The Big White Farmhouse

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Frugality drives creativity.  I recently read that phrase on a blog post and it resonated because it’s true!

Farming/homesteading is such a great vehicle for that type of thinking.  We spend so much money on feed and infrastructure and trailers and buckets (so many five gallon buckets…) that when something starts to malfunction or break, we do all we can to fix it as cheaply as possible. A stubborn streak runs through us…we can fix it! We’re not spending another dime!  This thinking can be helpful for families not on the farm, though. A job loss, a reduction in income, an inflationary tightening of the belt – it all forces our hand in a certain direction and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! Sometimes constraints are good for us.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking of some recent examples of our frugal creativity and here’s what I’ve come up with:

• We are always constructing and reconstructing pig shelters.  We pull apart the lumber of one and create something new with the same cuts.
• I’ve purchased truckloads of compost over the years and it is not cheap.  This year, I’m committed to building and tending to my own compost pile.  Now more “trash” (aka coffee grounds, egg shells, toilet paper rolls, dryer lint, etc) has a purpose.
• On a particularly windy day last month, one of our chicken tractors was thrown, busting one of the sides.  Instead of buying a new one ($$$), we fixed what we could with rope and it works fine.
• I recently started a new junk journal.  As I get back into the process, I’m realizing how much I enjoy this creative outlet, how much I enjoy the challenge of creating something beautiful from random bits and pieces of life.
• In order to avoid the grocery store and fast food, we whip up simple meals from ingredients we have in the house.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ bringing Max and Ruby to the butcher.  We are extremely proud because they are our first full circle “farrow to finish” operation.  We bred, birthed and raised these guys!  What an incredible experience – I can’t wait to do it again.

+ sharing with a new friend.  My husband recently met someone from church and their family generously shared a big mason jar of their famous homemade Caesar dressing with us.  Delicious!  When we returned the jar, we passed along a dozen eggs as a thank you.

+ making some ant bait from baking soda and powdered sugar.  We’re not ant-free in the kitchen yet, but I think it’s working.

+ selling fifteen unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: six books, five pieces of clothing, and four pieces of curriculum.  After shipping and fees, I made $118.16!  We’re almost to 45% of our goal.

Reading //

Lots of pondering on family in the modern age this week!

• Why We Call Them Fathers from Denise Trull at Theology of Home // “I have met many priests over my lifetime. They had many gifts between them. Some wrote beautiful sermons. Some were impressive and efficient stewards of their parishes. Some celebrated exquisite Masses and convinced me that the spiritual life was a poem we each speak to the Father. But it is always the priests who most exemplified fatherhood that have stayed so firmly in my memory. Those whose greatest talent was being a father to their people.”
• The Family Tree, Stripped from Andrew Yuengert at Front Porch Republic
• Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood? from CBC
• Multi-Generational Mothering from Siobhan Heekin-Canedy at Fairer Disputations // “Restructuring policy and culture to accommodate both women’s desire for motherhood and their presence in the workforce is a complex task. An important piece of this puzzle is capitalizing on the familial network of mutual aid that already exists. In other words, the answer isn’t ‘less family,’ it’s ‘more family.’”
• Every family needs a leader from Jim Dalrymple II // A really interesting look at “kinkeepers,” people who work to keep their families together.

New Additions to The List // 

• Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity by Adam A.J. DeVille // My rabbit trail started with an encyclical and ended with this book: an examination of the Roman Catholic papacy from an Orthodox perspective.
• Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald // Mentioned in Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am.  Sounds fascinating.
• The Holiness of Ordinary People by Madeleine Delbrêl // Spotted in the latest Ignatius Press book catalog.

Watching/Listening //

• Love What Lasts: An Interview with Joshua Gibbs from The Commonplace // I loved the distinction between the common, the uncommon and the mediocre.
• Joel Salatin on the Avian Influenza Outbreak from Beyond Labels Podcast Clips

Loving //

• Reading the Old Testament in the New: The Gospel of Matthew from the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology // I’m on lesson five.
• Yours, Mine and Ours // We found this DVD with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda at the used bookstore and it’s been a big hit.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

Going back to a simple prompt from a few weeks ago!  I sure needed it: gas prices around us jumped, our dog Samson puked on two of my rugs, we have ants in the kitchen and someone stole my credit card number and spent $3K on fraudulent plane tickets!

Here’s what I found this week:

Waking up to birdsong outside my bedroom window.  Finishing up a few school subjects for the year.  Healthy and diverse pasture for the broilers.  Being so, so close to an empty laundry room (for one day, anyway).  Blooms and new leaves on all of the fruit trees and bushes.  House finches in the front porch nest.  Another new driver in the house.  The smell of freshly mowed grass.  A trip to the used bookstore to add to my anti-library.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ making our groceries stretch!  My husband stopped by the grocery store one day and picked up five items for me – five! – and the total was $50.  My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I saw the receipt.  Time to be creative in the kitchen again.  This week, I made granola and bread.  I also organized the pantry and collected items together to make specific meals.  (That will help a lot on busy days.)

+ packing away my winter clothes and pulling out all of my spring/summer dresses.  I went through everything (both piles) and took out the things that were too worn or too big.  I have a few gaps in my wardrobe now, but I’ll make due with what I have until I can find some deals.

+ making a new junk journal completely with things I already own.  I’m hoping to use this one as a scrapbook and a way to stretch my creative muscles.

+ selling eight unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: six pieces of clothing and two pieces of literature curriculum.  After shipping and fees, I made $93.38!

Reading //

• A Picture Worth a Thousand Words from Denise Trull at Theology of Home // “Holy cards just appeal to a real need for intimacy with God in our hearts. They are like getting to hold his hand or pressing His love to our cheek.” I loved this.
• The Cure to Our Social Breakdown from Seth D. Kaplan at First Things // “Embedded community is not only important to the future of our faiths, but also to the future of our country. Our growing social breakdown highlights this now more than ever.”  I wonder if this is a similar argument to The Benedict Option (which I have heard a lot about, but never read).
• For the Love of a Thing: Not Every Worthwhile Endeavor Is a Performance from Keith Lowery // Thought provoking.
• “Higher Education and Home Defense” from Home Economics by Wendell Berry // This essay was about a community in Indiana concerned about the construction of a nuclear plant nearby, but you could easily equate it to communities in northern Virginia and their fight against data centers.  Berry’s argument is that the highly educated professionals push their goals on a community because they have no attachment to the place.  They do not consider the area home.  They see themselves superior to the people who are naturally cautious about new advancements in their community.  I especially loved this paragraph about the true sense of education:

Education in the true sense, of course, is an enablement to serve – both the living human community in its natural household or neighborhood and the precious cultural possessions that the living community inherits or should inherit.  To educate is, literally, to “bring up,” to bring young people to a responsible maturity, to help them to be good caretakers of what they have been given, to help them to be charitable toward fellow creatures.  Such an education is obviously pleasant and useful to have; that a sizable number of humans should have it is probably also one of the necessities of human life in this world.  And if this education is to be used well, it is obvious that it must be used some where; it must be used where one lives, where one intends to continue to live; it must be brought home. (p.52)

• Places where you can peek into Heaven and how to find them from Fr. Michael Rennier at Aleteia

New Additions to The List // 

• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving // I stumbled on a Substack where the author shared his favorite quote from this book: “If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”
• The Desert Smells Like Rain: A Naturalist in Papago Indian Country by Gary Paul Nabhan // Mentioned in Home Economics.
• A Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright // Another rabbit trail book due to Home Economics.
• The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan // A view on the Gaza crisis from a less hysteric/opinion-filled source.  Even though this was written in 2006, I heard this is a sad but good look at both sides of a very complicated history.

Watching/Listening //

• How to fill your journal pages! Easy first page ideas and what to write from Johanna Clough // A little inspiration as I begin a new journal.
• 7 (8?) Books to Read as a Postpartum Mom from The Commonplace // Good ideas even for the non-postpartum mom!

Loving //

• the marigold varieties I bought this year from Park Seed // I got the Whopper Orange, the Flamenco, and the Disco Mix.  I started them all under grow lights and they are beautiful.
• The 10 Year Reading Plan for the Great Books of the Western World // I found five of these old books at the used bookstore and am anxious to begin this plan.  Seems challenging!