The Big White Farmhouse

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My reading this week has been full of fantastical adventures and places.  I’ve been reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a read aloud for school and The Hobbit on my own at night.  It’s no surprise that Lewis and Tolkien were friends because both books teach such similar lessons, especially in the virtue of courage.

I loved this description of courage from Catholic News Agency:

Courage means being able to overcome fear in order to pursue the greater good. This is not the same as being fearless; quite the contrary, the fearless person can never be truly brave. This is because fear is based on love for something, and a desire not to lose it. But if a person does not love the thing he risks, does not value it, then where is the merit in risking it? A suicidal maniac, for example, is not brave because he risks his life for anything; he is stupid for not recognizing the value of his life, and for so casually placing his life in danger.

A brave man experiences fear because he loves the thing he is risking, and so he is afraid to lose it. No one fears the loss of something he does not love and value. Yet what makes a person able to be brave is that he values the thing he is pursuing more than the thing he is risking. Courage means the willingness to sacrifice something lesser for something greater.

Doesn’t that perfectly describe the main characters in these two books?  This part in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was so good and true: “Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick.  But that made no difference to what he had to do.” (p.131)  I’m so glad that my children (and me too!) can read these books and see heroic courage in this real and relatable way.

C.S. Lewis once said, “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.”  After this week, I’m even more inspired to find literature that fits that description.  Below are a handful of books/series that have been influential in my children’s lives and I’d love to hear your family’s favorites too!

• Redwall by Brian Jacques
• On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (The Wingfeather Saga) by Andrew Peterson
• Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
• lives of the saints – my son recently enjoyed reading about Saint Edmond Campion

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ dealing with a terrible, out-of-the-blue allergic reaction.  Late last week, I woke up to hives and angioedema (facial swelling) around my eyes.  It was uncomfortable, but not really concerning…until it wouldn’t go away.  I eventually went on antihistamines to calm everything down, but those came with their own set of side effects: nausea, drowsiness and general blech.  A week later and I’m still not 100%.  I’m digging deep to make this into a positive example of abundance, but I’m grateful for my body’s ability to tell me something’s wrong and for the gift of self-deprecating humor.  If you don’t laugh, you cry, right?!

+ printing photos for a good, old-fashioned photo album!  One of the bingo prompts this month was to “print out some photos” and this was just the motivation I needed.  When my oldest kids were small, I was really into scrapbooking.  For the middle kids, I made professionally printed photo books.  But for my sweet littlest boys?  The majority of their photos are still stuck on my phone!  I’ve agonized over how to remedy this, but ultimately decided that done is better than perfect.  I picked up an album and have started printing photos on my Canon Selphy.  So excited to have this project started.

+ cleaning the coffee maker.  Less germs and better tasting coffee!

+ selling two unneeded items: a book and a shirt.  After shipping and fees, I made $5.04.  Total profit for the month so far: $213.79.

Reading //

• Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit by Corey Olsen // It’s like a literature course in a book!  I really enjoyed pairing it chapter by chapter with the novel.
• The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to our Ancestral Diet by Paul Saladino, MD // I’m seriously considering a strict elimination diet to get the to root cause of my issues.

Watching/Listening //

• Winter Survival Food: French Onion Soup by Townsends // This was so cool.
• Floriani Sacred Music Chant School // Continuing on with lesson four and Jesu Dulcis Memoria.
• Episode 2: Death in the Morning of the 1970s documentary series, Connections by James Burke // You really see the technological “connections” throughout history in this one!

Loving //

• the idea behind Iliad Athletics
• Gorilla Grip adhesives // I bought another pack for my front door rug and they worked like a charm!
• stepping inside the Sistine Chapel (virtually)

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

On Monday, we woke to the first snowfall of the season.  As soon as the sun started peeking through the trees, we were up and at ’em with morning chores and shoveling out our long driveway.  The world was so quiet.  It was so incredibly beautiful.

Since 2020, I have filled my head with a lot of negative things: arguments from all sides about all the things, war and rumors of war, just general bad news.  It’s taken me awhile to realize that this behavior is not sustainable.  Our souls crave the good, the true and the beautiful.  We cannot ingest a steady stream of negativity and expect it not to affect our everyday life.  So in 2024, I am fighting to include as much beauty into my day as I can muster: life giving books, time outside in nature, and spending time with my husband and kids.  For every minute of real world “ick,” I want to counter that with another minute of something soul-filling and good.

The soul craves beauty and I am passionately focused on seeking it.  (I think this weekly blog post will be helpful in this endeavor!)

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ having all hands on deck to keep the animals fed, watered and warm.  We aren’t used to this kind of cold here in Virginia!

+ starting a new compost pile.  Compost is an important part of the garden and since I need so much, it can get expensive fast.  I hope to make a little dent in that by starting a pile of my own.  This week, I scavenged around and found some toilet paper rolls, a few kitchen scraps and egg shells.

+ renewing a new mission I started last year that l call “Seeking Beauty on a Budget.”  I want to fill my home with beautiful things, some purchased and some I make myself.  This week’s addition: we went to our local used bookstore and I found two gorgeous volumes of the Harvard Classics series for $3.99 a piece!  There are fifty books in the series and I’m going to see if I can slowly collect them over time.

+ working on winter emergency car kits for my husband and my teenage son.  I put everything in inexpensive backpacks that will live in their trunks.  Hopefully they will never need them, but better safe than sorry.  Items below in bold are the ones I’ve checked off the list so far:

• booster cables (need one more)
• flashlights and extra batteries
• blanket
• local map
• hats, gloves, socks
• snacks and water
• can of fix a flat
• ice scraper
• reflective vest
• tissues, chapstick and toilet paper
• hand warmers
• first aid kit (need one more)
• lug wrench (need one more)

+ selling five unneeded items: two tops, two books and a new pack of boxers that were the wrong size and I never returned.  After shipping and fees, I made $35.28!

Reading //

• What Are You Sacrificing to the Algorithm? by The Examine // Thought provoking.  I liked this paragraph about a reader of his who has a special kind of art project:

This ongoing project (as of the writing of her piece in 2022) is a sort of analog resistance, an act of anti-algorithmic art that’s quiet, non-monetized, and connective. It’s a human endeavor, one that doesn’t rise and fall on the whims of a sponsor, tech company, or subscriber base. It’s not likely to end up in a gallery, not likely to be as widely known as Wyeth’s Soaring. But does that make it less important? No. I might argue it’s more important given our current cultural context. Why? Because it’s an intentional act of human creation in opposition to a world driven by the machines.

• What Happens When a Community Works Together by The Rabbit Room // So inspired by this.
• It’s Time to Dismantle the Technopoly by Cal Newport for the New Yorker //

This emerging resistance to the technopoly mind-set doesn’t fall neatly onto a spectrum with techno-optimism at one end and techno-skepticism at the other. Instead, it occupies an orthogonal dimension we might call techno-selectionism. This is a perspective that accepts the idea that innovations can significantly improve our lives but also holds that we can build new things without having to accept every popular invention as inevitable. Techno-selectionists believe that we should continue to encourage and reward people who experiment with what comes next. But they also know that some experiments end up causing more bad than good.

Watching/Listening //

• Happy Bach // I had this on in the background as I did my computer work this week.
• Floriani Sacred Music Chant School // Continuing on with lesson three and Ave Verum.
• Episode 1: The Trigger Effect of the 1970s documentary series, Connections by James Burke // This was a recommendation and I liked it!  Excited to watch more.

Loving //

• reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the kids again
• this cursive workbook

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

I recently fell down a Youtube rabbit hole where multiple, seemingly unrelated videos expressed their difficulties with life outside of technology.  One Booktube creator now has crippling social anxiety and couldn’t even attend his father’s birthday party because he didn’t know the people on the invitation list.  Another creator shared her troubles in the classroom, reflecting on the current teaching advice to change instructional methods every five minutes in order to keep the kids’ attention.  And on and on.  I watched these videos with such a sadness in my heart.  What is happening to us as a society?

Ever since I was a little girl, I have had a stubborn streak and preferred to dance to the beat of my own drum.  That tendency was tempered a bit as I advanced in grades because well, kids are mean and “blending in” tends to be the best survival tactic.  But as I grow older, that little stubborn streak has returned.  I don’t want to become an automaton, a slave to technology.  I don’t want that for my kids either.  I want to experience the real world even if it’s inconvenient or messy or awkward.  I want to see technology as a tool, not something I cannot live without.  So I resist.  Gently.

Some small examples from the past few years: We don’t have any streaming services and buy secondhand DVDs instead.  We gave up Amazon Prime.  We have one television and it lives in the basement.  We don’t participate in any social media.  I haven’t replaced my cell phone in five years.  We grow our own food even though it’s a ton of work and way more expensive than just buying at the store.  We loathe debt and often pay for items with cash.  We read widely and often.

These examples seem small and insignificant, but are they?  Nothing is insignificant if they order us toward Truth.

Wendell Berry’s poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, provides the encouragement to keep going, to seek small ways to keep our humanity, both in body and in spirit.  You should read the entire poem, but I especially loved this part:

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.

I think my life’s mission will be finding new things that just won’t compute.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ RAIN!  While winter rain is kind of miserable, I’m grateful for its arrival.  Last year’s drought was so terrible and I know our pastures and gardens are in dire need of the moisture.

+ committing to a vitamin routine (thanks, Little Things Bingo!) after waffling back and forth in December.  I’m not a doctor so do your own research – blah, blah, blah – but I’m currently taking a multivitamin, a probiotic, supplemental vitamin D, and fish oil every day.  I add in vitamin C, quercetin and zinc when I feel myself getting sick.  And bonus: I made myself a “poor man’s pill box” using a plastic tackle box and scrapbook stickers we already owned!

+ checking off another bingo prompt: make a new soup.  I made a tomato bisque with homemade chicken broth and a can of tomatoes from the pantry.

+ getting prepped for a new growing season.  I fortunately still have a large seed collection and only needed to purchase a few seed packets (tomatoes and flowers), onion starts and seed potatoes.  I also ordered our first batch of broiler chicks for arrival in early March.

+ trying winter sowing in milk jugs for the first time.  I used this tutorial and started lavender, foxgloves and brussels sprouts.  (I’ll be adding more as we drink through more milk.)  The process was super easy and I’m really excited to see if this will work!

+ making pizza sauce with cherry tomatoes I froze back in the fall.  We made homemade pizza for dinner one night and then used up the rest for pizza dip later in the week.  A pantry/freezer challenge win.

+ purchasing a brand new piano book for my daughter and a like-new Iliad & Odyssey for me on Pango Books for $17.  By not purchasing from Amazon, I saved $20 and supported another seller.  Win/win.

+ selling eleven unneeded items: five books and six of my son’s video games (I sell on his behalf and he gets the money).  After shipping and fees, I made $107.14!

Reading //

• Simple Acts of Sanity: A Seed Catalogue from School of the Unconformed // Includes a great list of ideas for gentle defiance
• In Praise of Repair Culture from Plough // A response to throwaway culture!  I loved this little paragraph about the author’s grandfather:

Grampa, who had grown up on a Wisconsin dairy farm during the Great Depression, shared his generation’s hallmark frugality. He couldn’t stand seeing anything usable or fixable thrown away, from leftover food to old books, which he restored in one of his other workshops, a bindery. (Not coincidentally, he also shared his generation’s penchant for packrat collecting.) But his repair work wasn’t primarily about saving money. The value of a thing wasn’t measured by its replacement price but rather by the use to which it could be put, and by the labor of those who had made it or previously repaired it.

• Why I Traded My Smartphone for an Ax from The Free Press // A teenager’s perspective on technology.
• The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster // A science fiction short story from 1909 that eerily rings true today.  Excellent.  I copied a ton of quotes, but here’s just one:

“You talk as if a god had made that Machine,” cried the other.  “I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy.  Men made it, do not forget that.  Great men, but men.  The Machine is much, but it is not everything.  I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you.  I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you.” (p.8-9)

Watching/Listening //

• Floriani Sacred Music Chant School // Continuing on with lesson two and Ave Maria.
• Self-Care for Homeschool Moms by the The Commonplace // Wise advice for all moms, not just for those who homeschool.
• Vintage Winter Music playlist // Thanks for reminder about this, Melisa!

Loving //

• the cat’s cradle book we got my daughter for Christmas // She and I are having so much fun!
• Rosemary’s 2024 reading plans // Because of her list, I want to jump into the Book of Centuries Challenge from the Literary Life Podcast!
• these power failure alarms for our deep freezers // We appreciate the peace of mind that we won’t accidentally lose all of our meat.