Running

I had the most wonderful dream last night... no not that! It was better than that ;D ...LOL. In my dream I was running and it was so beautiful, so free and graceful. I felt so powerful, like I could go forever, sigh. In real life my extra 50lbs are weighing on me very heavily, my joints hurt and I walk funny for a few steps after getting up. I have been working out 5 days a week for the past week and a half, lifting weights too and my whole body aches in places I'd forgotten I have ! I believe one of my legs is shorter than the other-when I walk on the treadmill I make the most horrible racket; step, CLOMP, step, CLOMP... I have to turn up the ipod or I can't stand it. It's hell getting old. My running days are behind me so I choose to believe the dream is a vision from the future-a metaphor for my life rather than a lament for what used to be. Happy Halloween. K

Bread not Weapons

I DID IT!
Finally, my bread turned out. Okay so
I am using a bread maker but I was
turning out these incredibly dense 2 lb blocks of bread and I couldn't figure it out-checked water temp, added vital gluten. My children were eating it and pretending they liked it. My dear and horribly funny husband remarked that it was bread like this that won wars because it provided sustanance in addition to being used as a weapon! It was the yeast-dead, dead, dead. Another small victory!

Sorry squirrels, sorry worm bin -no more bread for you!

Wednesday Mornings

The bread is baking, the kids are on the bus, 4 hours before I need to go to work; I love Wednesdays! I will do what I have to do first (groceries and errands) then what I want to do (workout and woodwork). I tried to make 'witch fingers' for daughters Halloween party at school--who would have thought that a recipe made with so much butter would just spread into huge blobs ;/ Now I know! So I improvised and cut strips out of the blobs and viola! Fingers! Sigh I'll just buy candy next time (not). Tomorow the whole family is off and we will rake leaves to bag them up for dad at Arkworks Farm. He will use them for chicken bedding or to mulch the carrots still in the ground. K

Homecooked

As I am typing I can smell the chicken roasting in the oven. It is a whole chicken with the body cavity stuffed with a cut-up lemon, garlic cloves and fresh rosemary. The skin overlying the breast was loosened and a mix of rosemary, salt and olive oil rubbed on the breast meat. The smell is AMAZING. It is even more amazing that this is a chicken who was raised by a family member (dad) not more than 30 miles from here. The meat birds are a commercial Cornish cross. I am increasingly having a hard time with grocery shopping and feeding my family. A summer of eating fresh stuff and reading the Omnivores Dilema has left me disgusted with our current food supply but not in a place to do alot about it. Now wait-- that's not true! I may not be able to grow our family's own food but there are still alot of things I can change. We will further reduce our fast food stops. I will continue to bake our bread. I will shop at local bulk foods and 'natural foods' stores. I will order that grass finished beef that I have been procrastinating about. Meals can be planned to use all leftovers and frozen veggies from the summer. (I have not learned to can yet) There are many small steps to take in this journey. K

The longest journey begins with a single step.

Patience

We have been searching for land to build our new life. It has been an eye-opening process. We started by looking at homes/farms with acreage, but realized that these homes really were no different from our older ranch home in town- if the power went out for more than a day we would be really screwed! Non-reliance on fossil fuels and the power grid is important to us...so we will need to build our own!

So now we are looking at just land, but where? We have drawn a mental circle around our current jobs; approx 30 minutes commute. Which school district? The girls are both in a really great elementary school program and I would love for them to stay. However, land within the district is becoming very expensive and it is really not a farm community. I feel like we would not have enough mental distance from our current lives. It just feels too close. I am also not crazy about the large number of kids in this school. The graduating class will be close to 500 kids. So now we are looking at more outlying areas. I have compared school graduation rates, ACT scores, etc and visited the school in the area we like. Again it just felt right.

We have found a piece of property which fits our needs and wants and is affordable. Wow. Now is the hard part, waiting. There are some right of way issues and we need some co-operation from a neighboring landowner before we can put in an offer. So now it is out of my hands. I have to wait for the town board. Winter is closing in around us and I really need to have something tangible to feed my homesteading dreams. I will have faith and know that it is beyond my control (and develop a back-up plan!). K