Friday, September 7, 2018

Livin' the dream

A couple weeks ago I walked out to the garden to pick some onions for dinner.


On the way I passed our cow Victoria. We had sold her six-month-old calf a few days before, so she was still in the agitated bellowing stage and was using it as an excuse to hop a low spot in the fence and hang around in the driveway. We kept the driveway gate closed, so there was no where else she could go. (She calmed down shortly thereafter and we repaired the fence.)


At the time, the driveway was littered with eight round bales of hay we had delivered to supplement our winter supply. We've since moved the bales into the barn.


I also passed the buff hen, busy mothering the 13 half-grown chicks.


I picked the onions and trimmed the roots and stems, which I dropped in the compost bin before I came back to the house. While I was in the garden, some neighbors dropped by for a visit. "Look at the size of these!" I exclaimed, holding up the onions, which they duly admired.

"And it occurred to me," I added, "how strange it would seem to some people to be passing cows and chickens and hay bales on the way to get onions from the garden for dinner."

"Yep, we're living the dream," replied the wife.

She was right. Sometimes I forget we're livin' the dream and it's good to be reminded.

7 comments:

  1. Indeed; my homestead is nothing like yours in size, but I feel the same way. The house is nothing to brag about, other than that it's solid, warm, and dry, but chickens run around, the fruit trees give all they're worth, and I tend a veggie garden that's bigger than most suburban yards out behind the barn.

    How many 4-year-old granddaughters get to sit on Grandpa's lap and "steer the 'Deere?" My kids were military brats, so they didn't get to have this experience. God willing, their kids will.

    My wife and I thank God for this place... We KNOW how blessed we are...

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  2. Take the time to smell the...onions.

    This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad.

    Good for you both.

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  3. Yes, a normal trajectory for me as well. Onions drying in our barn means I collect them for supper while feeding some hay to the heifers, gathering eggs in the hen house and cajoling the cow into her milking stall. I'll also stop by the freezers we have in the milk room to grab some frozen stew meat and then pick some tomatoes out of our kitchen garden while grabbing some honey we have stored in a separate building. "Shopping the aisles" on our homestead is very different from a regular grocery store.

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  4. It would be strange to some people to even be going out to the garden for onions for dinner, never mind chickens, cows, and hay bales.

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  5. It is, Patricia. There is a line The Fellowship of the Ring said Bilbo (I forget precisely the wording), but the idea is that a simple life well lived is a very good thing indeed. And yet we live in a society and time that tries to convince us that we need far more - and we need someone else to do it.

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  6. You are living the dream. While I don't think I'll be able to live the full dream, we are about to sell the townhouse we had to settle for when we escaped California and move into a house with a decent yard, and no HOA.

    I will have a small garden and a couple of fruit trees, but no chickens. However, I think I found a source for grass-fed, humanely raised beef about an hour away. The Farmer's Markets, while seasonal, are another source I use for what I can't raise myself.

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