ROUGH TIMES.
Today, I find myself incredibly inspired by these words from Kate on her blog Longest Acres:
it is no secret that nick and i want land of our own. we want a modest amount of land. maybe 50 acres. we would take more if you were offering. we want to have four milking cows on this land. a sow or two and a big but gentle boar to accompany them. we want a flock of sheep. maybe 20. to keep for lamb. we want goats....for clearing the woods. and of course have chickens. a small population of ducks for pascal to boss around. we want a healthy...but not creepy...population of barn cats. and we wants lots and lots of dogs. dogs for guarding. dogs for herding. and dogs for snuggling indoors on couches. we want a small home. that can fit us. and bottle-animals. and someday human babies. we want a barn that won't blow over in a storm. that won't bust at the roof from too much snow. we want our families to be at the farm. to visit the farm with great frequency. to live at the farm. to party at the farm. to work at the farm. we want friends to come live with us and farm vegetables on this land (which we seemingly cannot do). we want our farm to be its own micro universe. producing all the food and all of the joy so that we don't need to leave our farm with great frequency. that probably sounds like a lot of wanting. that is a lot of wanting. especially because right now we have the skeleton of that Want. we have borrowed land. we're raising 200 chickens that aren't ours. we have 2 pigs. we have 1 cow. we have 1 duck. we have 16 chickens (a dwindling number, thanks to madame fox). we have 1 snuggling indoor dog and 0 useful farm dogs. we have no kitties. we have a subterranean apt with no light and no real sense of welcoming.
i know we have to be patient. our land, our farm, will not be handed to us by any silver vehicle. she will find us someday but we will have to work for her. we will have to struggle through various farm jobs. we will have to hire the services of Scrimp and Save and make sacrifices in our personal and social worlds in the name of the Future Farm. we will have to grow our little farm family slowly and surely and methodically.but it is always fun to day dream.
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Obviously, Jesse and I are not yet living on our farm. We have our dream piece of land, we just haven't a place to actually live! It is a frustrating situation, and one complicated by many factors, but it is what it is. We understand the wanting. We understand wanting a way of life...something so real and present, but also intangible. We understand how hard it is to transition from simple farm living to suburbia. We ache to be on our farm, and in my days of sadness, words like these are helpful to me. They remind me of virtues like patience, like work, like struggle. They give us hope that some day, even if it is slowly and surely, we will have what we dream of. And house or no house, we WILL be farming this year! We WILL be growing and eating lovely vegetables! Be it in a barn, in a toolshed, or in a tent, we will find a shelter for ourselves somehow.
So...I apologize for the lack of a consistent "farm" on this farmstead blog...but we are trying. We are hoping and praying every day, and we greatly appreciate those of you along for the journey. We continue to be amazed by all the blessings in our life, and know that the setbacks are surely happening for a reason.
- Hannah.
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OUR FIRST SEEDS.
Jesee and I planned on going to work at the farm today, but instead...we woke up to a day full of rain and tornadoes and all-around gloom. SO, it was quite a lovely surprise when a small package arrived in the mail today - our SEEDS! It was exciting to spread them out all over the table, thinking about the amount of food sitting in front of us, organizing them into spring, summer, fall. Almost makes this weather worth it.- Hannah.
NEVER STARVING ARTISTS.
I once read that dreaming is your mind reorganizing all of the images you absorb in a day. For me, writing is a chance to reorganize all the ideas. It's my therapy and it's my art––admittedly often better therapy than art––but I need it. As a painter, Hannah too has her therapy, a way for her to slip into the right brain and peek around for a while.In terms of pursuing a career as farmers we decided early on that we didn't want to leave behind our art. Lucky for us there is a lot of room to be creative on the farm, to decorate, construct, catalogue and design; plenty of reasons to paint; plenty of ideas to record. Employing our crafts has been important for sanity as we wait for the farm details to work themselves out, but we don't want for art to disappear once the season gets going. No matter how busy we are, we try and create time for our art. It's important to us to integrate it into our everyday lives. Every artist dreams of getting paid to do what they love––we feel if we can be successful farmers who actively pursue their art, we can consider ourselves successful artists as well.- Jesse.
MAKING SOAP (SORT OF).
While perusing a lovely blog that I am slightly obsessed with, I came upon quite a clever idea. It turns out that the only real difference between a bar of soap and a bottle of liquid hand soap is water. So...since it definitely gets expensive buying hand soap over and over again, even if you buy the refills - why not buy a bar of the same soap you love, add water, and make your own! This recipe makes a gallon of liquid soap for the price of the bar. This was a pretty simple and fun project, and now Jesse and I have the equivalent of nearly $80 worth of liquid soap, all for about $9! Here is the how-to:
WHAT YOU'LL NEED: One 8 oz bar of your favorite soap, 2 tbsp of liquid glycerin, a cheese grater, and 1 gallon of water. That's all! Be mindful that the typical bar of soap is more like 4 oz, so you might need to buy two. Jesse and I love Dr. Bronner's soap. It is an amazing company and a great product. Bonus: since the soap is "All-in-One," we can use the soap we made for washing hands, dishes, whatever!
I found the glycerin at our co-op, but it is apparently easy to find in most places with a pharmacy, in the band-aid section. Even though it sounds scary, a 100% vegetable glycerin is completely natural and safe.
STEP 1: Grate the bar(s) of soap into a large pot. This is as simple as it sounds, but be warned....it does take some time! This recipe I was following calls for a cheese grater...but I eventually got lazy and started using a potato peeler. And then I became extra lazy and started just chopping up the soap with a knife. I would encourage you to be patient and not follow my example, but my soap turned out just fine. So basically...cut your soap into small pieces in whatever way best suits you!
STEP TWO: Add the water and glycerin to the soap.
STEP THREE: Place the pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the soap is completely dissolved in the water.
STEP FOUR: Remove from heat. It should essentially look like a big pot of soapy water.
STEP FIVE: Leave it alone and let it cool for 10-12 hours. It should start to "cloud up" after about 3-4 hours. Mine looked a bit insane, sort of like a white, solid mass was forming in the center. I stirred it (also not advised by the original recipe) and continued to stir it every few hours to keep it from solidifying too much. Letting it solidify is pretty fun though, as you can sort of rest your hand on it like jello! Each time I stirred it, however, it returned to a more normal consistency.
STEP SIX: Done! If it looks something like this...
....the soap is good to go. You can easily beat in some more water if it is too thick. I bought a reusable soap dispenser and decorated it (but you could also simply use an old one) and filled it up! The rest of the soap went into empty milk jugs and tupperware.
Hooray! So easy, and SUCH a huge money saver! If you find yourself hesitant about spending too much for an organical or wonderful or for-whatever-reason soap that you love, this is a great way to stretch your dollar without sacrificing the quality of ingredients. My next ambition is to actually make my own BAR of soap...I will let you know how that one goes!
- Hannah.