Sustainable Thoughts

Coffee in hand, I'm working on waking fully this morning. As a child, early morning rain showers made me so relaxed, I would sleep in. As an adult, even a mother with small children-boys at that-I'm finding I can still relax enough to over sleep on days like this. After two days of heat and humidity (New England level of heat & humidity), we are back down around 60 degrees today. Ok, talk about crazy weather this year. So far, its doing great things in my gardens. Yet, the upset its causing with floods, tornados, etc....
Today is a homestead day. Bread to bake, maybe squeeze in a cake, some gardening. I've been reading Janet Chadwick's book, "How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty: A Practical Introduction to Small-Scale Sufficient Country Living." Great book, especially for anyone just getting started on sustainable living ride, or even for those who may have grown up with the knowledge of self-sufficiency & making a return to a more relaxed pace of living. As I've been reading, I realize I've been putting into practice a good portion of what she writes about. Although I didn't grow up on the farm, I was always within close enough proximity to learn how to do things. Gardening has always been a part of my life, something I love and hold close to my heart. I learned how to help with some of the farming, feeding calves, cleaning up after the milkers, even learned how to place the milking equipment on the cows. The best part of my farming education was to see family working together to get the work done before another day would dawn to start all over again. Farming is really a round the clock business, and sadly, a business disappearing for the small family farm. My aunt and uncle shut down the farm just a couple of years ago, becoming another statistic of the vanishing family farm.
As an adult, I return to the table of self-sufficiency to garden my landscape here in the 'burbs. We've been here for a little over two years, and this year has been the best year for gardening so far. Sandy loam gives us a great foundation, and as I've composted since our first summer, adding composted soil and garden soil from the nursery, our garden spaces are getting better with time. For Mother's Day this year, I received a composter on a stand that you can turn the handle to rotate and mix the ingredients you place in the barrel. Perhaps I'll get that going today, too. Happy Homesteading!
~Momma