Well, instead of allowing ourselves to sit around with the winter blues, we kept ourselves very busy around the farm. Not only is winter our time to fix everything that we didn’t have time for over the summer, it is also time for us to relax and enjoy the hard work that we have done all summer to get to this point.
We get to reflect on the past season, being thankful that we have worked so hard towards living a sustainable lifestyle. Meaning, we are not as reliant on other people to provide to us, even in the winter. We have been able to learn more by our experience each year. Winter is our time to read lots of farm books and keep up on the all the new things that are going on in farming.
We have found that a lot of the theories are modifications of what things used to be like back in the day, but with modern use of chemicals and genetic engineering, we steered away from that for a little bit. I mean if you think about how farmers used to live; the way they treated their animals humanely, they grew things that naturally belonged in their respective seasons, they didn’t use chemicals, they supplemented the soil, and they preserved their harvest. It just all really makes sense that we are getting back to those roots. We like to think that we are bridging the gap between generations and just learning how our grandparents or great-grandparents would have lived off the land.
We have found that a lot of the theories are modifications of what things used to be like back in the day, but with modern use of chemicals and genetic engineering, we steered away from that for a little bit. I mean if you think about how farmers used to live; the way they treated their animals humanely, they grew things that naturally belonged in their respective seasons, they didn’t use chemicals, they supplemented the soil, and they preserved their harvest. It just all really makes sense that we are getting back to those roots. We like to think that we are bridging the gap between generations and just learning how our grandparents or great-grandparents would have lived off the land.
People may think that we are crazy putting in all this hard work to living our lives this way, but it really is worth it. We spend all winter chopping wood since we heat our house with a wood burning stove. It is just nice when the gas bill costs close to nothing. In the summer I do a lot of canning and preserving the harvest, which gives us lots of things to eat through the winter that we produced. It is much better than any store bought goods in the wintertime too!
We raised pigs last fall, so we had our own pork to eat over the winter. And, we have laying hens so we get fresh eggs for ourselves. Overall, it is hard work, but I wouldn’t have it any other way now that I know what it’s like to be more self-sufficient.
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