Planting seeds

Although it's spring, and we're planting lots of seeds in the garden, I'm talking about planting metaphorical seeds. Anyone who knew me in high school or college has to be incredibly shocked when they see the person I've become -- growing my own food, weighing less than I did in high school and college, almost never wearing make-up, more concerned about who made my clothes instead of who designed them, never watching television other than a once-a-week movie from Netflix. I've changed in practically every way imaginable.

When my first child was born, I would drink a two-liter bottle of soda every day -- caffeine-free though because I was nursing my baby. I remember buying $50 designer jeans in high school in the late 1970s! (That was a lot of money back then.) I thought, "What's the big deal?" when garment manufacturing jobs started going overseas in the 1980s. I ate out more often than I ate at home, and a home-prepared meal was likely to be something from a can or a box. I never got any exercise more strenuous than walking to my car. I was heavily addicted to television. What happened to me?

Me at age 20, standing in the middle. The woman sitting,
third from right, was the knitter. Boyfriend is on the far right.

I was lucky enough to have a number of people come into my life -- some for a very short time -- to plant seeds. The four months I spent in Nebraska on National Student Exchange at Kearney State College definitely represented a fork in the road for me. I had a boyfriend who was diabetic, and it was the first time I had ever heard anyone talk about good nutrition. I grew up believing that all food was created equal. Just eat whatever you want, and you'll be fine. It was just fuel, right? Although I didn't change my diet at all -- and felt sorry for my boyfriend who had to watch what he ate -- the seed was planted that connected health and diet.

Another person I met during that time was a woman knitting a pair of mittens from wool that she had spun. Like most people, it had never crossed my mind that human beings could spin yarn from wool. At that time, learning to spin wool became a goal. It was a goal not realized for almost twenty years, but the seed was planted when I was in Nebraska.

Although I had read Walden previously, I read it for a literature class when I was in Nebraska, and somehow at that time, my brain processed it differently. Maybe it was reading it more than once. Maybe it was reading it after a geology trip to Colorado (pictured above). Maybe it was meeting the woman making the mittens. But whatever the connection, I finally "got it." I understood what Henry David Thoreau was saying. The designer clothes were not really important. Old habits die hard though, and I do recall buying a Gucci handbag a few years later. But the seed of simplicity was planted.

I earned my bachelor's degree from Eastern Connecticut State University, and my first New England boyfriend had a mother who was a Cordon Bleu chef. She was the first mere mortal I ever met who could really cook. I loved my mother dearly, but she either boiled or deep-fried everything, seriously everything. I loved my boyfriend's mother's cooking. She had her own restaurant, and I was lucky enough to help out a bit. Knowing her, I learned that cooking is something that anyone can learn. You can prepare delicious food in your own kitchen. It doesn't have to come from a box or a restaurant. She planted the seeds that gave me the courage to try things in the kitchen that most people never even consider -- like making cheese.

My parents planted a vegetable garden every year that I can remember, although I never helped. I don't remember ever pulling a single weed or picking any vegetables. My idea of gardening was overly simplistic. I assumed that you just plant seeds, and they magically turn into kitchen-ready vegetables. Although I had to learn a lot on my own, my parents planted the seeds that growing your own vegetables is possible.

I remember visiting my grandparent's farm when I was a little girl. All of the animals were running around together in fresh air and sunshine. I grew up believing that that's what all farms were like. Because of my grandparent's farm, the seeds were planted that made me believe that animals could be raised naturally.

Although I grew up in town, my parents would buy a calf from a rancher they knew. Sometimes my father would take it to the locker to get it butchered, and sometimes he'd shoot it and bring it home and butcher it in our garage. I was absolutely horrified as a teenager. "Why can't we just buy meat at the store like everybody else?" I asked my mother. And she responded, "Because you don't know how it was raised." She didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask any questions. I didn't know why it mattered, and I didn't care. But that comment stuck in my head, and one day in January 1989, when I was a new mother, I read an article about factory farming. I understood why my mother didn't like to buy meat at the grocery store, and with no alternatives for locally grown meat, my husband and I became vegetarians and decided to raise our children as vegetarians. My mother planted the seed that sometimes it's okay not to do the same thing as everyone else. It's okay if people think you're weird.

I was talking to a conventional-turned-organic farmer in January, and I asked him why he switched. "It didn't work," he said bluntly. "Conventional doesn't work." He told me about walking around with a pistol-grip syringe in each hand, injecting sick pigs with antibiotics daily. Then he told me about a conversation he overheard between his grandfather and his father. His grandfather said, "I don't understand why people think they can spray poison on food, and it's not going to hurt them." That thought lingered in his mind for decades as he grew up and followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a conventional farmer. One day he sprayed his field and forgot that he wasn't supposed to go back in there for a few days. That night he woke up gasping for air, barely able to breathe, thinking he was going to die, and he heard his grandfather's voice. He knew why he was sick. He knew he had to stop spraying poison on his fields and injecting his pigs with drugs. His grandfather had planted the seeds that decades later caused him to reject conventional agriculture.

Some people think there has to be a big a-ha! moment when you suddenly see the light and change your life, and it can happen like that if someone gets a life-threatening disease, but more often, it's the culmination of a lot of little things. So many people have come into my life and presented me with a new idea or a question that seemed insignificant at the time. But today I can see how all of those little seeds that were planted have grown into this beautiful garden that is now my life.

Nine years ago

On April 10, 2002, my professor husband and our three children, then 9, 12, and 14, pulled into the driveway of the place we have now called home for nine years. When speaking at conferences, one thing that keeps coming up is that people today don't know how to do all the things we do out here. Well, here's a little secret -- nine years ago, we didn't know any of this stuff either!

Our entire goat herd in 2002. Star (left), my first milk goat,
is still with us at age 12.

Nine years ago, I bought goats because I liked goat cheese. I had no idea that you could make a multitude of cheeses with goat milk beyond the simple chevre that many generically call "goat cheese." I didn't know how simple or difficult it was to make any kind of cheese, but I knew that people had been doing it for thousands of years, so I figured I could learn to do it, too.

Nine years ago, our gardening success amounted to a few tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and lettuce in our suburban Chicago backyard. But I saw no reason why we couldn't grow most of our vegetables.

Nine years ago, the only homegrown fruit I'd ever eaten were cherries from our Nanking cherry bushes, although we had certainly planted a variety of fruit trees and brambles in our suburban backyard. They all died, but I wanted to try again.

Nine years ago, our livestock consisted of two cats and a poodle. But I figured that goats, cattle, and chickens couldn't be that much harder. Right?

One of our first buff Orpington hens at 3 months.

Nine years ago, I wanted my poultry to be completely free to go wherever they wanted, which meant no fences. I didn't know that chickens love fresh tomatoes and geese love baby lettuce. I ultimately decided that maybe a fence around the garden was not a bad thing.

Nine years ago, we thought the old fence around the east pasture was "good enough" to keep Katherine's horse at home. Then we learned -- again and again -- that if the words "good enough" ever pass our lips, it's not really good enough to do the job. Fences and gates have to be excellent -- period -- or you'll find yourself retrieving animals from all over the countryside.

Nine years ago, I'd never seen a goat give birth or a chicken hatch from an egg. I'd never made cheese or soap. I'd never sheared a sheep or spun yarn from wool. I'd never plucked a chicken.

Katherine, age 10, assisting at our first goat birth in 2003.

Nine years ago, my children didn't know real responsibility. None of us had a real reason to get out of bed in the morning. No one really depended upon us for their lives and well-being. We didn't even depend upon ourselves for much of anything. (Corporate America took care of our needs.)

But nine years ago, we also didn't realize that pain and joy are two inseparable sides of the same coin. Life is not perfect. It never has been, even though advertisers would have us believe that we can have everything we want, just the way we want it. After all, "you deserve a break today!" (and tomorrow and the next day and . . . )

In the last nine years, we've learned that the most joyful goat births are those that were the most difficult, but somehow we managed to get through them with live babies. We've learned that we sleep best after a long, hard day of work outside. We've learned to appreciate eating seasonally. We've learned that joy isn't one big destination like Disney World. Joy is all around us, every day. It's in the bouncing of a baby goat, the taste of a stalk of asparagus eaten in the garden, the chirping of a chick trying to hatch itself, the heavenly feel of wool from a sheep that you know personally, the smell of a stew hen cooking on the stove all day.

Nine years ago, I knew I had a lot to learn. I expected to eat healthier, get more exercise, and have fun. But I had no idea how much richer our lives would be after we moved to Antiquity Oaks.

Five years of blogging!

I can't believe it all started five years ago with this sad little post. I've come a long way in five years with the blog and the farm. Having this blog has helped me both as a writer and as a homesteader.

2007: Princess, my bottle lamb who was later eaten by coyotes

Over the past five years, this blog has really helped me develop my voice -- that thing that writing instructors and publishers and critics talk about. It's the thing that makes my writing different from another writer. It is not something that can be taught. Your voice is what it is. Unfortunately, I think that finding a voice is sometimes harder for those of us who have studied writing too much. We get stuck on the rules, even when it means that our story might be richer if we broke a couple.

Fixing fencing after another flood

The blog has helped me as a homesteader -- as a gardener, a shepherd, a goat breeder, a cheesemaker, and everything else. I have always been terrible about keeping garden records, but if I blog about it, I have a record of when the raspberries ripened and when we made maple syrup last year. I never would have thought about documenting things like coyote losses or housebuilding progress if I didn't have the blog. If I have a major cheese failure, there is usually someone reading who knows what happened. It is so much fun to share exciting news of goat births. And it feels good to know that I'm not the only one who has questioned myself or felt rotten and irresponsible when an animal dies.

I really can't imagine not blogging, but I suppose that's because I am a writer at heart. A friend shared this article by Lee Martin, and although the article is about characters, this is what popped out and stuck in my head:

If you're really a writer, as opposed to just wanting to be one, you're dedicated to the work for the joy of it. You make it a part of the life you choose to live. Whatever happens from that point on happens. If you publish, fine. If you publish a few pieces and then stop, fine. If you never publish? Well, even then you still have this thing you love, this thing you do every day because it's so richly connected to your identity and the way you process the world.

Canning failure: Yes, the bottom blew off the jar,
and the jar somehow wound up upside down.

I suppose that is why there are so many deserted blogs out there. Most people are not writers. Who knows why they start a blog, but the bottom line is that blogging is writing, and if you don't like writing, you won't blog. But there is another key to keeping a blog for five years -- passion about the subject! I have started eight or nine blogs in the past five years, and all but this one are lying out there deserted in the Blogosphere. I thought I was passionate about the subjects of those blogs, but apparently not. Even when I'm not writing on this blog, I'm thinking about writing on it.

Some author once said that a bad day writing is better than a good day doing just about anything else. I suppose that's why I'm still blogging after five years and why I'm still homesteading after eight years -- it's what I love to do.

Dear Santa

Priorities change as you grow up, and your opinions change, too. Gifts I once would have frowned upon, I now covet -- like insulated overalls! It was a real breakthrough for me when I asked for a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for my birthday almost three years ago. I had been one of those who scoffed at the idea of appliances as gifts, but I really wanted that mixer because I knew it would make my life so much better. And I was right. Here are a few other things I would love to have . . .

• a grain mill -- I've wanted one of these forever, and I actually have one of the cheap hand-cranked models that makes a coarse grind. But I want one that grinds the flour finely enough that my loaves of bread do not feel like bricks.
• a cream separator -- It wasn't such a big deal that we bought organic butter from the store when we were still buying cheddar and sour cream, but now that we make 100% of our dairy products except for butter, it bugs me. I want to be able to say that we make 100% of our dairy products PERIOD! And homemade butter is so much tastier than store bought. I recently made butter with Jersey cream from a local dairy, and it made Mike's homemade croissants more heavenly than ever before.
• solar panels -- At Chicago's Green Festival in May, I bought a reusable shopping bag that says, "Solar panels turn me on!" I really, really want to be off grid. In the meantime, I buy what we can afford. We have a solar fence charger, a solar gate opener, and a solar spotlight on one of the barns.
• a greenhouse -- Now that I have the winter gardening bug, I'm not content with just having fresh salad through the winter.  I want it all! I want to grow spinach, mustard greens, onions, carrots, turnips, and lots of other cold-weather crops. And I want to do it in a greenhouse so I can be in there with the plants out of the wind where it's warm when I'm harvesting my dinner.
• more land -- I'd love to have a few more acres that don't flood. I don't think I ever blogged about this year's hay field flood, but we got zero hay from our field to feed livestock this year. After the hay was cut, it flooded, so it was all soaked in mud. The bales will just be used as compost and mulch in the garden.

So, if you happen to run into Santa, could you give him my list, please? I've tried to be a really good girl this year!

Something's gotta give

At least, that's the phrase that kept going through my head when I collapsed into bed last night after an exhausting and lonely day on the homestead. Mike was teaching, and the kids were at school from early morning until well after sundown. Jonathan and Katherine are taking classes at the same junior college where Mike works, so they share a ride most days, which means there are some days this semester when it's just little ol' me out here taking care of everything.

Yesterday was complicated by the fact that the barn needed to be mucked out, and I did a bunch of little things that usually get put off until "later." When the chores around here are split up between four people, it's really not a lot of work. But when the work of four people must be done by one, it's a completely different story. Everyone's regular chores take me about two hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. And then I have to make cheese and do whatever additional work needs to be done on any particular day. Yesterday, I spent about nine hours working outside, and I didn't even look at the garden.

I kept telling myself that I'd take care of the garden today when Mike and Margaret are home. Well, Mike has off-farm errands that have taken him away all afternoon, and Margaret doesn't have time to come home for the day from U of I. She doesn't have any Thursday classes this semester, so was hoping to come home to help with the tomato harvest, since she loves fresh salsa. So, I have to get out to the garden today and take care of whatever needs attention. I'm afraid there are a number of things that are overdue -- okra, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, just to name a few off the top of my head.

As we move into fall, things will get a little easier, because there will be less to do. But if I have many more days like yesterday, I will seriously be looking at what can be eliminated from the homestead. After eight years, I thought we pretty much had everything under control, but then I remembered that the only thing that's constant is change.

It just shouldn't matter, right?

Life has been so great the last couple weeks. We're having our best garden in years, luck has been on my side with all the little things in life, and I've been going through every day with a smile on my face. I could make some comment about how it's not going to last "with my luck," but the fact is that life is always a mix of good and not-so-great and downright rotten things. And the downright rotten popped up Monday afternoon.

I opened the upright freezer and noticed several pieces of ice had fallen off the freezer coils. If you've never had an upright freezer, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but the shelves in an upright freezer are the things that emit the cold that freezes everything. Upright freezers are not frost free, so ice forms on the shelves over the months. You have to defrost the freezer to get the ice off the shelves. So, it's obviously bad news if that ice starts to fall off on its own.

I hoped that the defrosting had been caused by someone opening the freezer and not getting the door completely closed, so I carefully closed the door, making sure it was totally closed, and I waited. An hour later, I went back. I reached in and gave a tug on a piece of ice that was attached to one of the shelves. It popped off. Not good. After an hour, it should have been frozen solidly to the shelf.

Time to panic! That freezer holds all of our pork, lamb, and chickens. I called Mike, and we decided to have Jonathan buy a new freezer and bring it home. Jonathan was already in town at the junior college, and he was in the pickup. So, I called Jonathan and asked him to go buy a freezer. Somehow, he didn't understand. Half an hour later, he called me after talking to Mike, who asked about the freezer. Yeah, I suppose it's weird to be asked to buy a freezer when you're only twenty years old, but he was in town and driving the pickup. And besides that, how did he think I was going to buy a freezer from home? Miscommunication is a funny thing.

So, now I sit here typing, trying not to panic, waiting for Jonathan to get home with the freezer. Once he gets it home, we'll have to wait for Mike to help move it into the basement, and then the owner's manuals always say to wait before loading it up with food. But our food is melting! I hope my downright rotten afternoon doesn't turn into rotten food.

24 hours later . . . 

Jonathan arrived home safely with the new freezer in one piece, and Mike was an hour behind him. While we were waiting for Mike to get home, we cleared a trail between the front door, the basement door, the bottom of the basement stairs and the spot where the freezer sat. We measured the new freezer and the old one and made sure the new freezer would fit in that spot. But the fun really started when Mike arrived. The new freezer is 31 inches wide, and the door into the basement is 32 inches. Now, I know that sounds like it should work, but it doesn't. Did you know that a two-by-four piece of wood is not two inches by four inches? Well, a 32-inch door is not 32 inches wide. The only way we could have pushed the new freezer through the basement door would have been to remove the entire door frame down to the studs. If we had not built this house, I wouldn't even know that it was possible to do that. Possible, yes; easy, no. Mike looked at me as if I'd lost my mind when I suggested it.

Even if we did manage to get the freezer through the basement door, it probably would have been stuck at the bottom of the stairs, because there is only 31 inches between the bottom of the stairs and the basement wall. There used to be more room, but Mike added an insulated wall on the inside of the concrete wall, which sucked up four inches.

"So," Mike looked at me as if I should know what was coming. After a few seconds of silence, he continued, "Where do you want the freezer?"

The basement was not possible. It was getting close to midnight, so returning it to the store an hour away and buying a smaller freezer was not possible. Our food was starting to thaw, so waiting until morning was not possible either.

All the interior doors on the first floor are 32 inches, so the only two options were the living room or the dining room. After having the quickest pity party imaginable for myself -- and telling myself, You will not cry about a freezer! -- I told him to move the china cabinet into the living room and put the freezer in the dining room. And then I went upstairs to drown my sorrows in a tub of hot water with a dribble of lavender essential oil.

I don't think of myself as shallow, but it sure seems shallow to be upset about having a freezer in my dining room. It is not something you will ever see in Martha Stewart's Living, but I should be grateful that we have food to fill a freezer. I wonder if it's possible to not have some sort of soft spot for consumerism. Some people are into shoes or fashion or cars. I'm into kitchen stuff -- nice china, dishes, napkins, and a pretty dining room. A six-foot-tall behemoth of a freezer is not pretty, at least not by modern standards of interior decorating.

Life often feels like a test out here. Am I physically strong enough? Do I have the persistence that it takes to be a homesteader? Do I have the brains to learn all this new stuff? Am I emotionally tough enough to deal with the heartaches that inevitably come with raising animals? And tonight I'm facing a new test. Can I let go of the Martha Stewart dining room? It sounds so trivial compared to everything else in my life, but my choice seems clear. I can be miserable and cringe every time I look at it. Or I can be thankful that it's filled with delicious, healthy food that we raised. I can be grateful that I will save a lot of trips up and down the basement stairs because my new freezer is right next to the kitchen.

Typical Tuesday?

 Ever wonder what a typical day is like around here? Well, this turned out to be a pretty average day.


9:45 a.m.

A Tamworth gilt (young female)

I came into the house with the goat milk from this morning's milking half an hour ago. (We milk at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.) It was about a gallon, and when I realized there were already two gallons of milk in the frig, I decided to procrastinate by checking Facebook. What should I make with all that milk? Then I heard one of the llamas sounding the alarm. It sounds like a whinnying caw that should come from a pterodactyl, so it definitely gets your attention! I glanced out the window and didn't see anything obvious, so figured it wasn't anything important. But then I heard it again . . . and again. All five llamas in the west pastures were staring to the north. Then all the goats lined up like kids in a schoolyard watching a fight. Something was definitely not right. I slipped on my shoes and ran out to the barn pasture, which is north of where the goats and llamas live. Pigs? Yes, all six pigs were running around in the barn pasture. They're supposed to be in the walnut grove. Mike and Jonathan take care of the pigs, and based on the stories they've told, I really don't want to be on the same side of the fence with this group of pigs, so I'm just going to wait until Jonathan gets home from work around noon, and I'll let him deal with it. I have to make cheese or something. The worst thing they can do is root up the pasture a little. Right?

12:15 p.m.
I was in the middle of making queso blanco and tapioca pudding when I remembered that I had to get a form filled out and emailed to a Milwaukee television station. Thursday, I'm going to be on The Morning Blend, which is a typical morning talk show. I'm going to be talking about zucchini and other summer squash and how to use it, and I'll be doing a stir-fry on the air. My info sheet was due at noon, so I ran in here to fill it out and email it back to them. I'm sad to say that if my fingers touch the keyboard, I also have to check email and Facebook . . . sigh. Now that it's done, I'm heading back to the kitchen to play with squash and time myself doing a stir-fry. I'll only have five minutes Thursday!

2:00 p.m.
I've decided it would be a bad idea to do a squash stir fry on live television if there are hot peppers in the stir fry. I accidentally inhaled some fumes and started hacking and gasping. Jonathan said it might be a good idea to do it anyway, and I could become an Internet sensation as people forward the video and it becomes viral. I don't think so. After eating the squash, I decided to check email before trying another squash recipe that is less deadly. It took me half an hour to respond to a question about dewormers. I need to write up something about that and put it on my website, because it's a common question. And then I received an email back from the Morning Blend producer. Apparently I forgot to attach my guest sheet to my email. How embarrassing. So, I re-sent that email with the attachment. Now I need to get back into the kitchen and try another squash recipe. The one with peppers also took too long. I need something that will cook up in less than five minutes! Jonathan got home from work and already left to run errands, and I forgot to tell him about the pigs . . . sigh.

Patty pan, lemon squash, and golden zucchini
with basil chiffonade and garlic

3:00
I decided to take a power nap-meditation before continuing with my squash experiments. Yes, I nap almost every day, although I don't really sleep. It's more of a meditation for about fifteen minutes, and then my battery is completely recharged. I tried another squash recipe. This one used basil and garlic. No coughing and gasping, but I need to work on my chiffonade skills. Now I know how to use up all the squash in the garden -- get myself on a morning show and then practice cooking it for two days!

4:35 p.m.
I had no idea I could get so stuffed eating only summer squash and drinking a smoothie (yogurt, banana, frozen strawberries, banana). It's been an hour since finishing the last squash, and I still feel uncomfortably full. I answered more emails and made a vet appointment for goats to get health certificates tomorrow. (Goats crossing state lines must have health papers, and soon I'll have one going to Tennessee and another to Missouri.) I watched a few clips from The Morning Blend to see what their kitchen looks like, so I could be better prepared. Looking at my to-do list -- do I make sugar scrub to fill the two orders that I have, or do I go to the garden to pick vegetables? Both must be done today, but it's easier to pick veggies when the sun is up, and it's only 83 out now, which is tolerable.

10 p.m.
I never got the sugar scrub done. I picked five buckets of tomatoes, which are sitting in the sink. I had hoped to get them blanched and in freezer bags tonight, but it will just have to wait until morning. I also picked five cucumbers and our first eggplant of the year. I should have picked okra but didn't get to it. It was nearly sundown, so it was time to milk the goats again. After milking, I checked on Pearl, a yearling doe who was terribly anemic and weak Saturday. I put her in one of the kidding pens by herself, so I could take care of her, and she is making an incredibly recovery! I came inside and threw together another squash stir-fry. This one had an oriental theme with soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. Finally sat down for dinner at 9:05. I had the tapioca pudding for dessert, which was ugly and had a weird texture to it. It had whipped egg whites in it, which sounded good, but it wasn't. I really should stick to the tried-and-true recipes, but when I see something that looks good, I just have to try it. Mike and Jonathan talked about the pigs. Jonathan said two of them got out yesterday also, but they followed him right back to the walnut grove, so it's not a big problem.

Tomorrow will start early, because I have to have the goats at the vet by 9:30. I'm thinking I should be milking by 7:00, which means getting up and fixing breakfast by about 6:15. I still need to shower before going to bed. One of the odd things about country living is that you normally shower before bed, rather than when getting up, because you're so dirty by the end of the day that you can't stand the thought of putting your dirty self in between clean sheets. I'm one of those people who really needs my eight hours, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen tonight.

Why do we do it?

 Inca rainbow corn from our garden

We had an open farm day last weekend, and I got that same old question that I always get from people who have just met me. Why do we do all of this? You might think that I have a great answer, perfectly packaged in twenty words or less, but I don't.

We originally moved out here for lots of reasons -- to grow our own food organically, to raise rare breeds of livestock in danger of extinction, to have a real reason to get out of bed in the morning, to give our children a meaningful life with real responsibility. I suppose I could sum it up by saying that we moved out here because it's real. There is no fast food or contrived exercise on a treadmill. Our children have had real responsibility. They've brought baby animals into this world, and they've seen animals die. But now that my children our growing up and going to college, why don't we just move back to the burbs and shop at Whole Foods and farmer's markets? After all, I've been diagnosed with arthritis, and someone winds up in the emergency room at least once a year because of accidents that never would have happened in the safety of the burbs. Why stay?

Because I love my life out here, and rather than finding reasons to leave, I keep finding more reasons to stay. My arthritis is much better when I'm outside working. Sitting in front of a computer is my body's worst enemy. As I get older, the weight bearing exercise -- carrying fifty-pound feed bags -- is a good way to protect myself from osteoporosis. Switching from a vegetarian diet to one with free-range, organic meat has raised my HDL cholesterol, making my ratio even better for warding off heart disease. Losing twenty pounds six years ago made my knees much happier, and they've been a problem my entire life, because I was born with birth defects in both of them and had three surgeries as a teenager. So, there are lots of scientific, quantifiable reasons to stay here. Sure, plenty of people live in cities, eat healthy and exercise, but I was never able to keep up an exercise routine when we lived in the burbs.

I have never loved a treadmill or free weights, but I love my goats. They are real. I have to milk them. I have to chase after them sometimes. I have to run from the house to the barn when I realize one of them is in the middle of giving birth. I have to carry the fifty-pound feed bags from my car to the barn. Some people might say that it's a lot of work, but a wise person once said that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

A guest on Saturday said that whenever you have to do something day after day, it becomes work -- like a professional football player. It might be fun to play ball with your friends on the weekend, but when you have to do it every day, it's your job. I didn't have an answer at the moment, but I've been thinking about his comment for three days. Why don't I feel like this is a lot of work? Because this is real. Playing football every day is not real. It's contrived. There is not a real reason to take care of thousands of chickens all day. One family does not need thousands of chickens. No one is raising those birds for any reason other than money. Milking goats and making cheese all day long would be a job. A lot of people have told me I should have a restaurant, but cooking for a hundred or two hundred people every day would be a job.

Another guest on Saturday told me that she grew up on a farm, and they originally had chickens running around free range. When they moved to the cage system of raising chickens, her mother no longer liked it and wanted out of the business. Whenever someone tells me that they worked on a chicken farm or grew up with chickens and they hate them, I don't even have to ask what type of system they had. It's always been a cage system with thousands of chickens in buildings. It's hot and stinky, and what joy is there in tending thousands of birds 365 days a year?

This is real. We are growing food to feed our family. We have chickens for eggs and meat. We have goats for our dairy needs. We have sheep for meat and wool. We have turkeys and pork for meat. The llamas protect the other animals and also give us fiber. Next spring, the cows will start to give us milk. We have a garden where we grow vegetables that you can't find in a store. Every day is different. Some are filled with joy and others with heartbreak, but every day is filled with real life. I'm not doing anything here solely to make money.

Money defines a job. I don't get paid a penny to make cheese or cook from scratch or milk the goats. I'm doing this because I believe in it. We became vegetarians in 1989 because we thought the factory farm system of raising meat animals was unhealthy and ethically wrong. We've been eating organically for just as long. I make cheese because it's the best-tasting cheese I've ever eaten. I cook from scratch because it's delicious and healthy. I milk my goats because you can't buy Nigerian dwarf goat milk anywhere in the state of Illinois. I grow Inca rainbow corn, blue potatoes, and Amana orange tomatoes because you can't buy them in a store -- and Amana orange tomatoes make the most delicious creamy tomato soup in the world. We grow our own pork because no one grows free-range pork around here, and I've never heard of anyone feeding them nuts and milk, which creates the most delicious pork imaginable.

So, how do I sum up all of this into a neat little package of twenty words or less, so I can give a quick answer to the next person who asks me why we do this?

Sharing our gifts

If you've been reading my blog for at least a year, you might recall that I wrote a lot about food last summer. In one post, I complained about an email I received requesting donations for a food pantry -- donations of food-like substances, such as Jell-o, which have absolutely no nutrition in them. I spent a lot of months thinking about that problem, and in January, I presented an idea to my church. Would anyone be interested in helping to create a garden for the purpose of donating fresh produce to a shelter, soup kitchen, or food pantry? The response was an overwhelming yes!

People gave of their time, money, seeds, equipment, and enthusiasm. In April, we dedicated our garden space and built six raised beds. Then in May, we planted. For the past few weeks, we have been harvesting cucumbers, green onions, squash, beets, and green peppers to donate to Morningstar Mission, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in Joliet, IL. Soon, our 24 tomato plants will start to ripen hundreds of pounds of tomatoes.

Last Friday, seven of us visited Morningstar to learn more about their needs and how we can help them with our garden. It was inspiring and educational, and I realized that they are grateful for every single cucumber or tomato we donate. They serve 20 meals a week -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner Monday through Saturday, and breakfast and dinner on Sunday. Most meals average 150 to 200 guests, but it has hit 300. Jackie Kinney, who gave us the tour, said that three years ago, their average meal served only about 75, but the downturn in the economy has caused a huge increase in demand. It's a beautiful facility funded almost entirely with private donations. They do so much to help their guests rise up out of poverty and live better lives.

There is so much that I want to do, but I'm not rich. Still, I have gifts that can be shared. One of the lessons that I have to continually relearn is that just because I can't do everything does not mean that I shouldn't do whatever I can. Right now, our little garden and our handful of volunteers can provide fresh vegetables for people who need them, and that's a good thing.

Of milking goats and snapping beans

"What you're doing is cool, but it's an awful lot of work."

I've heard that refrain more than a few times when people learn about our lifestyle. Why would anyone want to milk goats or have a garden when we can go to the grocery store and buy everything we need? Because there are some things that you can't find at the grocery store.

I could buy goat cheese at the store, but making my own cheese gives me a sense of pride and independence. I also feel secure knowing how my goats live, what they eat, and what they do NOT consume, especially in the way of drugs. This morning, as I watched the yearlings browsing on willow trees, I realized how much I enjoy teaching them to be milk goats. Because they're raised by their mothers, I often don't have a very close bond with them when they're babies, but once they become mothers, we become best friends. I offer them a pan of grain and coax them onto the milk stand. They learn that I'm their friend, and it's okay to share their milk with me. Because I used to be lactating myself many years ago, I feel a special mom-to-mom bond with them. Within a couple weeks, the milk goats that were raised by their mothers are just as friendly as the ones that were bottle-fed by humans. It probably is a lot of work for people who get paid to work in a dairy, but my goats are not a job.

This afternoon, Mike, Katherine, and I sat around the table and snapped beans that they had picked from the garden. I remembered my mother snapping beans when I was a little girl. Although we lived in town, my parents always had a garden. My mother would sit in a porch swing and snap beans, while I played in the yard and talked to her. As my husband and daughter and I snapped beans this afternoon, we talked about things that we probably wouldn't have talked about if we hadn't taken the time to snap beans. We didn't solve the problems of the universe or make any grand plans. We talked about the beans and Japanese beetles and complained about the lack of rain as the sky darkened with clouds. Some people might say it's a lot of work to snap almost five pounds of beans, but I don't think so. How often do we just sit and talk about the little things in life?

When people today talk about feeding their family, they're usually talking about working at a job and making money, so they can buy groceries. But what we do out here is literally feeding our family. We take care of our animals and our garden, and they feed us. But they feed more than just our bodies. They provide us with beauty, companionship, exercise and a reason to get out of bed every day. Yes, you can buy goat cheese and green beans, but that's all you get for your money. Once you've filled your stomach, there is nothing left but an empty package.

Failure?

I'm a compulsive doer, if that's a word. I want to do everything! (But you can forget sky diving or anything that has heights involved.) In 1983, I met a woman who was knitting a pair of mittens out of yarn that she had spun from wool, and I decided I wanted to do that someday. In college, I had a boyfriend whose family raised two pigs for their own freezer every year, (even though they had no other animals on their country estate), and I thought it would be cool to do that someday. I always admired hand-made quilts and vowed to make one myself someday. You get the idea, right? So, you can imagine that when people asked, "Do you shear your own sheep?" it really pained me to say no.

Then last year, I said to Mike, "Why don't we shear our own sheep?" I don't recall his answer, but whatever it was, it didn't slow me down as I looked on Premier's website and decided which sheep shears to buy. Mike and Margaret did all the shearing last year, and the sheep looked pretty bad, but the wool was great. And you know what they say about bad haircuts -- the difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about a week or two. Same is true for sheep . . . usually.

Margaret is no longer here, so this year, it's up to Mike and me. We were going to sheer a couple weeks ago, but it rained the night before, and playing with electric shears on wet sheep does not sound like my idea of a fun time. The rams were inside, so we decided to go ahead and sheer them. Mike did the first one, as I critiqued every cut. Then I wondered why I gave him the job when I was the one who knew how to clip goats and dogs. He'd never clipped anything in his life before last year when I delegated the shearing to him and Margaret. So, I took over on the second sheep and discovered that it is not as easy as it looks, and it is more challenging than clipping a dog or a goat. It took us about 40 minutes per ram, and they looked pretty dreadful. Sorry, I don't have pictures because the computer with PhotoShop is dieing.

Almost every day since then, one of us says that we really need to sheer the rest of the sheep. The other nods in agreement but says that we don't have time today, and that's the end of the discussion. The simple fact is that we don't want to shear the sheep. If you don't want to do something, you can always come up with plenty of excuses. When we hired a professional, we actually looked forward to shearing day. Now, we're procrastinating. So, I asked myself, is it really a big deal if we don't shear our own sheep? It's better for us and the sheep if we hire a pro to do it. Professional sheep shearers around here usually do about 24,000+ sheep per year, so it's no wonder that they zip through the fleece of a Shetland in two or three minutes.

Part of me knows it's silly to feel like a failure for not shearing our own sheep. Why do I need to be spinning, knitting, shearing, cheese making, soap making, goat milking, pig raising, quilting, and on and on? It's okay if I don't do everything, isn't it?

The next goal

I've been dreaming and setting goals for as long as I can remember. When I was in high school, I set a goal of visiting all 50 states by the time I was 25. I almost made it. I was missing only four by the time I turned 25, but I didn't see that as a failure. After all, I had visited 46 states. I jumped at every opportunity to go anywhere. When I was 22, a friend needed to go home for Christmas, and the airport in his hometown was closed due to fog. No problem, I said, I'd drive him, if he paid for the gas. I was in Rhode Island at the time, and his home was in Oregon. My home was in Texas. Most of my friends thought I was crazy, and my mother was unhappy that I would miss Christmas at home, but I was focused on my goal, and I checked off about a dozen new states within a week.

I recently found a list of goals I set five years ago. Among other things, I had written down "get a master's degree" and "teach college." Done! Done! The "beautiful flower gardens" and "productive vegetable garden" will always be a work in progress. "Write memoir" was also on the list, and that has not been done. In fact, it was the only thing on the list that I have not accomplished.

As I looked at the list, I thought about my goals for the future, and then I realized that I am living my dream. Early in our marriage -- 20-something years ago -- Mike and I talked about moving to the country and building our own home. And the dream grew over the years. We decided that we wanted to have a garden and grow our own food. In the 90s, I decided I wanted goats and chickens. We talked and planned for nine years after Mike got out of the Navy, and then we finally did it eight years ago. We moved out here and started to turn those dreams into our reality.

So, what's left? The book. I need to write the book. I've been writing this blog for four and a half years, and if you think it's been an adventure, you should have been around for the first four years when we really were clueless city slickers. We'd drive goats to the University of Illinois vet hospital at the drop of a milk bucket. My husband nearly blew himself up. My son was dragged across the pasture by a cow -- and, I thought, killed. My then-9-year-old daughter told me that one of our goats was "trying to poop, but can't" when the goat was actually in labor. The water system was something from a high school science fair, which caused one flood after another in the barns. I had more than one meltdown, but who wouldn't when you're soaking wet with manure in your hair and it's 20 degrees outside? And does anyone really want to know how we were failed by four real estate agents, a lawyer, and an appraiser, and unknowingly bought a mobile home that was supposed to be gone four months after closing?

My next goal is to get all of those crazy stories into a manuscript by the end of 2010.

Post #600

And now we take a break from our regularly scheduled programming . . .

Here I am at 600 posts and still writing after four years and four months. I suppose it is some sort of landmark, but for me, being on Antiquity Oaks for eight years is more of an accomplishment. I've always been a writer. Friends from high school and college who have reconnected with  me on Facebook are seldom surprised that I became a journalist. Like many writers, I've been writing my entire life. I can't stop writing any easier than Lance Armstrong could stop cycling or Madonna could stop singing. I won't bore you by reciting my whole resume, but if you really want to know more, I have a website for my writing.

When I was a newspaper reporter, I wrote about all sorts of things. I once covered a murder-for-hire trial, which was fascinating, and I covered the home office of Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, which was always interesting. I did a lot of health stories for magazines and newspapers, which took me into operating rooms, so maybe that's why it isn't too difficult to deal with the veterinary challenges on the farm. But of all the things I've written, I love writing about Antiquity Oaks the most. It was fun to sit on the sidelines and talk to people doing things, but it is even more fun to find yourself in the middle of the action.

It has been a shock for old friends to discover my new lifestyle. It's 180 degrees from what I did 20 or 30 years ago. Back then, I would max out credit cards buying clothes. Today -- if I were still so irresponsible -- I'd max out a credit card at Tractor Supply. Although a lot about me has changed, one thing has not. I still love to write. So, while a lot of people start blogs and forget to post and eventually forgot about the blog entirely, this blog has become as much a part of me as my house and my animals. I hope you enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them, because I will be sticking around for a long time.

Today's photo was taken by Katherine with her new camera. I was giving Eleanor her bottle when she jerked her head down and popped her mouth off the nipple, and the milk went splattering. Katherine had her finger on the trigger and snapped the picture just at that moment.

Tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, I'll be back giving you updates on everything happening around here: Sherri's new triplets, the green zebra tomatoes growing in my dining room, Linguine's progress, and more. If there is ever anything you want to hear about, don't be shy about leaving a comment.

Yes, I have bad days

I'm breaking one of my cardinal rules -- don't cry and blog -- because sometimes I think all of this might look too easy. It's not easy. But I feel like I can't complain, because I chose this life. You're going to have bad days, regardless of where you are or what you're doing. And I'd rather deal with the frustrations of this life than most any other.

But regardless of what life you choose, there will always be things that get thrown into your life, over which you have no control. This morning, I discovered via Facebook that a close relative would be having surgery. And based on what the message said, I couldn't help but feel that other family members were blaming us for not doing more. Well, how can you do anything for people who don't tell you something is wrong? I may be talented, but mind reading is not among my gifts. I wish it were.

Then I had a very frustrating conversation with a vet at U of I. I should devote a whole post to my older llama problem, but I really hate it when vets start reading from the textbook and don't listen to what you tell them.

Then I realized that I have set myself up to do more than is humanly possible in the next couple days. I feel like we should be there for the family on Thursday when this relative has surgery, but my week had already been booked solid before we knew about the surgery. Tomorrow, I have appointments an hour away with a chiropractor and massage therapist, which I really need to see, because I live with chronic pain. And I was going to get my hair cut because I'm speaking at a conference on Friday and Saturday. Thursday I was already scheduled for my own medical issue -- a thyroid ultrasound, which I don't take very seriously, but I suppose I should keep an eye on the nodules that have taken up residence on my thyroid for the past couple years, just to make sure they don't grow into a problem. I'm not sure when I'll have the time to sit around and wait for the llama to poop, so I can catch a stool sample.

All those seeds I've started in the last couple months are now at a point where they need to be transplanted into bigger pots. I got one done today and then started to feel overwhelmed and decided they could wait until next week.

And I hate to break this to everyone, but I don't have perfect children. They're on spring break, and they've been slacking. There are so many things that need to be done -- trimming hooves on about 30 goats, for starters. And all the stalls in the barn need to be cleaned out, because it hasn't been done since November. Mike has been gutting the pump room, and they should be helping him as he pulls out paneling and insulation to replace it with new insulation and paneling. The old insulation had fallen down about halfway, so the upper half of the walls were not insulated at all. This may come as a shock to everyone, but they'd rather be on Facebook than doing any of these exciting projects. So, they don't always do everything when we ask the first time.

Today, I did manage to get the fruit trees pruned, although only because five of the 16 didn't make it through the winter, so now we're down to nine fruit trees. And Jonathan helped me to make seven pints of orange marmalade using organic oranges and lemons I bought at the store. I got almost everything lined up so we can start back on 305-day milk test with our goats. Before I go to bed tonight, I still have to put together a soap and yarn order, and between appointments tomorrow, I need to get outlines together for the six sessions that I'm doing at the conference. I also have to make a list of things to take for my presentations -- all the supplies for making soap, my vermicomposting bin, spinning wheel, roving, yarn, a raw fleece, and oh crap -- I seriously just realized that I'm supposed to have enough drop spindles for everyone in the spinning workshop.

We have to figure out how to make the milking machine work before Thursday and teach Mike to use it, since Katherine and I will both be gone, and we're the only two who know how to milk goats. It's not as easy as it sounds since we bought the belly pail for the milking machine, which would fit perfectly under a big goat. Supposedly for our little Nigerians, we'll have to cut a hole in the milking stand for the pail to sit in there while the goat is being milked. I suppose there is also some kind of learning curve for the goats who are accustomed to being hand milked? Guess we'll find out soon.

At some point in the next two days -- probably sooner rather than later, because ligaments have loosened up -- two goats are going to give birth!

And when am I supposed to get any of this done with all my appointments tomorrow and a relative having surgery on Thursday? Is it a surprise that I collapsed in tears around six o'clock tonight? If my life were a movie, this would be when the assistant comes in with her steno pad, and I calmly start dictating all the things she has to get done in the next two days! At least, if I were writing the screenplay, that's what would happen.

New year, new goals

I meant to start writing today's post a few weeks ago, as my 2010 plans started popping into my head, but that never happened, so you're getting it off the cuff this afternoon. And you're getting it from the brain of a woman who just spent two days with some wicked form of stomach bug or food poisoning, which cut short our Chicago vacation. When I was throwing up (and other unmentionables) in that hotel room, all I could think of was how much I wanted fresh air and simple foods. As much as I love our little homestead, I never knew I could be so happy to see it as I was when we arrived home yesterday. I could write a whole post about all the little things that made me happy, but I digress. This is about the future, not my last two days in agony. So, I might forget a couple of things, but here's what's coming in 2010.

Since Margaret has been home from college, she's been working on a complete redesign of the Antiquity Oaks website, so if you've never been there, go give it a hug, because it's going to be gone in a few days. It will be replaced with an entirely new website that includes information on our cows, llamas, classes, and internships, and a few other things that I've probably forgotten about at the moment. But don't worry -- I have all that in my notes. And I need to spend the next couple days finishing up all the copy for that site. The blog will become a page on the new site, but we're going to keep the same URL, so you won't need to change your bookmarks and you won't lose us. The appearance of the blog will, however, change, and you will be able to visit any page on the website directly from the blog.

This also means that I'm finalizing plans for our internship and apprenticeship programs. I finally decided that we're not going to be another Joel Salatin in size and scope. I have no desire to grow 100 steers or 10,000 chickens a year. I do, however, have a desire to meet like-minded people and help them to get a step closer to their dream of self-sufficiency, a locavore economy, greener agriculture and energy, and all that great stuff, so our focus is continuing to shift from production to education, although production will certainly be a part of the education.

Speaking of production, it gets really depressing when I read about people living on little city lots who can grow thousands of pounds of food a year for themselves, and it finally occurred to me that we should be keeping track, so we're going to do that in 2010. We're going to keep track of all the eggs, milk, meat, fruit, herbs, and vegetables that we produce, raise, or forage on our little 32 acres for the next year, starting today, which wasn't very impressive, because it is January 1, in the middle of Illinois. We're at just over four pounds of goat milk for 2010 so far!

And speaking of depressing, the garden gets me the most depressed. I have never claimed to be a great gardener. In fact, I generally complain (in real life, if not on the blog) about what terrible gardeners we are here. But to be honest, we haven't really worked as hard at gardening as we've worked at everything else. Even though I get upset when lettuce doesn't come up or the tomatoes get blight, it's nothing compared to how upset I am when an animal dies. The animals always come first, and that's how it should be, but I also admit that I could have put more time into educating myself about gardening. So, in November, Mike and I attended a full-day organic gardening seminar, and next week, I'll be spending three days at the Illinois Specialty Crop Conference, learning even more about vegetables, fruit and herb production. When it comes to furthering my education this year, the subject is gardening.

And speaking of education, I've decided to stop teaching college. I've been hanging in there teaching speech, thinking I should keep my resume fresh so that if a journalism teaching position ever opens up within an hour of me, I'd have a better shot. But considering the number of unemployed journalists in the Chicago area, I'm thinking there will be a few dozen people applying if they require a master's degree or hundreds if they only require a bachelor's, so it's not worth it for me to keep teaching a class that most students loathe. If the majority of people fear public speaking more than death, how do you think that a required public speaking class stacks up? Although it has certainly given me some great stories. Probably my favorite "excuse" of all time for three students missing a speech was that they were arrested on their way to class. They didn't know why they were arrested and had no paperwork documenting it, and the best part was that they couldn't even get it straight who was driving the car!

So, those are my plans for 2010. What you planning to accomplish?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to write a brief post today to tell all of you how thankful I am that you're a part of my life (whether or not you're in the U.S. today celebrating Thanksgiving). I don't even remember why I started this blog four years ago, but I know that today I keep writing because of you. I appreciate all of the feedback -- yes, all of it. Of course, it feels good when people "get it" and agree with me, but it's also important when I know that I haven't done a good job of communicating my ideas. I know we don't have all the answers about food, animal husbandry, sustainability, and definitely not gardening, but we love to keep trying, and if I can help just one of you avoid some of my mistakes, then it's worth it for me to keep writing. And if you're reading this to live vicariously through me, that's cool too. We talked about this for nine years before taking the plunge and moving out here, so I really believe that everything happens in its own time, whenever it's meant to happen. We can't push the creek to make it move faster.

Now, I have to get down to the kitchen and start peeling vegetables, stuffing the turkey, mixing up the bread dough and a dozen other things. Company is coming in four hours, and people always expect a lot of good food when they visit. Can't say I blame them. I expect a lot of good food from my kitchen every day.

Stop the insanity!

I'm borrowing today's title from a 1993 anti-weight-loss book about weight loss, an industry that has always been about extremes. I'm sad to see there is a segment of sustainability heading in that direction. According to Publisher's Lunch, we will soon be able to read

W. Hodding Carter's WITHIN OUR MEANS, in which the author and his family of six aims to live on their actual yearly income instead of the more than three times that amount they have been, growing their own food, raising chickens and goats, hunting and fishing, converting their car so that it runs on French fry oil, chopping wood to fuel a stove and giving up luxuries like coffee, wine and processed foods . . . .

Of course, we all know that we only have two choices -- a life of total excess or complete deprivation, where we can't even have a cup of coffee. Seriously . . .

Okay, in case you want to know more about the author, here is his announcement to the world from February about his great plan to spend a year living within his budget. I am not at all against living within your means, but it doesn't have to be about deprivation and killing your own supper. People living in the suburbs and cities are perfectly capable of living within their means. It actually costs us more to raise our own chicken and turkey than it would to buy it at the store, especially when they're having those loss-leader sales for 59 cent a pound turkey in November. Last time I ran the numbers several years ago, it was costing us about $3 a pound for our turkey -- but we're not doing it to be thrifty.

It is also not cheaper to have chickens for eggs. You really can't compete with factory egg production. Carter says the kids will be able to sell extra eggs and keep the profit. If he sticks with that plan, it's going to be a long time before those kids see any money. Pullets cost about $2 each X 25 = $50 + $15 shipping = $65. Feed is around $10-15 a bag, and the chickens will go through six to ten bags (depending on how much access the chickens have to the outdoors) before they even lay their first egg. And if they got their pullets in the spring, they won't get many eggs at all that first year. Again, we don't have chickens because it's cheap; we have them because I won't eat factory-farmed eggs. Even before we moved out here, we bought eggs from a small farm near us where the chickens ran around freely.

So, I've read a few of his posts. He writes well, of course. He is blogging for Gourmet. His posts are interesting. I'm just annoyed at the way this is presented. And why are so many people being presented as celebrities and experts after doing something for one year? And why does it have to be so extreme? Someone just told me about No Impact Man, the book and the movie. Colin Beavan decides to live a life of total deprivation in New York City, dragging his wife and toddler along for the ride. According to the film's website:

It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.

I am completely in favor of reducing the amount of energy we use. We keep the thermostat at 63 F in the winter to save energy, not because my husband loves the feel of my icicle nose against his cheek. But a lot of these extreme actions are meaningless. Fine, he turns off his refrigerator, but I'm sure he's buying some foods that have been in someone's refrigerator. And my refrigerator is the thing that allows us to not eat out as much as most Americans. It doesn't take any additional energy to make bigger servings at dinner, and then I can save the leftovers for my husband and daughter to take to work and school the next day. If you don't have electric lights, you're using oil lamps and candles, and I have a hard time believing that's better -- especially if you're not vigilant enough to get non-toxic candles and oil.

But I digress. My point is that no one takes these things seriously, which is sad. We all lose, because people look at this type of thing as a publicity stunt. It's just a gimmick to make money, write a book, or produce a movie. It's not the way real people live. They've lost the opportunity to educate people about important issues. These two men are being paid to live an outrageous life for one year. It has nothing to do with promoting sustainability or frugality, and it has everything to do with the voyeurism to which Americans seem to be addicted. Someone in publishing once told me that books follow television, so it shouldn't be surprising that after a decade-long diet of reality TV shows, we're seeing books in the same genre. Supersize Me had some great information in it, but I knew very few people who would even consider watching it. Most people just said it was stupid and unrealistic. No doubt people will respond to these two books the same way, even though they probably have some good information hidden beneath the manure and the glitter.

Invasion!

There is really only one thing on my mind right now. We have been invaded. It's like living in the midst of Hitchcock's The Birds, except it is Asian beetles. They are covering my house, my barn, and even me when I venture outside! This is an insect plague of Biblical proportions, seriously. You see the picture there? They are covering the entire house like that! I tried to take a big picture, but you can't see the bugs when I get too far away.

These bugs have no sense of personal space, and I don't mean that they invade the two or three feet of space around my person. No, I mean that they land on my nose, in my eye, and even fly into my mouth if I should foolishly open it for any reason. They look like orange lady bugs, but it becomes obvious fairly quickly that they are not the sweet little bugs that we knew as children, the ones that had poems and books written in their honor. These suckers bite -- hard! And they stink! And they leave their foul odor wherever they land with their stinky little feet.

They are completely covering the outside of the house, so whenever someone opens a door, they enter. As you approach the house, they swarm around you like bees on honeysuckle, and at least half a dozen, perhaps even a dozen, will land on you to hitchhike into the house. If only I'd known that they are attracted to white houses, I'd have chosen a darker siding! The USDA Fact Sheet tries to emphasize that they eat aphids, but seriously, this is overkill. I can't imagine that we have this many aphids in the area to keep them all fed.

So, while other people may have been enjoying the beautiful weather yesterday, I was flicking, flinging, and slinging these beetles as I attempted to get tulip and daffodil bulbs planted. And I still don't have my garlic in the ground. So, now I am hoping for a really hard freeze. Until then, we'll be living with these annoying pests flying in our faces, our hair, and our house.

What's important?

As I was checking Facebook this morning, I saw a link to a blog post and clicked on it, thinking it was about how to increase readership on your blog. Author Jonathan Fields began,

There’s been a lot of focus on follower counts, friend counts, subscriber counts, viewer counts and readers as of late. And, those are important metrics from the standpoint of expanding your impact on the world…and potentially, your income.

But, sometimes I wonder if we’re spending too much time on the wrong metric…

Then he proceeded to talk about the things that really matter to him. The writing is absolutely beautiful and I don't want to paraphrase it for you, so check it out for yourself.

His post really got me thinking about how blessed I am and what's important to me, so here's my list:

I love beautiful flowers, simply because they make me smile.

I love food that makes me close my eyes and sigh, food that begs to be eaten slowly, savored, and enjoyed; food that comes from soil that has been treated with respect; food that comes from animals that have been treated with love.

I love newborn baby animals. I don't think I will ever cease to smile and squeal with joy as a new baby animal is born, or as it takes its first wobbly steps, or as it figures out where to find its first meal. I love their motivation to live, to walk, to bounce, and to simply be themselves.

I love the soft wool that comes from my flock of Shetland sheep and llamas, not only because it feels heavenly, but also because I know where my scarf or hat or afghan has spent its entire life. I am working on an afghan from wool that was grown by Teddy and Latte, washed by Mike, carded by Jamie, spun by Katherine, and knitted by me. As it keeps me warm on these cold Illinois nights, I'll have no worries about what animals were mistreated for the wool or what workers were exploited in its spinning or knitting.

I love my house because it was built with love and care. Every bit of flooring, paint, and wallpaper, every bathroom fixture, door and window, everything was chosen by me. Every nail was pounded into the two-by-sixes and two-by-fours by Mike. Walls were lifted into place by all of us. Margaret screwed the drywall into place. It's more than just a shelter for our family. It represents the ultimate family project.

I love my children for making me the person that I am today; for teaching me patience; for making me smile and laugh; for being thoughtful; for being supportive.

And I love my husband for being the ultimate partner; for being an attentive father; for attempting to do all the crazy things I ask; for making the world's best homemade croissants; for bringing me coffee in bed every morning; for providing our family with the most wonderful home anyone could ever want.

When I see this list and know that it does not even represent half of my blessings in life, I ask how I could want anything more. But I do. I want to empower people to create their own little Eden, to help them learn to be self-sufficient, and to experience the joy that can be found in nature. I want everyone to have access to fresh food and to have the knowledge to prepare it. That's why I blog. I want to share my enthusiasm for all the things I love, and I don't mind sharing my mistakes if it will give people a little more courage to risk success!

It's vital to know what's important in your life so you can make sure you're heading in the right direction. For example, I know a woman who bought four sheep and got rid of them a year later when she realized she didn't want their wool. If you look at my list, you might come to the conclusion that while I love flowers, they're not the most important thing in my life, and I act accordingly. They are the last living things on this farm to get my attention ... after my animals and the herb and vegetable gardens and my family ... and my blog ... and I guess I'm just lucky that daylilies are so hardy.

So, what's important to you? What do you love?

Tired

I can't believe I haven't posted since Sunday. I had so much I wanted to write! Then life happened. At least I only have two days left to teach, and I'll have two months vacation before starting again in August.

We had a big party for my husband's family on Father's Day, then the refrigerator stopped working. It was running non-stop and couldn't get any colder than about 50 degrees. Since it is only four years old and already needed a repair last year, we decided it probably wasn't worth saving so we went shopping yesterday and bought a new one.

I had to go to Urbana on Monday to check out my oldest child's new abode, and grading has been keeping me terribly busy. In fact, I'm getting home and then having to spend a few hours grading, so I'm only getting about six hours of sleep each night. I know six hours is enough for some people, but not me, sadly. I wish I could survive on only a couple hours of sleep each night. Sleep really seems like a waste of time, but it's necessary.

Lucky for me, Mike and the kids sheared most of the sheep yesterday while I was teaching. I've asked Margaret to write a blog post about it, but I'm not sure if she will. I did take a picture of her and her dad -- they reminded me of the Pig Pen character in Charlie Brown! They were covered with dirt from head to toes, and they smelled like lanolin.

Most of the rams and wethers still need to be sheared, so I'll probably wind up helping with them next week. Today, the hay from our field was baled, so that needs to be picked up and stacked. Problem is that only Jonathan and I are home, and it's supposed to rain tonight, so it'll be interesting this evening. A load of alfalfa is also supposed to be delivered tomorrow.

And did I mention that temperatures are hovering in the mid-90s with "real feel" temps above 100?