Before we moved, all I read were the benefits.
Family together, loving, working, earning.
Create beauty.
Color, smell, sound, feel, taste … LIFE!
And.
Avoid extracurriculars. Avoid electronic brain vacuums.
All those single homesteaders made me wonder, though.
Three years (in a few days).
A string of dead animals.
Orange slick clay, now burnt siena. No longer shiny.
Grasses grow. Some orchard trees.
A pump house (siding falling).
Partial skeleton of a metal building. (Good foundation.)
A tractor, a chipper, a trailer.
Two construction trailers, an RV, a metal barn.
A little greenhouse, not air tight.
A big greenhouse. Well, at least the metal.
Blood (but not too much).
Sweat. Gallons from Phil. Pints from me. Drops from sons.
Tears (all mine, I think).
A list of failed enterprises.
Broilers. (Heat stroke. Dog attack. Heat stroke. Dog attack.)
Pigs. (Who wants to pay extra for soy-free feed? Oh, and the freezer broke.)
Eggs. (Foxes. Hatchery-spread disease stops all laying.)
Sheep. (If they don’t die at birth, they die in infancy.)
Market garden. (Poor soil. Pooped out. Bugs. Weeds!)
Berries. (A thousand raspberry plants with no berries.)
A list of hope.
Garlic. (Apparently “marginal” soil doesn’t produce well. So we’ll improve it.)
Milk. (Cow dies. Calf dies. Don’t conceive. Don’t produce. Don’t despair. Plant comfrey. Feed minerals. Keep trying.)
Fruit. (Find the right apples. Graft the right apples. Enjoy the colors, the look.)
Rich in character, in friends, in the presence of God, in companionable marriage.
Rich in stories (not all of them good.)
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