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I've been posting on Blogger for a while and now I'm here in this cozy forum posting and it occurred to me that I've never really shared much of my motivation for homesteading. So I'll take a bit of time here and see what I can muster up. I'll be 45 years old at then end of this month. Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. I met my husband in '99 almost 2 years after I ended a 14 year volatile relationship with a gravely disabled manic depressive. It is 14 years I'll never get back and 14 years I sorely regret. However, I did learn a lot about myself and what was important TO ME. Let's go back... I was born in a small fishing town on the coast of Washington state in 1962. My father was in the Coast Guard and we moved around a lot during the first 18 years of my life. My grandparents on my fathers side were from Casper, Wyoming and married at 16 & 17 years of age. They raised 7 children between living in Wyoming, Arizona and finally Washington. They had a large home in the "city" and 40 acres in the country. They were not rich, just lucky. My grandmother was an industrious sort of woman and always managed to keep her husband and children fed, I'll give you an example. When my grandfather was sick with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, he was unable to provide for his very hungry family. One day when my grandmother was getting water from the well she spotted an antelope across the field. Now my grandma couldn't shoot a gun very well, not well enough to risk missing. So she got my grandpa out of the bed, and dragged/led his weary fevered body to the hood of the truck. Propped him up, helped him hold his shotgun and BLAM! he killed the antelope. My grandma put grandpa back to bed and proceeded to dress out that antelope right there in the field. She fed her family. Grandpa got better and doesn't remember that day at all. My dad used to joke that his parents were dirt farmers as all they could grow well was dirt. He'll tell you that's not necessarily true, it's just that they weren't *good* farmers. My grandfather was a horseman. That was his gift. I could get into it more, but that's a whole other story. My grandmother though, she liked to try anything that had to do with farmin'. Grandma grew up in Wyoming and came from a family of sheep herders. Sheep were so important to their family's survival that someone always had stay with the sheep no matter where they were grazing on their many hundreds of acres. All the children took turns. Grandma would be out there all alone with nothing but a wagon of supplies, for a month at a time day and night, and books. She was an avid reader. She read anything she could get her hands on. She told me that nearly everything she's learned in her life has come from a book and trying what she would learn. My grandmother hated sheep. *laugh* She used to say that she didn't care if she never laid eyes on another sheep to the day she died. She loved her life with my grandfather and 7 kids....sheepless. Some of the things I remember about grandma: Her chickens & turkeys: Grandma always had chickens and occasionally she'd raise turkeys. She knew a lot about raising chickens. She taught me how to pluck chickens. She'd kill them and while the body was still warm she'd pluck them. If we had to wait to pluck them, that's when we'd scald them in hot water. Her rabbits: Grandma tried raising rabbits for a while. She said that their food ratio was too good to not try. She hand probably 50-75 rabbits. She taught me a valuable lesson about getting attached to your livestock that is meant to be eaten. I sorely wanted a pet rabbit and I became very attached to one. She kept telling me to stop playing with the rabbit and she was especially unhappy when I named it. The day it was butchered was a wake up call to me. It may seem cruel to some folks, but I remember that I didn't cry and I accepted the consequences of what I had done. I learned, don't get attached to what you plan on eating!!! Now I decide beforehand; am I gonna eat it? Her gardens: Grandma had two gardens. A big field of corn, potatoes, onions and a few other vegetables that tended to take up a lot of space and that she used a lot of through the year were grown on the farm in the country. In the city she grew her cucumbers for pickling, tomatoes, peas and such. Grandma didn't have gardens because they made her feel close to the earth or so that she could call herself a homesteader. She gardened because she wanted to feed her family. Even after they grew up and had families of their own she shared her bounty. Her curiosity: Grandma would try anything for the experience. She had a freezer full of rabbit skins, she kept saying that she was going to make some rabbit lined boots. Every year she planted cantaloupe and every year they would fail. My father doesn't remember a year that she didn't plant cantaloupe up until she was too "tired" to garden anymore. Grandma would try incubating eggs in a brooder with a lightbulb that she kept in the oven. She would succeed too! She was smart as a whip, too. Grandma always had the answer, even if it was, "go look it up!" I'd find the answer to my question and then we'd talk about it. I think the coolest thing in the world is that my dad (and my mom!) both say how much like my grandma I am. That makes me feel so good because I loved my grandmother with all my heart. She was my inspiration and everyday I learn something new I thank her. Every time I plant a seed, I think of her. My grandparents were homesteaders out of necessity. I'm a homesteader by choice. I have a lot to learn and so much I want to do. Everything I do is in memory of my grandma pictured here:  |
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