Back By Popular Demand

I recently left the rigors of farm life and went on a visit to friends that live near the coast.  While I was there, everybody fussed at me about not blogging any more.  So watch what you complain about, you may get a solution.  I'm back!!!

I'm going to give a lot of excuses for not blogging in almost two years, but really it's mainly because I just got bored and busy and distracted and I thought nobody was interested.  My other excuses are that my computer bit the dust so I'm having to upload from my sister's computer down at my mom's house.  (That excuse is a bit weak as I'm spending more time there than at my own place.)  My camera also bit the dust, and frankly blog posts are boring without supporting pictures.  (Actually, it wasn't the camera, it was the charger, but it's replaced now.)

So here goes.  In the last year and a half plus, Sister and I have instituted a lot of changes here (here generally means my house and her and my mom's property where a lot of the actual farming takes place.  They are only a half mile apart so the distinction get a bit blurry on occasion.  I'll try and remember to let you know where in particular I'm talking about.)  We've started several new projects and done lots of work and I'll be talking about that in particular in the future.

Since I posted last, the chickens have expanded.  I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of about 75 right now.  I had around a hundred at one point, but disease, dogs and hawks over the last several months have taken a toll.  We have several baby chicks in various stages of growth, however, to replace the fallen and add even more.  The chickens are the main focus right now of my farming efforts so expect a lot of posts on them.

 

 

 



We've also planted lots and lots of fruit trees.  I've decided that reaching up and picking fruit is much easier on my back than bending over and picking vegetables (although there will still be plenty of that too.  Who am I kidding?)

I thought my building was at an end when I got the house done.  Not so.  Last summer, I put a Hobby House up in the back and moved in my loom, spinning wheel and the buckets and buckets of yarn that I have.  It's made quiet the cozy little retreat.

 

 



We've added a couple of goats to the menagerie.  Lulu is on the left, Jolene is on the right.

 

 

 

 

And just this week, (yesterday in fact) we installed two beehives.  Now that was interesting!

 

 

 

 





So there's lots happening here at the farmette, and you're going to get to hear about all of it.   I'll be posting as things happen and in between, I'll post on lots of the above and a few other things we've done to catch you up to date.  I'm looking forward to getting back into this.  Hope you are too.

In Times Past

Sometimes I wonder how I lost my life.  What I'm doing now is what I should have been doing all along, but somehow I got blinded to that fact until nearly half my life was over.  Now I feel like I'm having to play catch up.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s.  "They" told us that women should no longer be at home.  We should get out of the house and conquer the world.  We didn't need husbands and families, we needed boardrooms, resumes and portfolios.  We were strong and we had to get out and show it.  And we bought it.  Hook, line and sinker.

We went forth to conquer, blinded by the promises of a better life.  What we didn't realize was that it wasn't necessarily a better life just a different one.  That's great, if you like different.  I thought I did.  Now that I'm hitting half a century on the planet here, I'm not so sure that I do.

When I came of age, I did what I was suppose to do.  I walked out with my degree in hand, ready to show what a woman could do.  I got a job in a man's world and pursued a career by going up, over and around the obstacles before me.  I blazed a trail.  Now I'm wondering why.

This year I am turning 50 years old.  I am divorced with no children, and retired from a job that simply hired someone else to take my place the moment I left. 

As depressing as that sounds, I'm happier now than I have been in years.  I have chosen the life I am leading now and though it is contrary to a woman out conquering the world, it brings me more contentment that I've had in many years.  My home and my garden, my little farmette fill me with a sense of purpose more solidly than my career ever did.  I salute those women who charge into corporate lives with gusto and desire.  May they find what they are looking for.  What we should never look down on though are those women who feel their calling is the old style life of looking after home and hearth.  Once we allow women to choose where they find their purpose, we truely will have conquered the world.

At The Dawn of Day

The humidity has been so high of late that you can actually see the water in the air.  The best time of day to catch it is early morning, just as light begins to creep in. The wind is still and the only sound you hear is that of a bird here and there waking, and announcing the morning.

What I Should Be Doing and What I Am Doing

What I should be doing is out planting peas.  What I am doing is sitting in the house under the air conditioning.  Ahhhh.

After more than a month of not a cloud in the sky, we had two solid days of rain.  Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain.  You could practically hear the plants breathe a sigh of relief.  It settled in and soaked the ground thoroughly and made us all giddy with the feel of it.

Then today came.  The morning was good with a bit of overcast and a nice stiff wind.  In fact, it was perfect.  My mom, my sister and I had coffee on my front porch.  Then the sun came out.  With a vengence.  And all that blessed water started evaporating.  Right now it's hanging somewhere about eyeball level in 96 degrees temperature.  I just do not have the will power to go out into that and work.

So....I'm making excuses.  It's Sunday and I should take a day of rest.  I don't really feel good,  My head hurts and my back aches.  That field will still be there tomorrow.  It's not going anywhere.  We're probably going to have a long summer so one day won't make that much difference.  If I was planting with the moon, now would be the wrong time anyway.

So I'm staying inside letting the cool air ciculate around me and wondering why we didn't have a Spring this year.  Oh yeah, it got blown away with the tornadoes.  I'll tell you about those in another post soon.

A New Look

What a difference two months makes.  I looked back at my posts two months ago when the chicks were small and fuzzy and oh so cute.

Here's what they look like now.

It will only be a couple of more months and the girly chickens will be laying and the boy chickens will be making some mighty fine chicken and dumplings.  Yum.



A Direction and A Meaning

I started this blog to let my friends and family know what was going on with my house renovations.  I had moved back home from years of wandering and settled down in a small house not far from where I grew up.  Six-tenths of a mile to be exact.  It was what I had been trying to accomplish for years.  The fly in the ointment was that the house I bought was waaaaayyy smaller than what I needed, so when I started to change everything around, I started the blog to let folks know what was happening in my world.

As the house work wound down, other things started to take it's place.  Being out in the country, I was able to indulge in a lot of things I had done as a child and missed ever since.  Gardening was one of those and so was animal husbandry.

I found some things had changed though since my younger days.  The promises of a chemical world had fallen short and it wasn't a good idea to slather everything down with Sevin dust anymore.  Pest management was a concept to be reckoned with instead.  I live in the deep south though and going organic is not that easy in the area of pest control.  Here everything crawls or bites and munches down on your hard labor and can destroy your work in one night. And in this neck of the woods, deer aren't protected as the cuddly Bambis of fairy tales.  Mostly they are considered to be varmits better served with gravy than saved.  And Thumper has caused me more grief than I can possibly explain in one sitting.

And as these things have been brought forward again in my life, the focus of the farmette has changed.  When I got here I wanted a retreat, a place to escape from the hectic pace I had endured for the previous couple of decades.  I wanted someplace to hide from the world and enjoy some peace in my life.  I wanted to be home.

And I have done that.  I love the farmette.  I never want to leave it.  BUT....my focus has changed a bit.  The news all around us is bad and getting worse.  Even the mainstream media has finally admitted that times are not getting better as planned.  The majority of people in this country are not prepared for a recession, much less a depression.  I truely believe that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, and a lot of people will be hurting very badly, if not outright dying.

I look around my neighborhood and I worry about these folks.  Most of them are older.  They watched me grow up and they are part of what makes me me.  Many of them are getting on in years and aren't able to prepare for bad times even if they believed they were about to happen.  So if something bad is coming down the pike, I want to be able to take care of not only myself but these people who mean so much to me.

I've always believed in having a few things put back for a rainy day.  My folks both lived through the Depression, and I remember tales from my Grandmother of making do with only what was available. I'm now trying to have enough to make do for quiet a few folks.  I'm not going the tin foil hat route, but I'm thinking that being ready for unusual times is not a bad idea.

I was a bit surprised the other day when I checked the stats for this blog and found that I had more people checking it out than I realized.  Someone in Japan is checking me out on a regular basis and I've even had quieries from Russa and India.  Thank you.  I hope you will all continue to check back in as I find a new direction in life and work toward reaching some goals of being more prepared for things to come.

Oh My Goodness!

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted.  Sorry about that.  I knew it had been a while but didn't realize it had been over two months.

It's been hectic to say the least here on the farmette.  Spring and early summer are always busy, busy times but this year has been more so than usual.  Taking care of animals and planting crops can eat up your days in a hurry.  Throw into that the usual round of family activities and time just seems to slip away.

We are also making some major changes in things here, in goals and aims for what we want to accomplish for the farmette and for our lives in general.  I'll be posting more about all these changes soon.  In fact, I think I'll work out an entire mission statement.  I'll post that too.

Hang around.  I promise not to stay gone so long.  In fact, I'll probably be back tomorrow.