Long Time No Blog

Hello All,

It's been a busy while since I last blogged. The hard frosts have come and the only thing left in the garden as of today is the turnips, carrots, and russet potatoes. All are scheduled to be dug over the next two weeks. The carrots will be processed and the rest will be ushered to our root cellar. When the last potato is out of the ground we can official call it an end to the season and till the garden under for next year. We will fertilize it and till it under a second time before the first snow usual around the first of November.

We were unsuccessful of hunting a moose this year. We were issued a land owner permit for the August hunt, but did not win the lottery for the upcoming October hunt. Because this was a land owner permit we were limited to hunting solely on our own property. The moose however were all a couple miles up the street where they were enjoying our neighbors broccoli crop rather than the potato crops that were planted around our property this year. Our hope is that we will be victorious on getting a deer next month when open season starts to off set some of the costs of both the permits and the cost of meat this winter.

The chickens are getting huge now and are learning to crow. Eggs are appearing in the strangest of places, and they are starting to earn their keep with those eggs. I will not be culling out of the flocks this year as originally planned for a few reasons. First not all the birds are laying yet so they haven't even started to earn money yet. Second the having the thirty of them in the coop together during the winter will help keep the temperature in the coop up so that I may only need to run the one light powered by our tiny decorative windmill. If that can happen it means no extra money on our electric bill to keep the coop warm. Lastly I like to do a lot of rich baking and home cooked meals in the winter. The extra eggs will be a welcome cooking addition for the season.

I started homeschooling my eldest son at the end of August, and that is always a challenge. Motivation is the thing I find the hardest to handle. He's a smart kid, but he'll be as happy do do the minimum as he would be to do his best. Something to work on over the winter I guess.

Everyone is looking forward to our trip to Connecticut in October. We are excited to see family that we haven't seen in almost a year, and just as excited to see our friends who still live there. We are blessed to have our vacation at the same time as some of our out of state friends who are also going to Connecticut on their vacation. So it will be a welcome reunion of sorts with all of us together again for two weeks even though we are all scattered across the country.

In news not related to the farm I noticed that end times, gloom and doom, conspiracy theories and the like have been prevalent in the media lately. I wonder if all of this excitability is solely over the dreaded swine flu or if it's do to an underlying unhappiness with the economy and a feeling of a loss of control with the American public. I can't help but think that if more people had just a little more control over the simple things in life would this fear lesson or even dissipate?

In theory if your worried about where your food comes from you could grow a small garden even in the city and solve that problem. If your worried about energy costs and the stabilization of the energy grid there are now alternatives out there to put you into control. If your worried about the high cost of living, and credit card bills, car payments, ect. ect. then maybe it's time to make a life change and live well below your means to give yourself a break from all this constant worrying and fear. Yes it's harder work, yes it's a sacrifice of convenience in most cases, but panic and stress is bad for your health over the long term, and your health is really the most important thing.

I'm pleased to read that all this panic has caused a resurgence of neotribalism in the country however. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term here's the link from wikipedia that explains the culture for lack of a better term. To me the fact that large groups of people in our country are choosing to change the way they live voluntarily before something forces this life change is invigorating. The bottom line is change we must, because the average American out there today isn't surviving but instead simply existing wondering when the next difficulty will put them over the edge.

I have faith that many people will come to terms with the new reality of life that is surfacing in America. I believe we will all do what is best for ourselves individually, and we will persevere in the shadow of adversity, no matter what happens in this unstable future we're Americans and we can take it.

God Bless.