOjuhlA1T4SNvVKySJpUltIZcX-U8MmCyz_QiIqwPp2GIC5iS0Klc1oEvcZ4Ftc-9__u_eJpy6f8b4jCA2yEqtyZDGX3rCIr-eKrHYP4GGpJAdyFRpL-NJuue06aNAM/s400/joists.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The second floor joists all finished and awaiting flooring</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQ0xMmj674RsiQCBn4qiafzLs7SN-voaQ-25rD1oRd1UGMaIpdzThSywpeIxcYFOuJSPeKPfpAQDMdYp5-fA_OO6R9UonSLkJEk9eXz9vGJH2PvowC5AjcZWMPqQpZ170TUrXDKyqVsg/s1600/walls.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQ0xMmj674RsiQCBn4qiafzLs7SN-voaQ-25rD1oRd1UGMaIpdzThSywpeIxcYFOuJSPeKPfpAQDMdYp5-fA_OO6R9UonSLkJEk9eXz9vGJH2PvowC5AjcZWMPqQpZ170TUrXDKyqVsg/s320/walls.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Recognize a bathroom? Well, maybe not yet...</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwnSHmy-GDje48RfcSxrQSzPKhyphenhyphenAOixPsnNheVqQdXMR8PJONxBEaDYu_c0s_i6nA7_N-T5BM8VHpGC-A_Uv97D0n8Hk5j5PlSwGI3Jb76IVYvP3Qd66l4Z9DP0VWBUulXlw4rFnA4N_4/s1600/garden.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwnSHmy-GDje48RfcSxrQSzPKhyphenhyphenAOixPsnNheVqQdXMR8PJONxBEaDYu_c0s_i6nA7_N-T5BM8VHpGC-A_Uv97D0n8Hk5j5PlSwGI3Jb76IVYvP3Qd66l4Z9DP0VWBUulXlw4rFnA4N_4/s320/garden.JPG" width="213" /></a> The last thing I wanted to mention in this post is how truly
wonderful it has been to have a garden this year! I am only frustrated we
didn’t take the time to create one sooner! The majority of the work of a garden
is on the front-end, prepping and planting beds, and then in the fall, doing a
second planting, and cleaning out beds and adding in compost. The summer is
mostly a time of harvest and no maintenance as long as you don’t mind a few
weeds here and there. The rain has been doing water duty for us, leaving
harvesting and keeping up with eating the produce as our only chores. July
seems to be the month when everything is ripe and ready. We have virtually stopped
shopping, designing meals around what is pouring forth. Last night it was a
delicious eggplant parmesan with fresh tomato sauce with a kale-cucumber salad.
The night before I was dreaming of a Japanese-style beef stew. When I realized
we were out of carrots and potatoes, Mike pointed out that we might have some
ready in the garden and sure enough, he brought back fistfuls of rainbow
colored carrots and some muddy but huge purple potatoes and some Thai yard-long
beans, asking, “can you work these in?” Maybe it is because I have never grown
such a range of things before, but I am just amazed by how easy it is to
provide for almost all of our food needs with a relatively small space. We end
up purchasing meat once or twice a week, eggs from our neighbors, dairy
products that keep well (cheese and yogurt), and chips (because, um, fresh
salsa? Need I say more?) I can just imagine the grocery bills if we were still
buying all of this organic produce from our fancy Philadelphia food
co-operative… So all of this is to say that I am feeling ambitiously up for
trying to plant a fall-winter garden so that we might continue the harvest into
the colder months. It will involve some row covers to keep things warm and a
different set of veggies, things like cabbage, parsnips and broccoli that love
cooler weather. But the fall/winter garden experiment is underway already as seedlings
get started in little cups. It is hard, even with one garden already full
planted, not to dream of the next garden to come.</div>
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Last but not least, we have an exciting new addition.... more exciting than pigs you may be asking? Why yes, in my opinion at least. We have a solar panel! This was a gift from some wonderful family members of mine who were possibly concerned for our off-the-grid sanity. And I can truly say that now that we have electricity enough to recharge batteries of all kinds and power a radio, I don't know how we were doing it without one before. It has definitely made life easier. In fact, I am writing this in my house instead of at the library thanks to our solar panel! The hook-up for one panel was very simple and took us only a half hour. It consists of a battery to store power, a charge controller and an inverter. They all hook up in a line and then you can plug in anything that can run on a certain amount of voltage (for example, to run a fridge we would need more panels, more batteries and a larger size inverter). The great thing is we can add more panels/batteries into our system as we feel the need in the future. So we are still off the grid, but with a little more power now. Three cheers for the sun!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8630895520245598685.post-57501773641138910812015-06-25T18:48:00.001-07:002015-06-27T11:31:26.294-07:00Insulation... check!<style>
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Finally, the first progress report on the house… drumroll
please… our house is fully insulated! Yay! Getting insulation in the roof and
the floors was a huge step for us, and we could not have done it this quickly
without an infusion of help from friends and family. That seems to be our constant
refrain in this process! </div>
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First Mike’s uncle and cousin came for a day on their
cross-country trip, a very hot day I might add. They assisted us in our first
step—stapling “Insulweb,” on our rafters which is very much like it sounds,
a sort of webbing material for the cellulose fiber to get blown in behind. Once
we had all the necessary insulweb stapled up on the underside of the cathedral
ceiling, we framed out the gable end walls to make an adequate depth of
insulation, and then stapled up insulweb there too. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXTeW1qQvMnyZ7L1n5NjMALxP7sBzzosXyuC7sYX09KWwGuJxorlmB8jG0zmePqTwVdA31nwBM9UC6G7hQepbEI8fdbWAVOF750-hQiCiIpLoGwZwsfIqPw14Y2UQhCsIBg4jmp3wfaw/s1600/_MG_0421.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXTeW1qQvMnyZ7L1n5NjMALxP7sBzzosXyuC7sYX09KWwGuJxorlmB8jG0zmePqTwVdA31nwBM9UC6G7hQepbEI8fdbWAVOF750-hQiCiIpLoGwZwsfIqPw14Y2UQhCsIBg4jmp3wfaw/s400/_MG_0421.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLriIOgXWwwPHuPzzHMrgSt0wv7YmmcK_Vri0nQjZsJFxeYgdqbZhQYZ9itumbw1oxKKMgenfeNqy-TNnS_MjpQ1gpptLzMdXRd3XrnF6WN4fuXdW3gQG_jjkDQ7wl3IHX7DGVXLFeY8/s1600/_MG_0407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLriIOgXWwwPHuPzzHMrgSt0wv7YmmcK_Vri0nQjZsJFxeYgdqbZhQYZ9itumbw1oxKKMgenfeNqy-TNnS_MjpQ1gpptLzMdXRd3XrnF6WN4fuXdW3gQG_jjkDQ7wl3IHX7DGVXLFeY8/s320/_MG_0407.JPG" width="213" /></a> A word about cellulose—as far as insulation goes, it is the
most green material (being recycled newspaper bits mixed with relatively
nontoxic borax) for the most affordable price, perhaps with the exception of
straw, but we had used straw as far up the walls as we could go and we now
needed something that could easily fit in between rafters, etc. Hence,
cellulose. However, the downside to cellulose is that it is extremely messy,
dusty, and an all around pain-in-the-butt compared to batting-type insulation.
I vaguely remembered thinking this when we helped our neighbors with their
cellulose years ago, but memory tends to soften the edges of such experiences,
so I went into our cellulose job with great optimism that it would be painless
and quick....</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUp0YU4N5NJN88PnxVK6iUJTxbm_GnOZ-qq6WX-YCNBTiCfgxVBK4rbnEuYw5F6Pe7qorQe3qJf5iW0IWQxgYw7TwA7Dnv2AHuF-yd3jRulY540i6VpWmRuHBLaVkbUaCn17awhMglmmM/s1600/_MG_0398.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUp0YU4N5NJN88PnxVK6iUJTxbm_GnOZ-qq6WX-YCNBTiCfgxVBK4rbnEuYw5F6Pe7qorQe3qJf5iW0IWQxgYw7TwA7Dnv2AHuF-yd3jRulY540i6VpWmRuHBLaVkbUaCn17awhMglmmM/s320/_MG_0398.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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Not so. Thanks be to Susan (Mike’s mom), Chris (a good family
friend), and Taylor (Mike’s brother) for helping us for 3 grueling days of
stapling webbing, feeding the ever-malfunctioning hopper (sort of a reverse
vacuum blower for cellulose) and hand stuffing and packing floor and ceiling
cavities. Every day they left our house semi-coated in grey fiber dust (and a
few hitch-hiking pests) to retreat back to their hotel in town. Their help was
a huge push to me and Mike, and we were feeling confident when they left that
90% of the work was done! Haha. Well the days dragged on as we further packed
down the bays of fluffy cellulose and refilled with the long-hosed hopper…
compressed and filled, compressed and filled, each time convinced it was the
last time. The true last time involved hand-filling plastic shopping bags and
prying them into the last little open space at the top of the roof. As you can
imagine, our house was a mess with stray cellulose and it took a whole day just
to thoroughly sweep it all up. Whew! Glad we only have to do that once!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW70I5V6th4EfddJuKXhrtyyGjUy6HAGLPDtf6LGbE3NWo6eSkYkhKpYp9omKghXZ_HjuoHhrIJmnoWc41l2oxXvPiVtAnyLS94WyT7A58gufEhoAb9RQLlMKgtOYsVD7PGyfMySmhpoc/s1600/_MG_0401.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW70I5V6th4EfddJuKXhrtyyGjUy6HAGLPDtf6LGbE3NWo6eSkYkhKpYp9omKghXZ_HjuoHhrIJmnoWc41l2oxXvPiVtAnyLS94WyT7A58gufEhoAb9RQLlMKgtOYsVD7PGyfMySmhpoc/s320/_MG_0401.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlVeWmnaFIGpaAQ9lCLgW04jEmSZ6NrgLSkPd4_wDVV0xVQf6Elv97wZAybtdxHoWOGGT7eREYMt4iukxLDgikr56MNaH4x1UTjSC0x51lcvVeLH0x6u78WQHccfWTKFuq5RGSxYyLW8/s1600/_MG_0425.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlVeWmnaFIGpaAQ9lCLgW04jEmSZ6NrgLSkPd4_wDVV0xVQf6Elv97wZAybtdxHoWOGGT7eREYMt4iukxLDgikr56MNaH4x1UTjSC0x51lcvVeLH0x6u78WQHccfWTKFuq5RGSxYyLW8/s320/_MG_0425.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">and after!</td></tr>
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Perhaps sensing we were now ready for a heat source, our
cook stove magically appeared the next day after finishing the insulation.
“How?” You might be wondering, “would such a random thing suddenly appear?”
Such is the way of all things in Missouri. Well, actually it was at our Amish
neighbor Jake’s retirement auction that we met our lil’ Ashland cookstove. We
offered to help the very stressed Jake in his days, really, weeks, of
preparation for the big event (half the Amish men in east La Plata were swarming
around his place, setting up things) and sure enough, Jake had a task with us
in mind: ice cream. He asked Mike to drive him into town to buy 20 gallons of
ice cream and dry ice. It is auction tradition round these parts to have “food
prepared by Amish ladies” including 7 kinds of pie and ice cream. (In case you
were wondering, the other choices are almost invariably—fish sandwich, cheese
sandwich, coffee, fresh made donuts or popcorn.) Ice cream is our kind of helping
out! On the way, Jake mentioned to Mike that another feller was selling a
cookstove and we should have a look. We did and rapidly researched everything
we could about Ashland stoves in need of firebox repair. We gave it a careful
once-twice-three times over at Jake’s and wracked our brains for what a
fair price might be. $200 was one friend’s suggestion. $1,200 was Jake’s guess.
Ack! The stress and exhileration of an auction! You never know what is going to
to go hot and high or what the auctioneer will be begging folks to take for $1.
Finally it was time for the stove—we decided I would bid since sometimes the
competition will drop out in a gentlemanly way, deferring to a lady (little do
they know!) But since almost no one was bidding against me, it was easy. We got
it for $500 even. The cherry on top of the stove was that we also won the bid
on Jake’s old slate chalkboard collection, so for $50 more we have enough slate
to tile a stove threshold, back heat shield, and some other areas of the house
too!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Funny how exactly what you need
falls into your lap when you need it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTRuBhEk-MxgoCwQVn_9bDygcGQVuSTZGNQ28e9hBmW2lQPxXzAg8VGs-3J96VuyzavIX5Z5H2E0-aSQX4O-R6CGtBp1MsAnWiaIK7sD1pCVxk5vyQ0wg32_3YBGWN9mQkHRTOtdE12Kg/s1600/_MG_0437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTRuBhEk-MxgoCwQVn_9bDygcGQVuSTZGNQ28e9hBmW2lQPxXzAg8VGs-3J96VuyzavIX5Z5H2E0-aSQX4O-R6CGtBp1MsAnWiaIK7sD1pCVxk5vyQ0wg32_3YBGWN9mQkHRTOtdE12Kg/s320/_MG_0437.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stove and bathtub in waiting</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoceC67IKBjDKppIugbwXuCHgY4IrOrFPIreVA7hyOM8X3kXVHTcfnmzr66M6ACreoAYgS_9YB7Ol2zNdVWC50-GG01a8D3Itf1wVsao73dy03OHgFLsLrXp1oLd-drfdhz5xwA0AJ3Qw/s1600/_MG_0427.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoceC67IKBjDKppIugbwXuCHgY4IrOrFPIreVA7hyOM8X3kXVHTcfnmzr66M6ACreoAYgS_9YB7Ol2zNdVWC50-GG01a8D3Itf1wVsao73dy03OHgFLsLrXp1oLd-drfdhz5xwA0AJ3Qw/s320/_MG_0427.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tomato ally</td></tr>
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In other news, here is the brief garden update: everything
save the melons is growing quite nicely! Our first peppers and potatoes are
ready for eating (radishes already came and went!) There are green tomatoes
hanging on the vines and cucumber and bean vines going nuts climbing. Maybe we
lucked out with our soil, or perhaps it is beginners luck, but things are doing
way better than I thought they might! Still, things have a mind of their own…
our largest happiest squash plants are growing out of the compost pile. We’ll
still count it as a success. (Photos to come very soon.)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggqX7244e4DrE4zkO3jJRwwPUZzhLSvMWe2gPi9raZ7dlf9yQ8phTNOZMZ9iFV-984d8tYpPkJBEStFPE5iClKTEXcznvBeHRQg6-58GTb0zwbQfPOX2cp0e9hTwLccU2Z9V3AHpYDhzU/s1600/_MG_0434.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggqX7244e4DrE4zkO3jJRwwPUZzhLSvMWe2gPi9raZ7dlf9yQ8phTNOZMZ9iFV-984d8tYpPkJBEStFPE5iClKTEXcznvBeHRQg6-58GTb0zwbQfPOX2cp0e9hTwLccU2Z9V3AHpYDhzU/s400/_MG_0434.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet potatoes, asparagus, and sunflowers</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbEmdO61TAWgKA1T3aH8Fe4LYQQG_YyNjOHlzpNwQV28sStNCZMlayh_0CUGTZklqOX5Di1kZ0F-UlYOg7aIxLvftVBx_H4jgp6Kc8l6XRhSlyRhyphenhyphenjWe5p43lxSCutcAbOhzMafKBD6E/s1600/_MG_0436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbEmdO61TAWgKA1T3aH8Fe4LYQQG_YyNjOHlzpNwQV28sStNCZMlayh_0CUGTZklqOX5Di1kZ0F-UlYOg7aIxLvftVBx_H4jgp6Kc8l6XRhSlyRhyphenhyphenjWe5p43lxSCutcAbOhzMafKBD6E/s320/_MG_0436.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kale, peppers, and climbing beans</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikRsyj7w0SLhSHTGMZWbIk79r4R3CRRk3002ab3snj52k8wiJsIVuCPln_UvBzM_ZJoLm5KCx7fMgJqm9bDcnpIaJNjPSm3riEyRKyWfbomEHnygtC_nl0TJV8zhyphenhyphencF9mrm4hSGV-ZXYs/s1600/_MG_0433.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikRsyj7w0SLhSHTGMZWbIk79r4R3CRRk3002ab3snj52k8wiJsIVuCPln_UvBzM_ZJoLm5KCx7fMgJqm9bDcnpIaJNjPSm3riEyRKyWfbomEHnygtC_nl0TJV8zhyphenhyphencF9mrm4hSGV-ZXYs/s320/_MG_0433.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Potatoes and cucumbers growing up a trellis</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
So what about that pig I mentioned in the last blog post? I guess some things aren't meant to be this year and our pig is one of them. The day we were expecting a pig delivery (and we were fully prepped with pen and hutch ready), we got a call that our "weaner" (yes, that is what a piglet is called in farm-speak) and its brethern weren't doing so well, perhaps having a hard time separating from their sow mama. Anyhow, we still haven't found a good alternative source and perhaps it is for the best that we take on one less thing this year. In fact, there are quite a few things on our to-do list that probably won't happen this year, but I won't totally give up until the snow flakes fly, signalling end of season surrender. And this year, it will be a sweet retreat to our warm house to sit by our stove!</div>
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