I should be an expert at juggling, at this moment in time! If you follow my social media, you will have been inundated, over the weekend, with my day of errands Saturday, and a couple of Sunday projects. I want to share some thoughts, stories about life on our farm/homestead, things I believe may help some and if possible, some research from my now 3 year dive.
Whenever I write, I try to let my thoughts lead the way. I allow intuition, discernment and priority set its own course. Today, my thoughts started with distraction. We are so terribly distracted all the time. Many of us don't realize how much so, until we are forced to slow down. For someone, that has thoughts racing 24/7, being forced to slow down is a major undertaking! Saturday, while I was out, I spoke to a very kind lady. This lady is educated, worked her job, helping out over the weekend, and she was also concerned about the cost of products, food shortages, and product shortages. While I was happy to see someone taking initiative to be prepared, I was caught off guard at the narrowed view beyond that. I will touch on this more later, but one thing she said was the amount of distractions society has is insurmountable. This seemed an odd statement after her view outside of preparing. Distractions are being thrown at us left, right and center. If you think about it, the distractions are everything from: sports, award shows, sports drafts, the "war" overseas, which celebrity has the best dress/worst dating story/or this asinine trial, even our kids are being inundated with television, video games, school & homework, and youth sports. What are we being distracted from? EVERYTHING! Our continuously rising national debt, our shrinking GDP, the fact that our government is sending Billions of dollars or tax payer money all around the world, while not helping the American people. We are being told to look over here, not over there. We are distracted from paying attention to our families by technologies, by having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, by the constant baiting of one American against another, and a million other distractions. When is the last time you sat down at a dinner table, with your family - NO TECHNOLOGY ALLOWED? I'm talking no cell phones or television? When is the last time you turned off all technology, and took your kids to a park or even just outdoors and played a game of soccer/football/some form of physical game? It has become so easy to just turn to some distraction to drown out whatever we don't want to deal with. I'm guilty to some degree myself. When is the last time you told your kids, no technology until they complete their chores? Do your kids even have chores? When is the last time you actually taught your children something useful? I'm talking how to cook, make a bed, do dishes, do laundry, clean a bathroom, mow the yard, plant something?
Sadly, most people alive today, have had life relatively easy, in respect to having what we need at our fingertips. Most of us haven't had to bundle up to trek out to an outhouse in the dead of winter. Most of us haven't had to go to school then come home to help pick cotton/corn/soy beans/etc.. Most of us, have never lived in a house without running water. Can you imagine having to cart a pail to handled pump, in the dead of winter, just to heat it on the stove so you could bathe? What about electricity? Do you or your children even realize how much is run from electricity? So many us raising kids today, have heard how tough kids have it. I'm calling bullshit! Because so many of us have grown up with everything being "easy," many wouldn't know hard work if it bit them in the ass! Instead of teaching our children to be good stewards, we have taught them to be weak. "Hard times produce tough people, easy times produce weak people." We are here people. We've grown accustomed to having everything at our fingertips, and not having to really work for what we need. Here is another quick thought...we have neglected to keep wants/needs in alignment. Sure, we have to have jobs. I'm not discounting that, it does require money to survive today. What I'm saying is that we need: food, water, a roof over our heads, etc. We do not need the latest iPhone, a new car every 4 years, the latest computer or whatever our neighbor has but a little better.
This entire year-to-date, it has weighed heavily on my heart to do my best to teach people how to prepare, to talk(sometimes feeling like it falls on deaf ears) about the research I have done, to actually be prepared for what seems to be a certain rocky patch in American History. This has opened the door to some very hateful and unnecessary emails and conversations. I, like many others, have seen this stage set for a long period of time. Many of us have been working for decades to learn, grow and be ready for any instability that may confront us. We have taken tongue lashings, and been name called so many things. Generally, the behavior has been like dealing with a lot of grade school children. Anywho, this stuff has weighed on me. I listen to my intuition, and when something is this heavy...it means I'm supposed to do something about it. I'm only one person, who has a serious dislike of being in any spotlight. So, I do I maneuver this? I'm writing, I'm using some new videos without showing my face, I'm sharing small thoughts on social media. I'm talking to whoever will listen. I don't know if you'd call it God guiding me, the Universe, the powers that be...whatever you call it...I'm being pushed by something much larger than myself.
With all that said, I've been "teaching" for the better part of 12 years now. Really, I'm learning beside my kids. I don't do school at home. I home school. That means, our education changes. It means we spend as much time as possible on everything we study. We have days when a subject will come up, that requires research...not just on the kid's part, but also on mine. It means we may be doing one subject in a 6th grade level, and may have one at the 9th grade level, another at 12th grade level, and so forth. We are not learning in a generalized academic way. If my child decides to learn or take interest in a subject not planned, that means together we dive into learning, researching, bouncing ideas off each other, and so forth. Every single day is different. We may use baking, one day, as a means to learn fractions. We may use gardening, one day, to learn what soil type works best for which plants. We may use photography, one day, to slow down and actually see something small - and identify whether it's a plant, insect, tree, whatever...then learn about whatever it is we've found. While we have a strict amount of hours we work on every single month, we do not adhere to a strict schedule like a public school. I can teach the love of learning, not memorizing, in a way that guides them to learn all their lives....instead of hating school. It's not my job to instill in their heads what I think, feel or believe. It's their job to learn to think critically, research and make educated decisions, and to find their own path that takes them further than I have made it. I also will not force anything marginal on my kids. I firmly believe in a higher power, whether you call the God, Universe, whatever...we are all talking about the same thing with different descriptions. The Grand Creator, can hear my prayer whether I sit in a brick & mortar building, if I'm in the garden, when I bow my head before bed, or I'm having a conversation with him in the woods. God is within all of us. So get to know yourself, and you will get to know God.
As you know, from my unsupervised adventures over the weekend, I found some truly interesting things. I heard about a $1 section at Dollar General stores. This is true in my area. I found it, and was truly excited. There were actually $1 deals throughout the entire store, if you actually looked for them. I did a lot of ingredient list comparing on the generic labels to the name brand labels...folks, they have the exact same list. Just different names! There were known name labels in the dollar sections, but there were also generics. I realized quickly, some of the local stores, were not raising their prices as quickly as the box stores. The local stores are attempting to cut their own profit margins to keep down the price increases as long as possible. Yet another reason to shop local! While the meat supplies over the weekend were thin, it is still there - albeit substantially higher, it was there. Everything else was available too. Now, before some jump up saying, "see, I told you there was no shortage," let me remind you, a majority of all our products now, come from China. That means they are brought in on these container ships. That means, since China has 2 major ports shut down, those containers are not being loading and heading to American ports. China has shuttered many of its production facilities due to CV19, that means products are not being made, so there will be nothing to load onto those ships anyway. What we currently have on shelves, in warehouses, and in containers waiting to be unloaded, is all she wrote! Now, on this same line of thinking, diesel fuel has increased massively. Once those containers are unloaded in our ports, who is going to transport that product? To break this down, trains AND trucks, run off of diesel fuel. 2 years ago, diesel fuel was under $2 a gallon. Now, it's pushing $5 a gallon. What do you think that fuel charge is going to do to our product costs? It's going to increase everything even higher than it's already gone. So, even if there are still products on the shelves, the increase in cost is fixing to get higher and higher until that can of soup that's $1 now...could be $5 in less than 3 months. Would you rather buy it for a buck now, or wait to see if there is truly a shortage or the cost increase is 5 fold? To me, logic says, buy it now for a buck, and if there isn't a major shortage, you can share with someone that may need it when they can't buy it.
As I said in one video Saturday, living in middle of rural America, changes how you think. We have never lost sight of God, Family and Country. We spend 6 months of every year, preparing for the next 6 months. Not always because we think there is some impending disaster coming, but any major storm could take out our needs for extended periods of time. This is how we live normally. You never have less supply of needs, than a few months. You always have candles, gallons of water, food(sometimes just because you end up with unexpected company!), first aid supplies, veterinary supplies, livestock feed, etc. You always have a Plan A, B, C, etc. Typically, you get to about Plan X before you can take a breather! In my household, I meal plan. I plan for a month to 6 weeks of meals. We usually have a few backups in case life gets chaotic, and we end up eating at 9:30. Typically, though, meal plans are made, the grocery list reflects those plans. Once in a while, you will find a sale that requires an unplanned purchase, but typically...my list is all that's bought. Now, I know a lot of people that live in town, and shop only as needed. That may work, but what happens when those shelves are empty? Or, like I said, that $1 can of soup is now $5? I worry about those I care about, and many others, but I don't know what it will take for people to want to be prepared and save themselves some money and frustration now instead of later. I've been told to just quit trying. I've been told that if people don't want to listen they will just have deal with it. You know, the survival of the fittest?! I can't do that! That is not who I am! Even if it means more nasty messages or rude conversations. Maybe just planting a seed, will help a single person to break out of the matrix long enough to think about it.
It's finally reached gardening season in my neck of the woods. I truly couldn't be happier! That garden, if it could talk, would have so many stories to tell! That is my connection to Earth, that is my time of prayer and talking with God. The bonus, is getting so many beautiful and tasteful fruits and vegetables. It's seeing my hard work come to fruition. It's reaping what I sow. It's feeling that beautiful dirt on my hands, it's seeing the first sprouts, it's watching a bloom turn into a vegetable/fruit, and most of all, it's knowing that my efforts out there, help to feed my family. My efforts out there, nurture mind, body AND spirit. This year, I decided to expand the garden once again. We had scrunched it up for a few years, as I was having issue working and keeping up with it. Now, it's bigger, and may end up growing some more with the directions the economy is going. Either way, our big tiller rolled craps this year. It was antique, and was on it's second motor, and many repairs....it was tired of being a tiller. So, we are going to have to borrow one, since that expense is NOT in my budget for this year. I've had several people tell me it's easier and cheaper to buy their food at a store, "like normal people." I'm sorry, but I truly laugh at this statement. It probably is "easier" and it may be "cheaper"(not so much now!), but let me tell you....there is NOTHING that comes out of a store that tastes better, than home grown food. Not only that, the pride in those of us that are working our tails off everyday from the start of garden planning to stacking those home preserved foods, is nothing short of galactic! Yes, we are proud of ourselves for fighting through weeds, late frosts/snow falls, seeds that don't germinate, wildlife that takes off with seeds and sprouts, more weeds, too much or not enough rain, too little sunlight, too cool of temps, trying new species of seeds; ALL before even getting a single thing out of the garden. So, when the millions of us still homesteading, brag about our gardens or produce....just give us a little credit. We may not row crop thousands of acres or have hundreds of head of livestock...but we still bust our ass, just the same; because we can not absorb losses. When we lose, we lose big time. However, when we gain big, so do our neighbors and communities! We share that produce!
Moving on, I could talk about that all day long! We have finally come to the end of our lambing season. The last step is gelling the lambs, to make the farm payment. Then we begin making next round of preparations. Ram goes into the second set of ewes, temporary fencing goes up for the paddock pasturing, winter pens get cleaned up and manure gets spread on hay/pasture, cleaning and repair fence rows from deer/field run off, and sometimes vandals. Keeping check on fences is a daily chore. Then we get into mowing, raking and baling hay. That is all planned around Mother Nature. You have to have a minimum of 3 good days in a row. That can be a challenge in our area when the 1st cutting is ready. It's been a wet year, this year, so far. Even getting manure/fertilizer on the hay and pasture is proving to be a challenge so far. We have been taken out of the drought map, which is good, but it's also getting late enough now that crops are going to be late in and in turn late out. It's meaning a chance of hay going to head and not having any nutritional value if it can't get the sun and dry out it needs. It could mean higher overall cost per bale due to the increased diesel, net wrap, and especially if a break down occurs if you can get the parts or the cost of them if you can. It's making plans for back up feed, hay, mineral, etc. if you can't produce enough of your own.
I guess, for me, so much of the chaos in our world right now, seems it could be avoidable. The hardest part means that everyone would have to work. I'm not talking just your job. We all know having a job is necessary. I'm talking about the extra work, that will help you in the long run. I'm not talking just right now. I'm talking about learning a skill that could help you to help yourself if all hell breaks loose. I'm talking learning how to garden, how to preserve foods, how to stock up just in case the costs rise astronomically or if the shelves are bare. I'm talking about having something you could trade for something you need. I'm talking supporting your local communities instead of box stores, online stores. I'm talking about helping your neighbors, family, friends. For so many years, young people were pushed towards college, and away from trades. Now, we have a bunch educated young people, that don't have any real life skills. They know what they went to college for, they know they are in school debt for the next 25 years, they can play video games and do anything on a computer....BUT they can't grow their own food, they can't afford a homestead, they don't understand how credit works, many of them can't cook/sew, many of them can't even change their own oil or tires. They can tell you the acidity of the soil, the price/cost comparison of what seed/fertilizer but don't realize that the overall cost of the product. They can't make change, y'all!!! There is one thing that irritates me to no end. Have you gone into a business and watched this? If it weren't for the computer screen, they'd never be able to give you the correct change...let alone, actually count it back to you! It's so sad! Simple, real-life education is being omitted from the lives of our children.
Life is such a balancing act. I hope to get some videos made of the happenings here at our farm. If you disagree, that's fine! Just ignore them. Honestly, at this point, I don't have time to deal negativity. Nor do I the desire to go to battle with anyone not paying attention. There is an awful lot of happenings in our world right now, most of them are pretty bad. I have made the choice to make sure my family is prepared for whatever may come. If we are over prepared, then so be it, and my prayers have been answered. However, if the indications come to light...at least I know we will be ok. I pray you all will be as well.
God Bless!
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