Yesterday I was busy putting up the last of the 72 dozen ears of corn that Hubs loves so much. As I stood at the sink scrubbing the silks from each ear, I found myself thinking, nothing new there. I was questioning why I do some of the things that I do each day. When I could easily go to the store and sit in my car and wait for someone to bring out my order and load my trunk. Why would I spend hours shucking, cleaning, scraping and canning corn?
Why would I do half of it? Why wouldn't I take the easier route? Why not just go back to work at a job where I will be taxed to bits only to be taxed on everything I purchase and then taxed again at the end of the year when all government agencies decide they haven't gotten enough of my hard earned dollars?
Why would I spend hours a day taking care of my family? Wasn't it somewhere in the 50's or 60's that they started the marketing campaign about better living through chemicals? Wasn't that supposed to make lives easier? At least that is what the marketing campaign said.
Years ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, shortly after a tick decided I tasted good and shared Lyme disease with me. I remember the anxiety I felt when we went to pick up our medical records a short while later, because we were moving back to Germany and being told they were being stored in the environment hazard area. My mind was completely blown away. I was stunned beyond thought and reason. I was too sick at the time to deeply question it all as I went to a different part of the hospital to gather my records, separate from my families.
For literally years I struggled with life. I lived in pain, my mind was often foggy and my memory was shot. I have so much regret surrounding those times. I can't unwind the clock, I can't go backwards in time, but I can go forward. And in moving forward for the most part I have been healed, oh it's still technically there, but I no longer suffer from it.
Somewhere over the past two decades things started to come together. I learned, I studied, I started to understand a lot of things that I hadn't realized.
Slowly we've removed many extra chemicals from our lives. When you start to read, you start to learn.
Our skin is our largest organ, it absorbs everything we put on it. It took time, I had to learn how to make soap, I'm still working on shampoo (that stuff can give you a headache) but for now I have sourced some that is chemical free. We use very little, if any, commercial topical creams, lotions or medications. It's amazing when you start looking into herbs, natural oils and tinctures the benefits to your entire body. If you haven't looked into castor oil or frankincense for your external needs I strongly suggest those two as an incredible starting point.
When you look at the things you consume you might become a bit more anxious and unsettled. How many people really read the ingredient lists when they are gathering their groceries and snacks?
After learning about the external influences, I might have become hooked on taking a deeper dive into herbal remedies, ya know... the old ways. The things we don't learn in school are far greater than the things we do learn. I can 100% assure you I have never in my adult life ever used algebraic formulas, yet everyday I cook meals for my family, use basic math as I work out our budget, I work in my garden, I sew, I make clothing and household items.
As I am staring down the final year of my 50's, I realize I use very little of what I learned in school. It carries very little value in the real world. Most of it amply prepared me to be a drone in the tax generating wheel, very little of it prepared me for life. Sadly it is worse now. Kids are graduating high school completely unprepared to go out into the world, to have meaningful lives, to be able to explore, dream, develop businesses and think. They are woefully unprepared.
I think back on school, home economics in particular. And I realize that I learned very little of the skill sets I use today in those classes. In the cooking sections I learned how to place an order for the ingredients I would need, I learned how to assemble those ingredients into a meal and the absolute importance of making sure there wasn't a crumb left on the floor after class (my instructor would lose her mind if things weren't meticulous for the next student). Oddly, it never taught me to buy groceries in the real world, to stretch a budget to cover whatever might happen, to put up food so I wasn't reliant on the grocery store. I learned to make noodles from scratch in one class, but never how to dry them for storage. I was never taught to plant a seed to enable me to grow my own food. In fact besides cleaning the floor properly, insuring that I pleased the fussy teacher to get a good grade, using a rolling pin to roll out noodles (and promptly rubbing all the skin off the side of my thumb - super painful FYI), and the incredible field trips in my international cooking class, I remember very little useful information from those classes.
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| one of the recent quilts... I've improved |
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| my newest treasure a 1953 301A - as soon as I tune it up... I will be making a quilt! |
If we bounce into the sewing part of those classes... well I do remember how to lay out a pattern and even follow a pattern. I also learned (on my own) that it's important to look twice at the way it will end up once assembled. That poor stuffed turtle lived forever with his head on upside down. The teacher never even caught it while checking my work. Oh well.
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| for a friends baby... |
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| For my great nephew |
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| Beau approves... a customers quilt |
I also took wood shop as a teen, I still have the shadow box I built it is a cherished possession, that I will probably never part with. Hubs still has the napkin holder he made years earlier. Looking at his vs mine, that decade or so of instruction time difference really shows. His is creatively cut out with wood burned features. Mine was simple, the construction was very basic and lacked the processes that would have made it sturdy and stable for all these decades. I have spent much time over the years putting it back together so that it would last.
Why do I do the things that fill my days? Is it because I am some crazy prepper, no. Although I could see where folks would assume that. Is it because of fear? Maybe to a degree, but not in the way one would assume. I'm not afraid of the future, God has that, I am afraid of the skills being forever lost.
Mostly, it's because I don't believe the world we live in today is sustainable. Not in a sense of we will run out of this or that, not really. Not that I don't believe there will be shortages, I 100% believe there will be. I believe that food, fuels, medications, etc will be in short supply. Because we have been programmed to believe that we need all of the things that we can buy (and be taxed on) as the only way we can survive in this world. Everything must be something someone can make a profit off of, look around, pay attention.
I almost cried this morning, drinking my cup of coffee and scrolling through social media. I came upon one of my canning and sustainability groups, the woman was sharing a video she made that morning. It showed miles of cars waiting to buy food at a fast food restaurant in Houston. Much of the city is still without power after Beryl came through. Miles of cars idling in line waiting for a burger and fries. Her point was that it has been two days and folks are waiting in line for junk food. Her question was far more basic, didn't they have food at home in their fridge or freezer waiting to be cooked and/or consumed? Wasn't it at risk of going bad?
Why? This is one of my major reasons why. I don't want to be in the group that is lost when the things we've been conditioned to accept for our basic needs is no longer able to provide them. I don't want to be the one that cannot provide for my family and loved ones. The one that has no idea how to cook something because all the recipes were online and we've lost power or internet and I'm lost. Or because I don't know how to cook in anyway except with my electric stove (mine isn't electric for the record).
I don't want to be a slave to a broken and failing system. I don't want to be the person begging the government to help me survive, in case you haven't noticed it truly is a form of slavery, and one that has been used forever. Slavery doesn't have to involve physical chains and shackles, mental ones are far stronger and leave less physical proof.
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| a full 20 hours after the storm |
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| the next day... |
At the end of May we were hit with a terrible hail storm. The damage is incredible, and most everyone in our mile or so wide stretch of the storms path are still dealing with the aftermath. Homes are damaged, windows were shattered, cars were beat up (many to the point of being totaled - our daughter had two of theirs totaled), garden's and landscaping destroyed. I will admit that losing most of my garden and landscaping crushed my heart. The rest can be repaired, but to lose those... I was so heartbroken.
It's just over a month later, the physical stuff is slowly being repaired. My garden looks very different than I planned it. This year, I am letting some things go to seed for future gardens, as most of the damaged plants continued to put out seeds and I am delighting in that process. Of the 5 tomato plants 2 survived, barely, and are covered in tiny tomatoes. Thankfully I was behind in planting because of cicadagedon.
Even the flowers were damaged, but are struggling back to life.
The tiny okra, bush cucumber, zucchini, sweet potatoes and acorn squash are thriving despite the damage they decided they were strong enough to weather that storm. So many other plants were destroyed, there are no peas this year and the beautiful lettuce was turned to mush. The Swiss chard had a few tiny bits still living so I left them be, they rewarded me with the best growth ever. The rest of the boxes are now planted with assorted beans to dry and more okra. Every year I say I wish I had been able to plant more of those, yet never do.
When mother nature hands you lemons, you can chose to cry or make lemonade.
I don't want to be one of those that can't think outside the box. This year I have started foraging mullein, I have been using dandelion and I know where to forage massive amounts of elderberry this summer. I have learned so much that was never programmed into us in school. Learning that the things we were programmed to believe were useless weeds and needed to be eradicated aren't useless or weeds at all.
I pray that because I refuse to forget the old ways that I will never been one of those sitting in a car waiting for something to be given to me. I am sharing those skills with my grands, I will share my knowledge and skills with anyone that wants to learn. I want to be friends with people that can teach me new old skills. I want to be a part of that community. I want to spend my days, hours and skills helping those around me that want to help themselves. That want to be a strong enough person to face the storm and come out in one piece. Maybe a bit tired and worn, but strong and self-sufficient.
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| You knew the pups would show up... |
It's time to head to the sewing room. It's been a busy couple of weeks and I am running a bit behind.
Many prayers and much love! And cheers to the keepers of the old ways... you are my tribe!
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