By Ginny Sophomore
Enough is enough with this life of mine in the city. I’m going visiting my grandma in the country where she holds forth, holds fort in the Midwest. A place where women love to serve their families.
You ever heard of that before? I’m sure not. But, it’s in the scriptures and it’s in the heads of every homesteading woman who loves to cook real meals for her family “from scratch”, is what they call it in city dwelling. These women are strong as hell. Yes, I used it. I’m not perfect. They are happy to tend the animals in the barn and care for and gather from the garden as they care for their children and husband.
My grandma taught me all of that and you know what, some day I hope to be one of them. A homesteading woman I shall be in to my later years when I find a real man who will love being her husband.
So off I go in my rented jalopy to the wilds. Oops, I mean civilisation. The ride is quite rugged as I detour through short cuts to get to this ravishing domain. It’s full of trees and muddy puddles in this time of year but what can I say, it suits me well as I put myself to the test.
Yes, I’ve got what it takes to milk the goats 🐐 and feed the lambs with bottles as grandma taught me well. Life is always springing up surprises on you in this glorious place sometimes in not so glorious ways.
Just yesterday grandma found the persistent snake had stolen her duck 🦆 egg 🥚again, destroying the rest of them in the process of devouring one to her heart’s content. She has got to do something about it. May be build up the duck house above the ground on stilts.
So there goes one sad episode, homesteading. Last summer she had lost the lambs to predators for having let them out to grace with the parents in the fields.
You learn something new every day in the life of a homesteader. And just when you thought you got it all up and running there goes your big rooster 🐔 with an attack of two bumble foot infections which needs bandaging everyday until it gets well. I find out through a quick web search that we need to install rubber stall mats in the chicken coop.
Need I say, mosquitoes come in their hoards and then there are the flies and the never ending weeding to be done.
I’m also here to spend time with Ed her farm hand who knows how to please a girl in the barn area. Lol 😂 😆 😝 I’m smitten. What I mean is, he excels in teaching her everything there is to learn about animal husbandry.
The livestock and poultry had to be fed by day and before tucking them in at night. The waterers and feed bowls had to be filled to be ready by morning. Then the hay feeders are topped off, the eggs are collected and the nesting boxes are freshened. Ed goes back home for the day.
Ed taught you why a simple homemade life was good for you. It was the complete non existence of stress. It was hard work with absolutely no stress involved. How great is that. There is nothing greater than serving your family. It’s about having a servant’s heart. Believe me this serves your family and yourself the better for it..
He was great at taking care of the animals while I would learn how to can food and make other preserved material specialities from grandma. The older I get the better I find myself, at home making skills, and realise the joy in doing all of it. Between the two of them they could turn an entire country into a homesteading venture. That would serve us well now won’t it.
Grandma is up by the crack of dawn, puts on her apron to bake bread and have the eggs ready for breakfast. That’s yet another skill I learned from my dear grandma – bread making – my grandma who was half Dutch, btw. So I was like one sixteenth Dutch? Lol 😂 This not being the only reason she inherited her Dutch oven. Hmm➰〰️➿the aroma of freshly baking bread and the milk boiling away in that pan!
Whatever work she had, grandma proceeded to make sure we had enough clothes for the winter by stitching and darning all of the tares we got from foraging and homesteading. It’s about frugality. I love the woods and I love foraging for wine berries that grow in abundance by the edge of our land that spilled over in to the woods.
It definitely is a gender thing this home making. Women are made with different character traits from men. Men have their own traits. They recompense for each other. Our cup runneth over with abundance of fulfilling each other’s needs.
Canning these berries made in to jams or just as they were was a special skill known by the few. Soon to be learned by the many, hopefully. This was necessary not only to have the table full but also to save all that providence showered on us from going to waste. To preserve not only the bounties from nature but also to preserve the bounties of nature. For we are blessed with both cash or rather in crop and kind. In this case kind being kindliness and love.
Your love for your home and everything in it, your unconditional love for it all including for your immediate family and that of the homestead must reflect on your greater unconditional love for your Country and on to all that exists on this planet.
I have to get offline now.
