Back "Home" ....to stay..... |
| Home Sweet Home! |
Summer bathing!
| Snippets of Our Life |
Guests for Breakfast!
| Moving to 87,000 ac. Ranch in MT! ...and a days work.. |
| This was our Life replicating 100 years ago (sort of) |
Our eyes met across the loud and crowded room in a Cowboy bar. It was love at first sight! (There really is such a thing!) I hated to dance but he
convinced me I should try..........and WOW...I never knew dancing could be so easy and so enjoyable. Of course with his long, bowed, cowboy legs
naturally gliding into the swing, the two step, the waltz... across the dance floor as if he owned it, it was so easy to meld into the arms and rhythm of this
cowboy and we became 'one' on the dance floor................and have continued dancing, as one, through life!
We were young, in love, energetic and broke! Cowboys, back then, didn't make oodles of money, actually, barely enough to eek by as one, let alone as a
couple, or as a family! (Today, real Cowboys still don't make much money!) We didn't care. The 'gr$$n' of money is NOT what makes a home, a life.
~~Far from it.
Out for a Sunday drive, one year, as Winter was melting into Spring, we happened to find an old vacant homestead up a winding dirt road, away from
everything. We peered though the dusty shaded windows of this small abandoned & weathered dwelling. There were obvious signs that mice had been
enjoying it as a warm and safe home for years. In the middle of the "kitchen" sat an old Monarch wood cook stove, and old wooden table with four chairs;
in the 'living room' was an old sofa; in one of the two bedrooms was a wrought iron framed bed, and a window that looked out upon the tree covered
mountains and hillside behind. Aged wood floors were strewn with nesting material and dust bunnies, wallpaper falling loosely from the walls, tattered
curtains hung hopelessly tired. There was a huge hip roof barn with a full upstairs hay loft (& an old rope swing which we had to try out!), tie stalls for
horses, storage area for the 'horse powered' equipment, old hames covered with cobwebs hung carefully on a wall...all signs of yesteryear. There was
another small building with old porcelain pots, pans, etc. & other items stacked upon themselves showing signs of use so many years before. We found
the workings of a spring that must have been a water source, and of course, there was a wood shed and yes, even an outhouse!
We chose to sit on the front porch for a spell, recreating the scenario of what we thought would have been. The sun was slowly sinking behind the
mountains, drawing a close on one more Winter day bringing it yet a day closer to Spring. The air was crisp as we envisioned ourselves living 100 years
ago...here in this home of the past. Smoke would be billowing from the chimney, aromas filling the air as pots would be simmering on the cook stove. The
sound of children giggling, filtering down from the barn as they challenged each other to who could swing out the farthest; the sound of animals grazing off
in the distance, the smell of the melting snow and emerging life below. As we sat there, huddled together, drawing warmth from each other, we both knew
this is where we belonged! This is where home should be. In unison, as still happens to this day, we both said "let's find out if we can live here!"
After convincing the local little school that we were seriously going to live there, they agreed to send the school bus as long as we made it possible for it to
turn around. Convincing the Post Office was a challenge, to give us an address and "Please, will you deliver mail there even once a week?"
We scrubbed until our knuckles were raw; built shelves to store our everyday living supplies on; cut & chopped firewood, even in our dreams as we slept! I
hung new wallpaper, made old fashioned Priscilla curtains for all the windows (did I tell you, there was also an old Singer treadle sewing machine there?!
It didn't take but a few minutes to teach myself.) We found old barrels and carefully placed them at each corner of the roof, as to catch every drop of
moisture that fell. Kerosene lamps were purchased along with a stock of replacement wicks, chimneys and kerosene. Shelving hung on the walls were
filled with food, dish ware, supplies, books and games. My days were filled doing laundry on a washboard outside, keeping the fires going for the ever
needed hot water, to sitting outside quietly, (of course after most of the chores were done) watching a herd of 50-60 elk grazing close by, enjoying the
songs of the birds, or the rustling of the trees as the breeze whispered among them. I usually had a good book to read or a new quilt that I was making for
a Christmas gift. (Quilts and baby calves is what the kids received for Christmases, & maybe an ornament made from a pine cone, never anything store
bought.) Evenings were filled with homework, reading and playing games by kerosene lamps. Bathing was done in a old large washtub filled with water
that, for 24/hrs a day, was heating on the grand old Monarch in many huge pots, while rinsing off was done outside on the front porch...and yes,
"BRRRRRRRR" was the chosen word used by everyone!
Spring was upon us as we mended fences for our few cows and tilled some virgin soil for our garden close to the water hydrant we had set once we
tapped into the spring. I hand watered my 5,000sf garden, bucket after bucket, day after day. Chased the cows out of it with a broom in the early
mornings, clothed only in a bathrobe. Rustled 9 growing & rambunctious puppies from the rows of corn playing 'hide & seek', I'm sure, hour after hour!
Filling the woodshed was as ongoing, as the sun rising and setting. Luckily, there is always downed trees to be found that Mother Nature has discarded.
Spring became Summer, then Fall turned to Winter...as regular as clock-work. We lived with nature, respecting every blessing it bestowed us. My pantry
was always colorfully (and heavily) stacked with bounty from summer, from the green of beans to the red of raspberry! Everything was preserved on the
Monarch except those few days of 100*... I then learned quickly, how to proceed with the canning process on an open fire outdoors! The kids were young
enough to not complain too much about the lifestyle they were living. We all worked together to survive. We played together for living. And we loved
together for this was Home!
Regrettably, my Cowboy had to work outside our domain, because in this century, there are some thing's you can't buy with eggs or homemade breads or
crafts, or even trade for. Rent was one! And yes, we actually did have to pay rent to live that way! (My Grandmother thought the owners should be
paying us!!) But I managed to keep the home fires burning while he was out earning his small penance that cowboys make, you know, that 'other Gr$$n'.
A few years later we moved on, after my Cowboy went to Farrier school, to run a pack outfit high in the mountains. There, we lived in wall tents, took
showers in a make shift stall by the river, after building a fire under an old water heater fed by the running river (an upgrade from the Old Homestead!).
Living by day, catering to the clientele, and by nightfall....under the starry, starry summer skies in front of a campfire, with our dogs, kids and comrades,
singing or chattering about the events of the day. Wondering what excitement the next day would bring with the next set of city slickers. All of whom had
never experienced the grandest views atop a 9600' ridge, or the thrill (mainly wild eye fear!) of zig-zagging back down a sheer bluff! On a horse of
course! Or the magnificent display of elk high on a ridge top or mountain goats traversing the side of a shale cliff. Most of the guests had never been
within 50 yards of a horse, let alone ride one! These people got to observe a part of Nature's gift to the world. They got to be "Green" for a day & blessed
with a lifetime of memories.
It was here that my imagination, my thriftiness was really challenged and put to the test. We were 20 miles of washboard dirt road to the nearest campers
convenient store, 45 miles to a major store. The owner of the pack outfit expected only the best for the clients~Microsoft, Eddie Bauer, Motorola, to
mention a few. I created deli style lunches for the noon time break from their journey. They were complete with choices of meats & cheeses, Dutch oven
made, sourdough breads, fresh fruits and salads, even parsley & olive garnishments. Upon the long days journey coming to a close, while my Cowboy
and kids unsaddled and tended the herds, the guests wandered over to my naturally decorated "outdoor kitchen" area.
Here, they would pull off their brand new cowboys boots that were harboring blisters inside, dust off their sore britches and chatter about their excitement,
their fear, their extraordinary experiences of the day. They awaited patiently, growing hungrier by the moment, as I pulled one Dutch oven out of the fire
after another. The lifting of the lids sent waves of warm delicious aromas to their already hungry palettes. They were served numerous choices of freshly
prepared salads, veggies, the Chef's choice (that'd be me!) of meat, side dishes of potatoes or rice concoctions I dreamed up as I was preparing, and
several options for desserts. I got very creative with the options I had at my disposal. (The glowing red embers of my fires, was my oven & grill; the creek
alongside that emptied into the river below, was my refrigerator, so my kitchen "appliances" were grand in size! Which offered me many, many choices). I
got great joy in listening to the guests complimenting my choices for putting the "cherry on top" of their already splendid day! It always inspired me &
made being the first one having to be awake in camp each morning (4 am!) to pack lunches, cook breakfast for the hands, plan that evenings meal, well
worth it! I'd have my coffee alone, sitting by the new day's fire, watching the deer drink from the river, a spider seeking a meal before it got spotted;
listening to the morning songs of the birds, the crackling of my growing fire.......enjoying every scent, all the beauty that has been put on this earth,
entrusted to the human race to enjoy, to enhance, to savor and protect!
That is how it all began.........us being "Green" before "Green" was cool!
Those years and experiences in our lives were the foundation for the years to come. We learned to live and respect not only each other, but the bounty
of the earth that is gifted us ~if we don't neglect, over use, abuse or waste it. Salvage, scrounge, recycle, conserve, be aware of your consumption of our
natural resources and be frugal! Eating healthy helps not only your body and soul, but it enhances the air we breathe, the soil beneath our feet. Be
thoughtful, be conscientious, do your part, and someone else's (because there's many who won't), and be rewarded with many wondrous things this
earth, Mother Nature can provide.
In the years following, we moved so much to have different experiences, no one wrote our address in ink as they knew the gypsy in us would take us
beyond the present! Each new experience gave us a better understanding, more appreciation of all our natural resources.
We built a house on a prairie out of salvage lumber, brand new windows discarded in a pile, siding traded for horse boarding. There we lived in tents while
we worked on the home, trained & shod horses for the needed "Gr$$ns" for a well, septic and electricity. (I remember one Spring day afternoon, sitting on
the makeshift front porch of what would, someday, be a finished home, our daughter sat with me. There was only the sounds of horses chomping the
grasses, birds sang to us, the river raged off in the distance, and 6 elk were 100 ft away grazing on our hay stack, and she made this comment.... "You
know Mom, people generally finish their house before they think about their yards!" In front of us was newly seed grass with the hint of green as it tried to
show itself; flowers and shrubs were beginning to tell me they survived the transplant; tall Aspens that we had dug up from a neighbor, were coming back
to life and my comment back to her was "But, you know dear, my outdoor environment is more important to me than inside those walls. We must give back
to Mother Nature for the things we've taken from her. It replenishes the soil and refreshes the air we breathe. And besides, my Home begins when you
drive into the driveway!"
That is still my belief today!
We've lived on ranches where cattle was your life, far, far away from civilization. Trips to town were once a month, along a 50+ mile stretch of dirt roads
before you hit the pavement for another 50, to stock up and maybe treat yourself to a movie or a supper built by someone else! Wages were slim, but the
life among Natures beauty, high in the mountains where we shared a home with the deer, antelope, fox, cats, was worth it. The big blue skies, the winding
creeks, the hoot of an owl, a scurrying cotton tail or leaping jack rabbit, a scooting turtle, the scent of fresh mountain air filled our nostrils, our
lungs....clean healthy air; the sharing of this earth, filled our hearts!
We have bought & remodeled homes, reusing everything we could from the 2x4's we'd just taken out, to straightening nails and reusing them!
Shockingly, we even tried the city life....for 5 years in AZ ! Cowboy Hubby, managed a feedlot...and that is another story in itself....one more reason why
we raise our own food! About every 18 months, we moved...a little farther away from the population as it grew.
We had a taste of how 98% of the US population live. We became our environment. Good jobs, spend your Gr$$ns as fast as you make them; had more
amenities available than we knew what to do with. Don't trust your neighbors, so lock everything up. Don't talk to strangers on the streets, who knows
what is lurking; watch your backside at all times; and watch all three ways as you go through an intersection. Expect long lines everywhere, whether it be
a grocery store, a Walmart, a restaurant....lines for everything! And everyone is in a hurry, doing what they need to do, so as to move on to the next day
and do it all over again. Respect for others is rare. If we have no respect for others, then there can be no respect for our environment!
(Once while waiting, yep, in line for a restaurant, my hubby held the door open for an elderly lady with a walker, whose husband had marched inside 2
minutes before her, without any regard. She didn't bother to thank him & the others outside waiting, yep, in line also, looked at hubby like he was nuts!!!
TRUE STORY!)
Another true story...we lived in one of those new compact developments. (2 years that time) Neighbors rarely talked or acknowledged each other. Hubby
was puttering out front one evening before one of the 3 garbage pickup days per week...yep three of them! One neighbor did ask hubby if we ever ate at
home, as we never had our garbage cans out! We did have garbage, but only one can was put out once every other week. Now calculate that...3
pickups per week, 2 cans per day=6 cans a week (and they did allow overflow all the time!) So, times that by 2 weeks, and you have 12 cans+ any
overflow~~~we never had more than one can every two weeks! Truthfully! Why?? Because there was only 2 of us?? No. There were a lot of 2 people
houses there. Reason being, we've never been wasteful! Not even in Arizona.
You buy what you consume and no more. You consume what you cook, even if it takes 3 days to eat it all. Freeze what you can for later dates. Be
conscience of the packaging! Landfills are growing in size tremendously!
I am not saying everyone should live like we do, our kids and their families don't. (They do, however, live & eat healthy, and are very conscience of our
environment and they could survive & live as we do, if the need arose, as the foundation was laid years ago...and they remember!) As a matter of fact,
none of our families do and most have had a hard time accepting and/or understanding why we'd ever choose to live this way. And that is OK. Arizona,
for us, was an eye-opener...WAY too fast a pace of life! We had to get out of there! It was not WHO we are and we didn't like what we were becoming!
We chose to come back to the lifestyle we thrive in. One where we are comfortable and can enjoy the wide open spaces, the clean fresh air. Where we
can give back to the earth all the we take from it, and then some,if we can. We needed to get healthy again, physically and mentally. We raise as much
of our own food as possible; Veggies and berries (pears should be good this next summer); chickens, eggs, beef. We buy other foods from local orchards
& farms. I make dinners like my Grandma used to, like my Mom used to. SIMPLE BASIC FOODS! (not from a box) Packed with all the nutrients we need to
live healthy lives. When you don't live near a grocery store, and we don't, it's easier (and essential!) to be creative. To cook and not waste. Any waste
goes to the compost pile. And the chickens love anything from the garden waste, from the tomatoes the birds got to first, to the pumpkins and zucchini that
wind around aimlessly throughout the garden space.
This lifestyle is hours upon hours of hard physical work, yet when the sun sets at nightfall, we are granted the best gift life can give! As in years past, we
enjoy the solitude from the porch of our 100+ year old home. The Big Dipper is to the north & millions of other stars twinkle filling the remaining space of
the heavens; coyotes talk to each other in the close distance; the creek bubbles over the rocks. There is the sound of horses hooves as they graze for
feed, an occasional crow from the rooster, who doesn't care that it's night time, the dogs are all curled about our feet.... for us, this is the life!
We help to maintain, manage, and replenish the bounty from the earth..........
We are once again, dancing as one, through life, alongside Mother Nature!
convinced me I should try..........and WOW...I never knew dancing could be so easy and so enjoyable. Of course with his long, bowed, cowboy legs
naturally gliding into the swing, the two step, the waltz... across the dance floor as if he owned it, it was so easy to meld into the arms and rhythm of this
cowboy and we became 'one' on the dance floor................and have continued dancing, as one, through life!
We were young, in love, energetic and broke! Cowboys, back then, didn't make oodles of money, actually, barely enough to eek by as one, let alone as a
couple, or as a family! (Today, real Cowboys still don't make much money!) We didn't care. The 'gr$$n' of money is NOT what makes a home, a life.
~~Far from it.
Out for a Sunday drive, one year, as Winter was melting into Spring, we happened to find an old vacant homestead up a winding dirt road, away from
everything. We peered though the dusty shaded windows of this small abandoned & weathered dwelling. There were obvious signs that mice had been
enjoying it as a warm and safe home for years. In the middle of the "kitchen" sat an old Monarch wood cook stove, and old wooden table with four chairs;
in the 'living room' was an old sofa; in one of the two bedrooms was a wrought iron framed bed, and a window that looked out upon the tree covered
mountains and hillside behind. Aged wood floors were strewn with nesting material and dust bunnies, wallpaper falling loosely from the walls, tattered
curtains hung hopelessly tired. There was a huge hip roof barn with a full upstairs hay loft (& an old rope swing which we had to try out!), tie stalls for
horses, storage area for the 'horse powered' equipment, old hames covered with cobwebs hung carefully on a wall...all signs of yesteryear. There was
another small building with old porcelain pots, pans, etc. & other items stacked upon themselves showing signs of use so many years before. We found
the workings of a spring that must have been a water source, and of course, there was a wood shed and yes, even an outhouse!
We chose to sit on the front porch for a spell, recreating the scenario of what we thought would have been. The sun was slowly sinking behind the
mountains, drawing a close on one more Winter day bringing it yet a day closer to Spring. The air was crisp as we envisioned ourselves living 100 years
ago...here in this home of the past. Smoke would be billowing from the chimney, aromas filling the air as pots would be simmering on the cook stove. The
sound of children giggling, filtering down from the barn as they challenged each other to who could swing out the farthest; the sound of animals grazing off
in the distance, the smell of the melting snow and emerging life below. As we sat there, huddled together, drawing warmth from each other, we both knew
this is where we belonged! This is where home should be. In unison, as still happens to this day, we both said "let's find out if we can live here!"
After convincing the local little school that we were seriously going to live there, they agreed to send the school bus as long as we made it possible for it to
turn around. Convincing the Post Office was a challenge, to give us an address and "Please, will you deliver mail there even once a week?"
We scrubbed until our knuckles were raw; built shelves to store our everyday living supplies on; cut & chopped firewood, even in our dreams as we slept! I
hung new wallpaper, made old fashioned Priscilla curtains for all the windows (did I tell you, there was also an old Singer treadle sewing machine there?!
It didn't take but a few minutes to teach myself.) We found old barrels and carefully placed them at each corner of the roof, as to catch every drop of
moisture that fell. Kerosene lamps were purchased along with a stock of replacement wicks, chimneys and kerosene. Shelving hung on the walls were
filled with food, dish ware, supplies, books and games. My days were filled doing laundry on a washboard outside, keeping the fires going for the ever
needed hot water, to sitting outside quietly, (of course after most of the chores were done) watching a herd of 50-60 elk grazing close by, enjoying the
songs of the birds, or the rustling of the trees as the breeze whispered among them. I usually had a good book to read or a new quilt that I was making for
a Christmas gift. (Quilts and baby calves is what the kids received for Christmases, & maybe an ornament made from a pine cone, never anything store
bought.) Evenings were filled with homework, reading and playing games by kerosene lamps. Bathing was done in a old large washtub filled with water
that, for 24/hrs a day, was heating on the grand old Monarch in many huge pots, while rinsing off was done outside on the front porch...and yes,
"BRRRRRRRR" was the chosen word used by everyone!
Spring was upon us as we mended fences for our few cows and tilled some virgin soil for our garden close to the water hydrant we had set once we
tapped into the spring. I hand watered my 5,000sf garden, bucket after bucket, day after day. Chased the cows out of it with a broom in the early
mornings, clothed only in a bathrobe. Rustled 9 growing & rambunctious puppies from the rows of corn playing 'hide & seek', I'm sure, hour after hour!
Filling the woodshed was as ongoing, as the sun rising and setting. Luckily, there is always downed trees to be found that Mother Nature has discarded.
Spring became Summer, then Fall turned to Winter...as regular as clock-work. We lived with nature, respecting every blessing it bestowed us. My pantry
was always colorfully (and heavily) stacked with bounty from summer, from the green of beans to the red of raspberry! Everything was preserved on the
Monarch except those few days of 100*... I then learned quickly, how to proceed with the canning process on an open fire outdoors! The kids were young
enough to not complain too much about the lifestyle they were living. We all worked together to survive. We played together for living. And we loved
together for this was Home!
Regrettably, my Cowboy had to work outside our domain, because in this century, there are some thing's you can't buy with eggs or homemade breads or
crafts, or even trade for. Rent was one! And yes, we actually did have to pay rent to live that way! (My Grandmother thought the owners should be
paying us!!) But I managed to keep the home fires burning while he was out earning his small penance that cowboys make, you know, that 'other Gr$$n'.
A few years later we moved on, after my Cowboy went to Farrier school, to run a pack outfit high in the mountains. There, we lived in wall tents, took
showers in a make shift stall by the river, after building a fire under an old water heater fed by the running river (an upgrade from the Old Homestead!).
Living by day, catering to the clientele, and by nightfall....under the starry, starry summer skies in front of a campfire, with our dogs, kids and comrades,
singing or chattering about the events of the day. Wondering what excitement the next day would bring with the next set of city slickers. All of whom had
never experienced the grandest views atop a 9600' ridge, or the thrill (mainly wild eye fear!) of zig-zagging back down a sheer bluff! On a horse of
course! Or the magnificent display of elk high on a ridge top or mountain goats traversing the side of a shale cliff. Most of the guests had never been
within 50 yards of a horse, let alone ride one! These people got to observe a part of Nature's gift to the world. They got to be "Green" for a day & blessed
with a lifetime of memories.
It was here that my imagination, my thriftiness was really challenged and put to the test. We were 20 miles of washboard dirt road to the nearest campers
convenient store, 45 miles to a major store. The owner of the pack outfit expected only the best for the clients~Microsoft, Eddie Bauer, Motorola, to
mention a few. I created deli style lunches for the noon time break from their journey. They were complete with choices of meats & cheeses, Dutch oven
made, sourdough breads, fresh fruits and salads, even parsley & olive garnishments. Upon the long days journey coming to a close, while my Cowboy
and kids unsaddled and tended the herds, the guests wandered over to my naturally decorated "outdoor kitchen" area.
Here, they would pull off their brand new cowboys boots that were harboring blisters inside, dust off their sore britches and chatter about their excitement,
their fear, their extraordinary experiences of the day. They awaited patiently, growing hungrier by the moment, as I pulled one Dutch oven out of the fire
after another. The lifting of the lids sent waves of warm delicious aromas to their already hungry palettes. They were served numerous choices of freshly
prepared salads, veggies, the Chef's choice (that'd be me!) of meat, side dishes of potatoes or rice concoctions I dreamed up as I was preparing, and
several options for desserts. I got very creative with the options I had at my disposal. (The glowing red embers of my fires, was my oven & grill; the creek
alongside that emptied into the river below, was my refrigerator, so my kitchen "appliances" were grand in size! Which offered me many, many choices). I
got great joy in listening to the guests complimenting my choices for putting the "cherry on top" of their already splendid day! It always inspired me &
made being the first one having to be awake in camp each morning (4 am!) to pack lunches, cook breakfast for the hands, plan that evenings meal, well
worth it! I'd have my coffee alone, sitting by the new day's fire, watching the deer drink from the river, a spider seeking a meal before it got spotted;
listening to the morning songs of the birds, the crackling of my growing fire.......enjoying every scent, all the beauty that has been put on this earth,
entrusted to the human race to enjoy, to enhance, to savor and protect!
That is how it all began.........us being "Green" before "Green" was cool!
Those years and experiences in our lives were the foundation for the years to come. We learned to live and respect not only each other, but the bounty
of the earth that is gifted us ~if we don't neglect, over use, abuse or waste it. Salvage, scrounge, recycle, conserve, be aware of your consumption of our
natural resources and be frugal! Eating healthy helps not only your body and soul, but it enhances the air we breathe, the soil beneath our feet. Be
thoughtful, be conscientious, do your part, and someone else's (because there's many who won't), and be rewarded with many wondrous things this
earth, Mother Nature can provide.
In the years following, we moved so much to have different experiences, no one wrote our address in ink as they knew the gypsy in us would take us
beyond the present! Each new experience gave us a better understanding, more appreciation of all our natural resources.
We built a house on a prairie out of salvage lumber, brand new windows discarded in a pile, siding traded for horse boarding. There we lived in tents while
we worked on the home, trained & shod horses for the needed "Gr$$ns" for a well, septic and electricity. (I remember one Spring day afternoon, sitting on
the makeshift front porch of what would, someday, be a finished home, our daughter sat with me. There was only the sounds of horses chomping the
grasses, birds sang to us, the river raged off in the distance, and 6 elk were 100 ft away grazing on our hay stack, and she made this comment.... "You
know Mom, people generally finish their house before they think about their yards!" In front of us was newly seed grass with the hint of green as it tried to
show itself; flowers and shrubs were beginning to tell me they survived the transplant; tall Aspens that we had dug up from a neighbor, were coming back
to life and my comment back to her was "But, you know dear, my outdoor environment is more important to me than inside those walls. We must give back
to Mother Nature for the things we've taken from her. It replenishes the soil and refreshes the air we breathe. And besides, my Home begins when you
drive into the driveway!"
That is still my belief today!
We've lived on ranches where cattle was your life, far, far away from civilization. Trips to town were once a month, along a 50+ mile stretch of dirt roads
before you hit the pavement for another 50, to stock up and maybe treat yourself to a movie or a supper built by someone else! Wages were slim, but the
life among Natures beauty, high in the mountains where we shared a home with the deer, antelope, fox, cats, was worth it. The big blue skies, the winding
creeks, the hoot of an owl, a scurrying cotton tail or leaping jack rabbit, a scooting turtle, the scent of fresh mountain air filled our nostrils, our
lungs....clean healthy air; the sharing of this earth, filled our hearts!
We have bought & remodeled homes, reusing everything we could from the 2x4's we'd just taken out, to straightening nails and reusing them!
Shockingly, we even tried the city life....for 5 years in AZ ! Cowboy Hubby, managed a feedlot...and that is another story in itself....one more reason why
we raise our own food! About every 18 months, we moved...a little farther away from the population as it grew.
We had a taste of how 98% of the US population live. We became our environment. Good jobs, spend your Gr$$ns as fast as you make them; had more
amenities available than we knew what to do with. Don't trust your neighbors, so lock everything up. Don't talk to strangers on the streets, who knows
what is lurking; watch your backside at all times; and watch all three ways as you go through an intersection. Expect long lines everywhere, whether it be
a grocery store, a Walmart, a restaurant....lines for everything! And everyone is in a hurry, doing what they need to do, so as to move on to the next day
and do it all over again. Respect for others is rare. If we have no respect for others, then there can be no respect for our environment!
(Once while waiting, yep, in line for a restaurant, my hubby held the door open for an elderly lady with a walker, whose husband had marched inside 2
minutes before her, without any regard. She didn't bother to thank him & the others outside waiting, yep, in line also, looked at hubby like he was nuts!!!
TRUE STORY!)
Another true story...we lived in one of those new compact developments. (2 years that time) Neighbors rarely talked or acknowledged each other. Hubby
was puttering out front one evening before one of the 3 garbage pickup days per week...yep three of them! One neighbor did ask hubby if we ever ate at
home, as we never had our garbage cans out! We did have garbage, but only one can was put out once every other week. Now calculate that...3
pickups per week, 2 cans per day=6 cans a week (and they did allow overflow all the time!) So, times that by 2 weeks, and you have 12 cans+ any
overflow~~~we never had more than one can every two weeks! Truthfully! Why?? Because there was only 2 of us?? No. There were a lot of 2 people
houses there. Reason being, we've never been wasteful! Not even in Arizona.
You buy what you consume and no more. You consume what you cook, even if it takes 3 days to eat it all. Freeze what you can for later dates. Be
conscience of the packaging! Landfills are growing in size tremendously!
I am not saying everyone should live like we do, our kids and their families don't. (They do, however, live & eat healthy, and are very conscience of our
environment and they could survive & live as we do, if the need arose, as the foundation was laid years ago...and they remember!) As a matter of fact,
none of our families do and most have had a hard time accepting and/or understanding why we'd ever choose to live this way. And that is OK. Arizona,
for us, was an eye-opener...WAY too fast a pace of life! We had to get out of there! It was not WHO we are and we didn't like what we were becoming!
We chose to come back to the lifestyle we thrive in. One where we are comfortable and can enjoy the wide open spaces, the clean fresh air. Where we
can give back to the earth all the we take from it, and then some,if we can. We needed to get healthy again, physically and mentally. We raise as much
of our own food as possible; Veggies and berries (pears should be good this next summer); chickens, eggs, beef. We buy other foods from local orchards
& farms. I make dinners like my Grandma used to, like my Mom used to. SIMPLE BASIC FOODS! (not from a box) Packed with all the nutrients we need to
live healthy lives. When you don't live near a grocery store, and we don't, it's easier (and essential!) to be creative. To cook and not waste. Any waste
goes to the compost pile. And the chickens love anything from the garden waste, from the tomatoes the birds got to first, to the pumpkins and zucchini that
wind around aimlessly throughout the garden space.
This lifestyle is hours upon hours of hard physical work, yet when the sun sets at nightfall, we are granted the best gift life can give! As in years past, we
enjoy the solitude from the porch of our 100+ year old home. The Big Dipper is to the north & millions of other stars twinkle filling the remaining space of
the heavens; coyotes talk to each other in the close distance; the creek bubbles over the rocks. There is the sound of horses hooves as they graze for
feed, an occasional crow from the rooster, who doesn't care that it's night time, the dogs are all curled about our feet.... for us, this is the life!
We help to maintain, manage, and replenish the bounty from the earth..........
We are once again, dancing as one, through life, alongside Mother Nature!