No Farms, No Food

There is a field next to our house that is about 2 acres.  There is also another behind us that is probably 10 or so acres.  The time that we've lived here, it's been hayed. Hay that fed livestock which in turn fed us. 

A bit ago, these stakes showed up.  And our view is going to now have a neighbor right next to us.  We have enjoyed lovely privacy up here on our little hill.  That is now gone. As is the food for the livestock that used to be grown in that field. 

It is a bit of a mystery to me how people expect that we can continue to feed the masses when the farms that make up our local food are being sold to the highest bidder.  Music Man went and talked to the developer that bought it to build the house on the two acres.  The new owner is a transplant from Massachusetts, which is not a popular thing for we native New Hampshirites. I'm sure the $140,000 he paid for those two acres is a bargain where he came from.  But it's not land someone on a smaller budget that has lived in New Hampshire most of their lives that wanted to farm it could have afforded. Not without a house, foundation, well or septic system on it.  No, too expensive indeed.  Little by little what was a farm is being sold off, money seems to be the only objective that matters. 

I'm saddened deeply by this.  Not just because we'll have to give up our beautiful, rejuvenating view, but because that's one more piece of farmland that's now housing.  And because of it's proximity to us, it sure feels a whole lot more personal to this would-be farmer.

Insert resigned sigh, ~Peacemom

Did you know this about your food?

Lately, I've been feeling on overload a bit.  I've been reading so much about local eating, and the problems with our food system in this country.  Well, I have actually been studying this for about 5 years now and the more I learn, the more hopeless it becomes. 

We have so little control over the food that goes into our bodies.  When you want to live beyond the processed grocery store food, which the government in all its wisdom deems "safe" it is a very frustrating and daunting task to many.  The government has decided that the irratiated, chemical laiden cheeseburger from McDonald's or that nutritionally bankruptTwinkie are safe for you, but that raw milk from a cow with all it's beneficial enzymes intact is "dangerous"....well, that scares me.  A lot.

Let's think about this.  There have been many studies done of McDonald's hamburgers that will be put on a shelf for literally years, never touched, and they look exactly the way they did when they were bought.  Or a Twinkie, many, many years after manufacture, looks exactly the same as the day it was pressed into a mold and baked.  This food is dead food or it would break down.  What nourishes our bodies?  Why, here's something that some of you may not have thought about.  Living food does.  Our bodies need living food that will actually break down in order to remove the nutrients from it to nourish your physical form.  Dead food will not break down, and therefore does not feed the all important cells in our bodies.  If you don't feed your body living food (which most processed food is no longer living), then you are not providing your body with what it needs to not only survive, but thrive.  Your immune system depends on these living organisms to create resistance to food germs and fight many illnesses.  If you're only eating "sterilized food" then your body is unable to build up resistance to the germs and illnesses that are searching to seek and destroy. 

I could go on and on about this topic, I really could.  I read so many well researched books and found out how dysfunctional our government is that it's terrifying to me that they can control such a personal choice as what I put into my mouth to nourish my body.  The entire food system of our country is owned by big business, but mostly the one I fear the most is Monsanto.  They are in the forefront of genetically modified food and patenting seeds.  Seeds are life, how can you patent food and life?

 And for the love of God, please don't believe the commercials that show the white bread middle Americans walking through their placid little corn field  and tell you that "corn sugar (what the corn industry is calling high fructose corn syrup these days) is just as safe as sugar, why, your body can't tell the difference!"  I know your liver begs to differ with them! 

I think for me, I feel so aggravated some days by the misinformation and agendas from the big business and corporate greed that drive what happens to our food.  Did you know that the USDA is not allowed to force a recall on tainted food?  They can only recommend it, they aren't allowed to order it.  So if hamburger goes out to 10,000 retailers from some large factory farmed plant and it's tainted with ecoli, some of which very possibly could kill people (or hey, spinach that has used that "fertilizer" from that factory farm and spread that ecoli to spinach), the USDA is only allowed to say to the company, we recommend a recall.  Then, the company is allowed to do whatever it wants from there.  How many times have they ignored the recommendation because recalling thousands of pounds of tainted meat would be too costly?  Anyone seeing the problem here but me?  The stories I have seen and the research I have read would scare the hell out of the average American.  Or maybe it wouldn't, I don't know, but it sure scares the hell out of me.

I'm eternally thankful that I have fresh, local food available to me to feed my family.  I'm very grateful for the farms that raise that food and fight the fights they need to to keep that option alive for me.  However if the government and big business have their way, I will no longer be able to purchase that food.  In fact, believe it or not, I would not even be able to consume the food I've grown myself for my own consumption.  Oh, this is no joke, folks.  Legislation like this tries to sneak through at every turn.  And you can say what you will about NH, but this is one time I'm truly thankful for our motto, "Live Free or Die"...I just hope it doesn't actually come to that. 

Trying to find my way through the food industry minefield, ~Peacemom 

Heirloom Salsa

Oh yah Baby!  This is the stuff!  Salsa from the garden, most delicious...just in case you wanted to try your own, here's my recipe:

3 large tomatoes (I used Gold Brandywine, Beefsteak, and a few Juliettes)
1/2 med onion
1 Jalapeno pepper, seeds and rib removed (if you prefer HOT salsa, leave them in, I'm a mild kind of girl myself)
Fresh Parsley (to taste, everyone's different, and it you like cilantro, well by all means throw that in too)
small amount of salt (to taste again, perhaps you don't need salt, but I like a little bit)
squeeze of lime juice from 1/2 lime

Chop, mix, enjoy!  We ate it with multigrain tortilla chips, then had the inspiration for chicken, cheddar, bean & salsa quesadillas.  I'm telling you, nothing oh nothing you can buy in a store tastes as good as this fresh from the vine salsa. 

Happy taste buds to you, ~Peacemom

Making My Way

We're beginning to see the first glimpses of that wonderful promise of approaching autumn.  The days are warm, the nights are cool and when I wake up in the morning, I've needed a blanket or two the night before.  This is probably my second favorite time of year, when the days are still warm enough to enjoy swimming at the beach, but the nights are cool enough for a sweater...lovely!

I got to thinking this morning as I pulled out one of my many autumn inspired cookbooks, that I needed to add to my homesteading skills.  To be a homesteader...someday.  But, what I came to realize is that to some extent, I'm already there.  I'm getting ahead of myself a bit though, let me back this up so I can explain.

See, I guess my homesteading skills really began when I was a child.  I was the last of three and that being the case, I think my parents were more confident in their parenting skills enough to let me sorta figure a lot of things out for myself.  Or, perhaps they were just tired of explaining everything by the time it came to my turn, either way, it worked out pretty well for me on some levels.  I've always been a very independent person, even as a child, I don't think I was clingy or needy.  Quite young, I learned to make things happen for myself and not wait around for someone else to do it for me.  That's a skill that is completely invaluable for any person.  One we're trying so hard to teach our youngest who will just whine and complain until someone gets sick of it enough to do whatever it is for him.  But, that's a whole 'nother blog topic for another day. 

I was able to figure out how to ride horses when there was no money to buy or board one.  I swapped labor for meager riding time until I was graced by a friend to ride her pony she had outgrown.  Then, it moved on from there and when I outgrew that pony, another horse presented itself for my care, then when that one left, another, until I was able to free lease a horse of my "own".  I had Dixie for 2  years and it was the best two years of my childhood.  And, honestly, with the grace of God and a whole lot of sweat and tears on my part, I learned an amazing amount about how hard work and perseverance really pays off.  I was a very hard working child, I don't think anyone can dispute that.

My parents also believed that we were to work around the house.  No free rides in our home, for sure.  My parents both worked full time and that being the case, we girls were left with a hearty set of chores that needed doing.  I learned to cook and clean and wash clothes and dishes at a young age. Of course, at the time, I hated every minute of it (well, except for the cooking part), but those were skills that were invaluable to me as an adult and mother to my own two miscreants. As an early teenager, my father taught me to chop wood, and stack it, effectively, so it wouldn't fall over under a snow load.   Pretty funny now that I don't know how he learned that skill.  He grew up in the south and didn't need to know how to chop wood...I'm gonna have to ask him that.  But in any case, when it came time for Music Man and I to buy our first house (which heated primarily with wood from our own land), it was another invaluable skill.  Since Music Man had never needed to chop wood outside of a few camping trips with his buddies, he didn't know how to do that.  Guess who had the skills to teach him?  You guessed it, moi.  And he wasn't too proud to ask all the right questions and then run with the newly learned skill.  And now, he can wield a chainsaw like nobody's business, and I only taught him how to chop!  There is deep intrinsic value in being able to heat your home when you need to, having the skills beyond how to turn up the thermostat. 

I also believe that I got the homesteading bug early.  My parents went through a "back to the land" thing in the 70's.  I remember books in our home that included building a house into the side of a hill (I found that interesting even then and would look at those books a lot), as well as Mother Earth News subscriptions.  Yep, I guess they had some hippie gene in them somehow since they sold our house, renovated a bus into a camper of sorts and took us on the trip of a lifetime up the east coast for 3 months to decide where they wanted to settle next.  As an adult, I realize how daring that was, but then it just seemed exciting.  We visited people they "met" through placing an ad in Mother Earth News and we met some interesting and great people along our travel.  Once we flipped a coin (and I do mean literally, it was between Kentucky and NH and the nickel came up NH), we settled into a life that I don't think became as self sufficient as they wanted, but was interesting just the same. 

Now, I've taken those skills and residual inclinations and formed a life uncommon, I do believe.  Though we have many modern conveniences, and I don't shun them when I need them, cause I love my laptop and my washing machine, I also have skills that are from generations before me.  I can split and stack cords of wood (with an axe mind you, not a splitter), I am able to can tomatoes and a host of other fruits, I can pickle peppers (hehehe, but really, I'm able) and cukes and make jams and jellies.  Preserving food is a huge part of homesteading, in my opinion.  In my childhood of making money to support my horse, I learned how to muck a stall, collect the eggs and get goats and sheep back into the pen that are wandering in the neighbor's garden.  I can cook just about anything I want to, including complicated dishes and simple fare.  I don't believe in chicken nuggets from a box or a Mcwhatever...I make my own from fresh chicken and breadcrumbs and eggs laid fresh that morning, and my kids gobble them up.  I know how to start a fire, even when the wood isn't always perfectly dry, I can sew quilts, clothes, curtains, whatever I need for my home.  I have figured out how to grow a respectibly successful garden.  I can bake bread.  I know to save up water in left over juice bottles because when the power goes out (and it will my friends, it's winter in New England), we have no pump.  Still need water even without a well pump, so better start saving up beforehand.  Running to the grocery store to empty water shelves after everyone beat you to it just doesn't do.  I know to keep candles and lanterns handy, as well as the hand crank weather radio and flashlights for those times as well.  I can read the position of the sun to know what time of day and year it is.  And the list goes on.  But, you get my drift.

I decided today that even though I don't have the chickens yet (we hope they are coming in the spring) or the big garden (ditto on the garden), I do have many of the skills I need to call myself a homesteader.  We don't have the barn, or the acreage, or the animals, but I have the skills to know what to do with them once we do have them, and for that I am thankful and perhaps a little proud.  Most of these skills I taught myself and have been able to pass on to others (I'm teaching my dear friend how to can tomato sauce next weekend and have taught a couple of my nieces to sew...and well, my kids are getting the benefit of it all.  They are already pretty good cooks in their own rights). 

I decided to stop thinking about the homestead in the future and just allow that I'm already a homesteader...with skills yet to learn.

Wishing you some self-sufficiency of your own, ~Peacemom

Purpose

There have been a growing number of days, since moving to this rental home last July, that I'm feeling a big lack of purpose. When we own a home, we always have this project or that project to tackle, or this needing fixing or that. Here, we pay the rent, and there is no motivation to fix up anything as it's not ours. We know it's not ours and are not willing to put any money into making it better because our landlord will not do this for his own house. Things need fixing here, don't get me wrong. When we see something we'd like to improve, like all the planting beds around the house needing new timbers, or the bushes in the front bed that are 3/4 dead and need to be replaced, or the 1950's linoleum in the kitchen that looks dirty no matter how much you scrub it, or just making the second bathroom a size so that it could be used as a second bathroom instead of a closet with a toilet in it, or making the basement waterproof....oh, the list goes on and on. But, it's not ours, and our money is sparse for our own lives and so spending it to fix up a home that's not ours is not financially prudent.


The lack of purpose is many fold. I deeply miss my garden, which gave me a little glimpse into the homesteader I wish I could be. I miss planting, weeding, dirty fingernails and the cracks in my skin that I could never quite get clean no matter how much I scrubbed...soil. I miss soil. I tried with my pots, and they are coming along nicely, but they really need no care beyond watering from time to time. It's tough for me to feel a sense of nurturing when I'm not squatting between rows, picking this weed out or watching bees go about their work to pollinate the flowers and herbs and veggies alike. The sense of purpose that goes along with gardening can't be replaced by pots. Not for me. I know it works for some folks, but for me, I crave the full garden monty. I need to use a hoe in my garden, I need sweat equity in the veggies, I need to stand tall in a bed of taller trellises and feel my true place. I did not know this was not optional for me until I rented a home again.

So, apparently, I am not a person of non action. I've had almost a whole year of not progressing in a bunch of areas of my life, and it's time to change that for me. I've got to get back to purpose, and feeling as if I've accomplished something beyond keeping the house semi-clean and feeding everyone every day. I'm beginning to lose part of me that I cling to with iron fists. The person who has become a doer, not an observer. I'm not a good observer when it comes to certain areas of my life, I never have been. I see a problem, and I want to face it head on. I do not have a mentality of waiting or watching, in fact it's terribly hard for me to do sometimes. I said to a dear friend of mine recently with her problems, the only way out is through. That's been my philosophy for the better part of my adult life. Having had some earth shattering things happen to/for/against me in my adulthood, if there's one thing I've learned it's that avoiding a problem meerly makes it larger then life. So, this problem of lack of purpose and its driving need to be noticed is causing some changes. Though I did not arrive at these changes on my own, my entire family has recognized and agreed it's time (well, at least Music Man and I, the kids are luckily at the age where they don't really care either way).

We will be moving again on August 1. Readers of this blog know that we spent almost 3 solid months with our basement under water this spring. Yes, it was a very unusually wet spring, but our hunch is that this is not the first go around for this problem in this house. It caused mold problems that forced our children on allergy medications, aggravation and loss of property ( Music Man's for the most part since that was his domain). All of this coupled with the fact that we get no meeting of the minds with our landlord about how this will go forward, is leading to this big change. He wants us to commit to another year here by signing another lease, we won't do it because none of us wants to have to deal with another spring like the last one, and he won't allow us to go month to month in case we need to move. So, we're done here.

Our friends that own the CSA where we get our milk, eggs, chicken and pork purchased a foreclosed house this past spring. They bought it for her parents, who are not yet ready to retire here for a couple of years. So, we are going to rent it from them for a very reasonable price at least the next two years. Since we think the world of these folks, and we think they're kinda fond of us as well, it should work out great. This house needs us, it's been vacant for about a year and has some problems. But, they renovated the main floor wonderfully and are working on issues with the basement. The outside is 2 acres of overgrown everything. Grass, landscaping, field, you name it, it needs loving. I am able to have as large of a garden there as I would like (can you hear my happy heart singing all the way to your computer??) and chickens (oh, ditto, see previous happy heart song). That's two steps closer to homesteader then I have here. We probably won't get the garden in this year, but I'll manage to put in some sugar snaps and snow peas for a fall crop and also some spinach and lettuce and carrots. I'll put some of those in for sure. And this property (which is 2 acres next to a huge hay field) has a few fruit trees, so applesauce, here I come! And it has lots of projects that need attention, mostly outside, and that's where we all prefer to spend our time, so it's gonna be...really good. I'm smelling the wonderful sense of PURPOSE...can you smell it too?

Our little family is on to our next adventure. We're really hoping that by the time we're done living there, we will have the condo ball and chain sold, Music Man will be done (or almost done) school and have a job and we will be able to purchase our next place that will be our forever home. Where all we do is for the benefit of our home where we intend to stay until we're too old to care any more. Wish us luck, fun and purpose.

Imaging soil in my hands and chicken clucking serenades, ~Peacemom