Another world.

This summer has been a psychological experience. Sure, we've got chickens going and some plants here and there. More than anything I've just been adjusting to my role as a mother and a human being.
It feels like it wasn't too long ago that I even realized I was a human being. I wasn't an ignorant kid, or a sheltered kid, but my world just didn't include many of the things that it now includes.

I'm burnt out on information. I don't want anymore information. I don't want to read anything else. I don't want to think anything else. I don't want to care anymore in any way. This is what my husband tells me every day. He said some things today that made me realize he knows me better than anyone else, and he tells me I think about too many things and get caught up in too many things. Maybe I do.

My husband reads fiction. He has read classics and science fiction and philosophy. He has read the Bible and the Koran front to back. He has read all of this stuff, but he loves fiction.

Don Delillo, Philip K Dick, Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck. In fact it was Steinbeck who sent us here. East of Eden that sent us here.

I'm not really the person that I think I am. I'm someone else.
I love being outside but my mind needs stimulation constantly. I'm the ideal office worker. I plan and I budget and I boss people around. I just need someone there to listen to me.

But now I'm tired. I'm so tired of planning and budgeting. I'm tired of creating scenarios in my head and trying to fulfill them. I'm tired of not knowing where to start and trying to come up with the motivation to do it anyway.
Yet, I have to. I feel like I have to. I feel driven to accomplish something that requires more work and more resources than I've ever had to pull together.

I can do it.

Last week Seth and I watched a documentary called "A Family Undertaking" by POV, which airs on PBS. The documentary touched on the same ideas as explored in the New York Times Article: Home Burials Offer and Intimate Alternative. The point is that funeral homes in the US have a monopoly on the arrangements made after death, though after-death care by family members has been a traditional part of human life throughout history and offers incredible emotional benefits.

In my family the general attitude has always been "put me in a pine box and bury me in the back yard." I've never been subject to attitudes condoning spending tens of thousands of dollars on a funeral. I've never even understood why the costs would exceed 1k in any situation.

The film and the NYTimes article are inspiring in that they show that people in American really aren't afraid to care for their own loved ones in death. There is a growing return to that way of handling funerals and I'm happy to see it.

I think more people are starting to take responsibility for their own lives and their own humanity elsewhere as well. Perhaps it's just because of my personal interest, but I notice more and more people gardening, homeschooling and even expressing interest in homesteading around the country. Indeed, many of us are still in the earliest stages but at least there is the interest. What, ultimately, will be the result of all of this?
Are we finding our way out of this consumer madness? I sure hope so.

The lady chickens are doing well.
I'm taking a stab at growing some fall tomatoes. We'll see how this works out... hopefully it does some good. I am saving the rest of the seeds for next spring.

I would really like to work hard on getting a winter garden going. Nothing makes me happier than leafy greens and now is the time to plant broccoli from seed.

I'm working on looking for other sources of income so that we can get some of these things going. That's right, dirt and seeds cost MONEY! At least good dirt... all we've got here is clay and fire ants.

Butchering.

We killed a rooster yesterday. He was our only rooster.

Seth and I bought four more pullets yesterday on a whim while taking his uncle Ronnie to the feed store. We pulled into the parking lot and in a cage right in front of us were four young, beautiful Barred Rock ladies. I find these to be among the most beautiful of all chickens, even if they are fairly common, and I've wanted this breed since way back when my grandfather started his last flock about 10 years ago.

These four made our grand total 14 chickens-- 11 hens, 1 rooster and 2 unknowns. We have a small cage for the 4 chicks we have, the old hay ring cage and a larger more permanent coop that we've recently acquired.

Ronnie's hen and rooster were living in the hay ring separate from the fantastic four. We took a look at them yesterday and decided that the rooster was in such bad condition, physically and psychologically, from living for however long he did in that little cage at Ronnie's, that we were going to 'dispatch' him.

I ended up being the one to kill him. I've never done this before in my life. I've seen my uncles field dress deer and rabbits and squirrels, and I knew a chicken (an old rooster who attacked me) that was killed by my grandfather. Then there was the deer and the little bird last year, both shot by Seth, that I helped clean and cook.

This was new though. Although this rooster had a panicky temperament and was fearful and stressed, when the time came to kill him, calm passed over him and he submitted. Both Seth and I felt that we were doing the right thing for this poor old guy, and we believe that the rooster may have even felt that way.

People should not eat meat if they can't kill animals. They just shouldn't. After yesterday, I am horrified at the distance most Americans have from their food, especially their animal products. I've always been horrified, but now even moreso.

I was a vegetarian for 5 years because I absolutely detest factory farming, I detest the standard American diet, and I detest animal abuse. Last year I was horrified to hear a girl in my COLLEGE Biology class respond with horror when the teacher told her that meat came from the muscle of animals.

"Are you serious?!" She grimaced, "I'm never eating meat again!"
Good.

A friend of mine recently became a vegetarian. Curious, I asked her why, and she says "if you just think about what meat is... just think about it! It's kind of gross."
So she had never thought about it until she was 19 years old?

I'm sorry. Some people are just SO removed and clueless.
When you've actually killed an animal by your own hands with intention, the process is holy. You cannot watch something die like that without experiencing a great connection and reverence for that creature. Death comes so easy, and life is so fleeting, and this is what more Americans need to understand.

How sad it is that people pass the 'dirty work' on to someone else, but are still willing to mindlessly consume the product. Chicken doesn't arrive on this planet battered and fried.

How sad it is that to Americans today, death is something to be done and dealt with behind closed doors and never experienced as a course of daily life. This holds true with the death of our loved ones as well as the source of our food.

Death is here. We cannot deny it.

I will make another post soon on this topic. For now though, the chicken count is 13. We have 11 ladies and 2 unknowns. I'm hoping for a roo and hen pair.

A frugal lady.

I haven't been posting much anywhere for awhile because I'm just tired. I need to spend time with Callum, and find routine and get used to my life.

I've been doing great, I think. I still get lonely but that's kind of what I'm asking for from life right now. My few good friends around here haven't been coming over as much on the weekends. Mostly I just see Seth's parents and his uncle Ronnie and some other people occasionally.

Next week I'm hosting a Natural Birth meetup group. I really liked the one I went to in March but that group is about an hour away so I offered to host a meeting for local members in Hammond. That should be great.

I've also signed up for a first aid class in September, and I will probably also get certified in CPR later. In August the local state park is having a few events including a wild edible plant tour, survival skills training, woodworking and basket weaving workshops. I'm planning on going to all of those. At the wild edibles tour I'm meeting up with some other people who are interested in permaculture and survivalism and such.

So I'm really working on being social, I just haven't quite made it yet.

I'm also working on being antisocial, inadvertently, by letting myself become increasingly paranoid and skeptical of my culture. I don't believe in consumerism or big governments or any of the things 'out there' that are contributing to this economic (and human rights)disaster. Seth and I buy food and gas so he can get to work, and in most cases that's all we buy during the month. We pay an electric bill and we pay our mortgage and car insurance.
The one 'splurge' is social more than anything, and that's when we go to this nice authentic Mexican restaurant down the road for dinner and we can both eat for $10 there.
It's not difficult to NOT spend money, except for the fact that everyone's doing it. That's what people do. The more I pull myself away from that kind of thing, the more disturbing I find it. Right now we're poor but we're financially disciplined. Even if we weren't poor, then, I'd want to live the same way because it feels right.

I'm not trying to be a snob, and I'm not really trying to set myself apart from everyone else but as I get more and more comfortable with my frugal way of doing things, I get more and more uncomfortable with the things going on around me.
It's knowing that we can make it on such a small income that kind of liberates us from living to spend, and spending to live, and being part of this big race we don't want to be a part of.

People around us aren't doing that. Even now. It's not a judgment of them, but simply an acknowledgment that it's part of the reason I'm having trouble socializing.

Quite simply, I feel different. Perhaps I relish the "hard life" to some extent. Not saying my life is hard by any means, but it could be easier if I gave in to the system. It could be more luxurious, let me say that.

Either way, I know that I need to take breaks from the internet. The whole thing overwhelms me. Somehow the ability to get in touch with almost anyone at any time makes me fail miserably at doing so.

I'll leave with a few pictures of the beautiful chickens. These little hens and my family and friends really are the light of my world.

The fantastic four

Muriel, one of our Americauna chicks.

New chickens, and a new home for the chicks.

I rented a library book called "Living With Chickens." Seth took and interest in it, took it to work with him and read through the whole thing in one day. He now has an incredible love for chickens and we've spent the weekend getting things situated. Since he has taken kind of a 'backseat' approach to the whole homesteading thing, it's really great that he's so passionate about something and he's been directing things as far as the poultry go.

This morning he started off asking his uncle Ronnie if we could have the rooster and hen he had leftover from his chicken rearing days. He'd been keeeping them in tight quarters and I've always felt bad for the poor things, so we finally brought them over here and they are staying in quarantine in the 'hay ring' where we used to keep our other hens. They are a beautiful silver-laced wyandotte/cochin cross bantams but the hen is somewhat ill so we aren't introducing them yet. Their names are Freddy and Celeste.

The 'fantastic four' hens-- now named Nora, Star, Bella and Janine, have moved to a bigger pen, which we have all just labored and sweated over for the past 5 hours getting it secured for them. We actually picked up the basic structure of this coop from Seth's grandmother, and hauled it down the highway on a trailer while it swayed and threatened to break apart in the wind. It stands about 11-12 feet high, 10 feet long and about 6 feet wide so it was a monster to carry down the road.

We've finally got it here, replaced the most rotten of the boards, secured the wire and we've tucked a tree limb in there for them to roost on (not sure if they've figured it out yet). I'm so excited about the new cage and I hope the ladies stay safe in there.
During the days, we've been letting them roam freely. Hawks are our main concern but I haven't seen any on the land so far, and they spend a lot of time up in the tallow groves so hopefully they'll stay safe.

We also came home from the feed store with 4 more chicks-- 2 Americauna pullets (blue and green egg layers!) and two straight-run Rhode Island Reds.

It's been a long, productive day. None of the hens are laying yet, but I'm much happier knowing that we've got their living quarters all worked out. I cant wait until were getting our own, fresh eggs.

Seven hens, one rooster, and two unknowns. Pictures soon!

No air conditioning

The baby and I have been spending our days without air conditioning. One thing that does to you is get you outside! My only real problem is having a clingy infant grabbing and crawling all over me when it's 90 degrees inside.
I find myself wishing he were a toddler or an older child so I could just set him on the grass and let him run free... but the grass hasn't been cut in weeks now, and ants are swarming and wasps are all over the porch. I'll be honest, outside really isn't much better right now.

My father in law found a fun article about this very subject: The Unchilled Life.

I find the first line quite funny: "TO many Americans, abstaining from air-conditioning is a masochistic folly akin to refusing Novocain or renouncing the dishwasher." We actually gave up the dishwasher awhile ago and TODAY I was mentioning to my grandmother how much I liked her dentist because he didn't shoot me up with novacaine to fill one little tooth.

Oh well, I guess I know where I fall now...

Please send your thoughts and prayers.

The brother of a very close family friend is in critical condition after a sudden illness. We will be keeping them in our thoughts, and ask that you please do the same.

Baking and biofuels.

That's right, baking and biofuels-- but not at the same time! Not right now anyway.

Let's start with the biofuels. Remember the pesky little tallow trees that are taking over the farm? Well, I got carried away with a little more research the other day investigating their potential as a crop for biofuels. Some folks are already way ahead of me on this one, but that's only more encouraging!
They actually appear to be pretty promising as far as that goes. The outer wax can be melted off and processed into a fuel that is essentially the same as diesel. I am looking more into this as a possibility either for personal fuel or for business.

Ok, now about the baking. All I really have to say is that I am on an outrageous baking spree for the past week. It started with a loaf of bread and a batch of cookies. Now I have two loaves in the oven and a batch of dark chocolate coconut cookie dough in the fridge. The cookies are most impressive. I substituted coconut oil for butter and honey for half of the sugar, then dumped almost 1/4 a cup of dutch cocoa into the mix and ended up with great results. Oh, I used wheat flour too.

The added cocoa provides a little iron and the (10% per tbsp!), honey and coconut oil have some of their own beneficial properties. Not saying these cookies are 'healthy' or anything, but if that's what you're looking for in a cookie-- move along.

H1N1 (Swine flu)

Just for fun. In addition to this, I have a pet project where I am keeping an eye on the vaccine technologies that are resulting from this H1N1 scare.
Curious? Learn more: The H1N1 (Swine Flu) Vaccine and You

Goats and milk.

I've started hiking around the property in the mornings and evenings before it gets too hot. I carry little Callum on my back in a backpack and he's calm and happy the entire time. It's a good way for me to get exercise without leaving him behind. Plus, now that he's older he can really enjoy the sights and sounds.

My primary goal out here is to be able to feed my family, and maybe a few others, when SHTF, the depressions really hits, the apocalypse comes, or whatever it is. Having well-established livestock and fruit trees as well as a few native edibles and perrenial food plants will be crucial in making this happen. Food stores of grains and staples will help hold us over until we are someday able to grow our own.
Taking a look at my goals and what we have done so far, I'd say we are well on our way. No, we're nowhere near self-sufficient but we have a lot of things in place and we're adding more and more as time goes on.

I have to have a few long-term plans too. You know, if 'S' doesn't 'HTF', the depression doesn't hit and the apocalypse doesn't come... we're probably going to want to generate some sort of income as well. I'm looking at a lot of ideas as far as this goes.

It seems to me like internet retail is pretty saturated. While that may be a component of what I plan to do, I don't think I could ever rely entirely on internet sales of any product. Since we'll be working with livestock anyway, it seems natural to look in that direction for some possibilities.
I've been researching a bit into the market for goat meat and dairy products. That really appeals to me but what I've found for business doesn't sound too promising. As with most things, though, it is what you make it. I'm not expecting anything to be easy nor do I aspire to create an empire of wealth, I just want to make enough to meet some of the 'outside' needs-- such as health insurances, transportation costs, taxes, things like that.

Locally there doesn't appear to be much available for processing goat dairy or meat so that's another option-- an actual (small) processing facility which could offer potential growth for other local goat farmers as well.

This would be a huge task to take on, on top of the self-sufficiency project, but it may very well be worth it.

I have to admit, Seth and I are considering another child within the next year or so and that would mean that *my* work on the farm would be pretty well hindered for quite awhile. Perhaps with Callum, that's already the case (it sure feels like it), but at the same time... maybe I'm more adaptable and more accomplished than I imagine.
I do have a tendency to feel overwhelmed, but progress is being made around here so I can't really say that I'm not getting anything done.

I have a passion for goats and animals in general. Even if it didn't turn a big profit, if it kept us afloat it would be more than worth it. Everytime I see one of these animals I get giddy, I'M SERIOUS! They are so cute and stinky and mischeivous. I love it.

Aye, but I don't know about the meat part. How will I keep from falling in love with every one of them?