As the temperature gets colder we continue to prepare for the coming of winter. This winter looks as though we will all have a challenge, Covid 19 has begun its cold weather return and the news continues to report and cause all to focus on this menace. In many places communities seem to be coming apart at the seems over schools being shut down while businesses are allowed to be open. Maybe I think different than many, but we homeschooled our children so whether schools were ever open or not didn't make a difference to us, There is no intention of bragging in regard to this, but then I grew up when most Moms were home instead of the work place.
I believe it goes back to articles I have written in the past regarding the likelihood of situations like this coming, we have become a society overcome with a pandemic as dangerous to families and their livelihood, as any pandemic. That pandemic is called consumerism, it thrives by people thinking if they could only have this one more thing "I will be happy." This pandemic isn't something we were born with. It is a pandemic that has been created by the system to manipulate people into thinking if they don't have something they are poor or something is wrong with them. During the days of the rural electrification act, they made people think if they didn't have electricity they were poor, this very statement caused many communities to buy into the government loan program to buy their own power plants so they could have low cost power, in time these power plants became to costly for the communities to operate and of coarse they were bought up by power companies. Which gave birth to the modern electric utilities. But the power companies isn't where I want to go with this.
Like so many new things, electricity didn't remain as an energy source to just light your house, soon the icebox was replaced by the electric refrigerator, then came the electric stove, which replaced the wood and coal stoves that so many had. Many of the mothers in that day were perfectly content cooking on their wood and coal fired ranges, my Grandmother was one of them and cooked on hers until she passed in the 1970's, in time they were made to feel as if they were poor because they weren't using electric powered items. In time many caved to the idea of electricity. All the latest gadgets to come were powered by it, eventually it started to cost more and more, as did the cost of many things. Power isn't the only culprit here but it does play a big role. Many manufactured things today for the household are throw away, your toaster works for a couple of years and quits, you throw it out and buy a new one, the same goes for most other kitchen appliances. I often wonder how many of us remember when these appliances used to be brought to the repairman to be fixed?
We have become a society of consumers, and they even refer to us as such. We are no longer people or individuals, we are "consumers" and the current system thrives on that. So many people have spent there lives in pursuit of the one more thing to make them happy and when they get it they soon begin to look for the next thing to make them happy. It's a never ending cycle that keeps many in debt and paying interest on things they have no time for because both husband and wife now work to pay for those things that really never did make us happy, but instead have enslaved us to a never ending cycle of work and consume, and what pays the real price in much of this is our children which the system always uses as a tool to get you to spend even more of your hard earned resources.
No one ever seems to understand is that this cycle can never last, it is un-sustainable and the cost is staggering. Since the Covid 19 pandemic has struck we have gotten just a little taste of what a disruption is, the cost of food has nearly doubled in our area, and even with the new home canning craze there still isn't enough people preserving their own or enough of their own to sustain themselves for an extended time. having enough to get by in a major disruption takes a few years of producing more than you need in a year. Many have started and that is a step in the right direction and also tells us we should have never left our agrarian roots so far behind. To many have no idea where their food comes from or have any real concept as to how it is raised, instead we have a sect of people saying to kill off the cows because their farts are causing global warming. I'm sorry, but this has gone way to far and science needs to be science without the big dollars that drive their studies and their conclusions. Our conclusion should be to always be ready for anything that should come and there are more ways to disrupt our lives than any of us could think.
Now on to what's up on the homestead, We have slaughtered our 4 pigs, Benjamin and Abraham were here and helped out. The hams and bacon have been cured and smoked, the sausage has been ground and made. We got 175 pounds of sausage and it has been divided up among those that raised the pigs this year, and of coarse we share with those that didn't. We continue to bring wood out of the woodlot and get it into the shed. I think we'll be done by the weekend. Deer season is on and I have decided not to hunt this year as both our freezers are full and with a cow being slaughtered this weekend we haven't the room to even freeze much of him. So, we'll can most of him and use the freezer space for some hamburger. With those things being done we still make butter every day and cheese curd a couple of times a week. I have just been given a large hayfield for next year and it looks like I will finally have my dream field, a field big enough so I can pull in and stay until the haying is done. I have prayed several years for that to happen and the time has come, no more moving from place to place to gather hay. This should give us more hay then we really need and may even give us some extra to sell.
I have been studying about small scale silage making and will try to make some next year, very small scale at first to see how it works out, I did finally get a new camera and hope to be posting photos as we go so we can share and teach anyone that wants to learn. Maybe we will be able to do some videos as well with a bit of practice. We are raising a second milk cow so we can keep up with family demand and have milk year around. We used the pigs this year to widen and add some length to the garden, so much for cutting it back, it is my feeling that things aren't getting better and we have a family to keep fed. Not because we have to, but because we want to. I am working out next years garden and we will be spreading that wonderful organic fertilizer on it all winter.
Winter is the season a homestead doesn't have so much to do other than tend the animals and keep the stove going. I have for many years cut much of our wood and hauled it home on a homemade freight sled. This works well for us, even if we don't get all the wood for next year it gives us a good jump on it. Once the snow gets to deep all cutting stops unless we go in and snowshoe the area we are working as well as tamp the snow around the trees. The tall stumps are cut in the spring to ground level. It is also a great time of the year to go ice fishing and we intend to do plenty of that this winter. I didn't get allot of fishing in this last summer so we are a bit short on what I should be eating. So, I now have an excuse to go ice fishing.
Jeremiah 6:16 Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.
Praying you all have a safe an wonderful Thanks Giving.
God Bless
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