October Homestead Update

Wow. Crazy month. I started a new job on the 7th, which has taken up significant time for me. It's been great - a continuation of what I had been doing (read: same i dustry, similar work) but is a full time remote gig. So I get to work from home very day.

I used the opportunity of a "fresh start," so to speak, to restructure my routine. Similar to my scythe- in-morning experiment, I am getting out early and doing my farm chores first thing. Unlike that experiment, i'm not getting up at 5:30. I'm actually sleeping now! I'm also incorporating my routine of morning prayers via headphones and a recorded rosary mp3. It's been great.

I now need to use this extra time to prepare for winter. Get more hay cut, build the overwinter sry lot for the sheep, and finish up the final garden prep. I also have to cut some bonfire wood for our annual Thanksgiving fire-n-wine celebration.

The downside to the homestead is tht we STILL have NO eggs from those %#€¥£#% chickens.

So once the routine stabilizes a wee bit, I fully intend to post more often, and to try to make them, ya know, halfway good. :/

Like Wounded, Cornered Dogs

But she said: Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall
from the table of their masters. -Matthew 15:27

A lonely dog walks through the night.

Setting out from the safety and the solace of the pack, the dog is in search of something different. More individual freedoms? A break from traditional authority? Another pack member hurt her, deeply, long ago? A disagreement over pack law? Perhaps the dog just doesn't think the pack can help her anymore. It matters not - this dog is her own master now.

She heard the howls of merriment in the distance. Other dogs, liberated dogs, chasing their tails in delight, cast long shadows of revelry across the fires lighting the pack's council. How could she not be entranced by them? The pack leaders scoffed in dismay, cleaving instead to their customs.

She had enough of them. Here was her chance. Her chance. To be what she wanted to be. To throw off the  proverbial shackles of the pack. She was her own master now.

Having set off, and now winding through the woods, through the dark, the light of the pack grew dimmer and dimmer, until it faded into the distance. Memories of the pack's ways flitted through her mind, but she dismissed them - that was her old life, and now she is free.

She started to run. To join the other dogs in their merry-making. But where were they? Where were the bonfires, the feasting, the pleasures she imagined would go hand-in-hand with this new-found liberty? For all around her, it was dark. The fire had faded behind the trees, the wisps of the embers just visible in the distance above the ever-darkening treeline.

She heard whimpering not far off. Curious, she trotted through the thickets to see a voice she thought she recognized.

Me Eat Like Grok

Partially in response to the issue of what is and is not food, and partially as an investment in our own health, Wife and I and going back to the cave. Metaphorically, that is.

Eating food that is actually food - what a concept!

We are making the leap to the paleo lifestyle.

What I like about it is that it is food that is super yummy, nutritionally very rich, and can be produced entirely on our land.

So stay tuned as we explore some paleo recipes, get our home-grown food supply ramped up, and generally become healthier people.

THIS is What We Call "Food"?

I guess they meant the cashews?

I took this picture at my soon-to-be-former place of employment. It's in an office park, heavily landscaped, in a corporate area of a small suburb. It's a popular, growing region. They have a "marketplace" where you can buy "food" during the workday.

I'm struck at the dichotomy between the "wellness" and "healthy" buzzwords, right over some of the most unhealthy and unnatural concoctions in the history of humanity.

Homestead Update

Fall depresses me.

Here we are, entering October. It's fall. This fact is now unavoidable.

I cling to summer as long as possible. I love shorts and T-shirts. I break them out early in the spring, even if I shiver at first. I continue to wear them until I can't take it. At least there's a few more weeks of short sleeves left this year.

The garden is done for the year. I have a few lingering peppers, and maybe a handful of cherry tomatoes, still hanging on. The rest is done. I decapitated the poor, ghostly sunflowers yesterday. I picked all of the dried beans in the pod. I'll probably have the Things sort through them for some extra ca$h.