an amazing day

I had the most amazing day yesterday. My friend and I visited the farm-- Wild Flower Farms-- of a spinner I met. She raises fiber animals (and lots of other animals). It would take an full article to describe her exotic animals, but I'll just mention a few. Highland cattle are a scottish breed. They are shaggy haired and live in the forests. They have long horns that can reach a seven foot span. These loving farmers treat all their animals as pet and these enormous beasts came up to snuggle with us. It wasn't scary, but it should've been. If they weren't so loving they could've killed me with a twist of it's head (HORNS!!!!). Sheep, so many sheep! Llama, alpaca. I bought some baby llama fiber from her, I can't wait to spin it up. She was caring for a stray emu. (I thought she was joking, but I saw it with my own eyes and no one has claimed it yet. That's like having an elephant casually stray on to your farm and no one claiming it). AND she gave me her angora bunny. She didn't have the time to care for it and wanted it to go to a good home. The girls named it Frankie-Jeff the girl rabbit.

interesting websites

I've been hesitant to include some of the more extreme simple living ideas I've been working with. I know not everyone is interested in simple living to this degree but it is fascinating to know there are ways to simplify that are outside of our normal (for middle class Americans anyways) scope of thinking. If you are interested in learning more just click on the blue colored words, it'll send you right to the website.

Composting human waste. Just think, NO PLUMBING and lots of great compost. It is an elegant solution to a huge problem. This site includes the entire book, just click on the chapters and you can read it all on-line.

Making your own menstrual pads out of cloth. If you go down the page you'll see a suggestion for making wash cloth shaped pads. It works great. Wish I'd starting doing this years ago, I could've saved so much money. BTW Let me put in a vote for cloth diapers, but that is another post.

Living in a tiny house Obviously I haven't done this, but it sure does make my own little home feel really spacious. It looks like a great idea for me and Randall when the kids all leave. We stayed in a cabin this size when we were on a family vacation and I was utterly charmed with it.

And living without a car (or gearing down to fewer cars). I LOVE this book. This is an excerpt from Chris Balish's book "How to Live Well Without a Car." We've been living with one car for over a year and it hasn't been near as big hassle as I thought it would be AND we have saved so much money.

musings

I need to take some more pictures. I know these posts are a lot more interesting with pictures.

I started this whole blog to explore simple living. I love finding ways to do things myself. I've always been like that. After keeping this blog for a few years now I can't really say I've gotten that much further down the "simple living" road. My husband has spent the last year as a college student and we have been living off of our savings (and some money generously given us by my recently passes away grandfather). I look at the totals of what we have lived on for the past year and I can't really say it was that impressively frugal. We obviously still need a good amount of money to live on even when we're living "simply." So is the simple living experiment valid? My family isn't willing to live without cell phones and the internet. But there are a lot of ways we can (and have) geared down. We cook most of our meals, we garden, we sew/knit a fair amount, we make our own soap, we homeschool. I guess this blog should've been labeled "simpler living" instead of "simple living."

library display part two

library display

I was asked to provide a display for the library this month. I choose to show off a variety of things I learned to do. I learned all of these from books I read at the library. The little girl dresses use French handsewing (by machine). I even made the stuffed doll. I made one of those dolls for each of my girls. They were well played with. If you look at the display the dresses are on top, if you look carefully at the right hand side there is a Japanese purse, I used Omiage to do it. The second level has soap and gardening and chicken raising (which is mainly what this blog is devoted to). The third level has a couple of cakes that I whipped up just for this display. They'll be pretty nasty by the end of the month! I also have sugar flowers. That was a fun craft to learn. Insanely too much work, but they look pretty cool. The bottom level has knitting, spinning and making buckskin.

baby steps

I love doing "pioneer" stuff. Things I've done today-- Read scriptures and prayed. Exercised by walking around the lake at the park near our house. Cooked and ate oatmeal with flaxseed for breakfast. Took care of the chickens. Homeschooled my daughter. S~ dissected a mole the cat had caught. It was the first mammal she's dissected. Made laundry soap from homemade soap. Washed my laundry with that homemade laundry soap. Did the dishes with homemade soap and scrubbed the dishes with a dish rag I knitted. Puttered around the garden. Spun wool. Wrung out the deerskins. Cooked a ham (on a great sale from the grocery) and cut up the meat in 1/2 lb chunks for several future meals. Boiled up the bone for future soups. Used food storage to make lunch. Worked on reading the Book of Mormon in Chinese. Cleaned the bathtub with nature cleaners (vinegar and cream of tartar). Collected eggs from the chickens. Sat around talking with the kids and a beloved friend (this is known as family home evening). All these things qualify as homestead type activities because I didn't pay anyone else to do it for me OR I used very basic ingredients OR I used my own materials. I consider walking around the lake just as good as working out at a gym. The ham serves as several meals instead of buying meat in smaller (more expensive) portions. Reading the Book of Mormon in Chinese is my language study, instead of attending a class. Having an evening with my family is a lovely way of entertaining ourselves, better than watching TV or going to the mall. I like to think some of the stuff I'm doing will eventually be useful. The deerskins will eventually be clothing. The yarn will eventually be an afgan.

I did a bunch of other stuff that doesn't really qualify as homesteady (phone calls, balancing the checkbook, shopping, watching funny youtube videos, writing on this blog). But it feels good to think that I am making progress on this pioneer adventure. I'm doing more than I used to. I'm taking baby steps toward simple living.