WARMTH.

I never valued warmth very much growing up. Warmth was just there, or it wasn't. And I didn't think much about where it came from or that one warmth could be different from another. I just adjusted the thermostat accordingly and went about my business.Now, however, without a thermostat, I have to employ several different heats throughout a day, and I have learned to value their individual nuances. The heat of the sun, for instance, is a completely different monster than the heat of the wood stove. (And of course every individual wood has its own type of heat as well.) Then there's heat created by friction, rubbing your hands together, say, or using a splitting maul. There is body heat, like that of your baby and wife––or that of yourself, trapped in by the right clothes. Then of course the heat created by bacteria in a compost pile––that's a unique heat.With electricity or propane heat it's hard to experience these different heats throughly. And although I was aware of each before moving off-grid, I hadn't learned to value them like I do now. I hadn't learned how much better a sweet potato tastes when it's baked in a wood stove. Or how much better a sun dried tomato is when actually dried in the sun. When you're cold and away from a fire, I hadn't realized how warm hard work will keep you. And when you're chilly but too lazy to get out of bed and stoke the fire, how much relief can be brought by curling up a little closer to your wife and infant son.Warmth is no longer just there or not there to me. It's everywhere and it's wonderful. Or it's missing and I'm paying for it. Either way, it's a tool that we use a lot. And like any tool it can be good or bad, the right tool or the wrong tool. Of course, come summer, it will be about cool not warmth. But the same rules apply––I'll take a dip in the creek over air-conditioning any day.- Jesse.

WINTER FARMING.

Every winter we get teases of Spring like we received this week, where the highs are in the fifties and rain holds off for a bit. It's good working weather. Maybe even perfect. And it's a nice time to start easing into the labor ahead of us. I pulled tomato cages out of the garden for hours. I mulched like crazy. I yanked the remaining plastic off the high tunnel and right now, as the rain is beginning to come back, I feel sore and fulfilled.We need these little tastes of the growing season to help get ready for the real deal––mentally and physically. We enjoy that we get to work just as hard during these periods as we will in March and April, but get to do so without the stress of HAVING to work hard. It's all the joys of hard work without the pressure. So when the Spring comes, and everything explodes, we will be well conditioned and ready. And over the next month or so, while the ground is still bare, we will take every opportunity to get out in the dirt and sun to prepare. The more we do now, the less we will have to do later. Off-grid farming like this––or more precisely, homesteading––requires that you are always working to take care of the future you. So right now we're taking care of our Spring selves by getting in shape, and getting the farm ready for several months of mayhem.- Jesse.

MESSY MONDAYS.

In continuing with our Messy Mondays series, here is our set-up for cooking down maple sap into maple syrup from last week......and here's what happened when we went for a walk and the oven mitt caught on fire.Good thing we didn't try this INSIDE the house!

ADVENTURES IN CLOTH DIAPERING.

When I call Hannah to check in, she tells me Further has pooped all over her, all over the couch, all over the bed, all over the floor––she's laughing while she tells me this, thankfully––and that she has started taking pictures because she doesn't know what else to do. (Don't worry, we'll spare you those photos). This was our first week cloth diapering and first week trying Elimination Communication. And it was a doozy.For the uninitiated, Elimination Communication, or EC, is a form of potty training. Babies often give clues as to when they're going to pee or poop––wiggling, stiffening up, it's different for every baby. And if you can learn to identify these clues you can habituate your baby to a sound (the hissing sound of peeing, for instance), and they will learn to identify that sound with going to the bathroom. Eventually, they will begin to hold it until you give them a place to go and the trigger sound. The end goal is that your infant will be able to use the toilet (with your help of course) and use less diapers. It makes sense when you really think about it - babies don't want to poop and pee inside their diapers. This is why they wriggle and squirm. But we train them to basically sit in their own waste, and then when they are older, we suddenly try to train them NOT to go in their diapers. Elimination Communication is a natural way of skipping that whole process and letting the baby communicate his needs with you from the beginning.But it's ambitious and it takes a lot of work. We've really only successfully got him to go in his little bucket twice. And once in the bath, but I'm not sure that counts. His favorite thing (besides staring at the ceiling) is to pee as soon as you put the diaper back on, which is lots of fun when you are having to hand wash them all. That is the point of the cloth diapers, though––so that you can tell as soon as he goes, and to encourage you to keep trying EC so as not to have to constantly wash diapers. Even still, it's a challenge.We're staying positive, though. Disposable diapers are just too wasteful for us, and EC just makes too much sense. It's a very old, very tried and true practice and one we're going to try and conquer. By God.- Jesse.