This blog started out as a way to keep in touch with my friends and family spread out all over the world so I wouldn't feel guilty about not emailing them all as much as I thought I should.
And it still is. While I have made friends through this blog, and I have followers in some far-flung places (hello lone reader in Latvia!), I still think of this as a way to relate to my friends and family what it is that's going on in my life. While I have very clear ideas of how to run my life, I don't about how you should run yours but am always curious! I find people and their ways to be fascinating, so I welcome any comments or email contacts.
You may notice, however, that the theme of the posts have become less scattered and more focused in the past year. My life has become more focused and less scattered, but no less of a mosaic.
Back in September 2010 (and oh how that feels like SO LONG AGO), I posted about why I was doing this whole farmsteading thing. The post is longer and ramblier than this, but here's the meat of the matter (and please bear in mind I wrote this in the fall of 2010):
WHY are you doing this? or Are you nuts? (yes)
*I am NOT interested in commercial farming, but I do want to grow my own food, and am aiming for 90% self-sustainability over the next few years. I don't think that it's necessarily responsible for people to shoot for the moon in terms of 'self-sustainability' - we have the phrase "it takes a village" for a reason. 100% is improbable, impractical, and, for me, impossible. I'm not going to stop eating grains because I don't grow them. Yet a lot of us live in an area where not participating in growing our food - either by doing it ourselves or supporting local farms - is just dumb. When you don't live in an extreme place where growing food takes more energy than it produces, I feel there's no excuse not to at least supplement your diet with homegrown foodstuffs. I feel that it's more important to shoot for an attainable goal and continue that trend as a lifestyle change rather than fail miserably and go on to shopping only at Safeway. I couldn't do this financially in California (love it as I do), and my parents already own 40 acres in North Carolina outright. They are also gracious enough to let me go muck around on it. You do the math.
*Sanctimonious asshats bug me. Yup. While I am forever entertained by people and what they do, I pass no judgment on your lifestyle (unless you're a sanctimonious asshat. In which case you can bite me). You want to eat TV dinners and drive a gas guzzler, fine. I don't. So. Instead of sitting around loudly badmouthing those around me that aren't living their lives the way I think they should, I'm going to go live mine the way I think I should. If someone takes that as an example, great. If no one gives a hoot, great. If someone disagrees with something I do, great. I don't really care. I'm more impressed by and learn from those that are actually doing something, and I want to be a member of that club.
*I had a lot of changes in my life almost 3 years ago now, and I decided then that this was something I was going to move towards. It has been a slow process, but I must say that far away from anything actually coming of it as we may be, I'm mildly surprised we've come this far. Everything I own is in a storage locker in Bellingham, WA. I left my beloved cabin of 8 years. I jettisoned 10 boxes of books (I still have 9. Only one is not filled with cookbooks). I left my beloved town of Point Arena. Every article of clothing I own fits in a Rubbermaid container. My KitchenAid mixer and my juicer are the only appliances I still own. I'm passing on my 2nd computer. I've left my friends behind in CA, my man, and my sisters in the Great White North. I'm hell-bent on giving this as good as a go as possible. I secretly want to get back into food. I secretly want to make cheese. I secretly want to make honey.
Oh look! My Amazon Wishlist!! (No, I do not get referral fees, sadly, as NC residents can't participate... but you can send me the stuff off it. I WILL accept that!)
