I have a few things to talk about in this post; a bit of
farm action, a sprinkling of homesteading insight and just a dash of personal
awareness. But let’s get the farm stuff
out the way first.
I’ve been going on about the end of construction and the
beginning of farming since the start of the year. Well, guess what? We’re still building stuff BUT we have placed
a seed order….Hurrah! However, some of
the projects that we’ve completed have made me really proud. Not least of all, the poly tunnel (you can
find pictures of the build in the last post).
You may find it hard to understand why I appear delighted to
have a huge plastic cylinder constantly in my vision. There are many reasons; firstly the
opportunities it offers to have year round supply of fresh produce, and not
just veggies, but fish too. Ian is
attending an Aquaponics course at the local university with a view to
installing an Aquaponics system in the middle of the tunnel.
Basically this is a giant fish tank, usually stocked with tilapia or
prawns. Then there are various types of
veggies growing either on top or alongside.
It’s a kind of symbiotic process; the fish waste is transformed by bacteria to provide vital food and
nutrients to the produce which in turn provides oxygen, etc. to help the fish
thrive. It’s a newish concept (although it’s
origins are from Mayan agriculture) that really fits with our permaculture
values. It’s really exciting to find
interesting initiatives to aid us in a journey to self-sufficiency and that
underpin our ethics. (See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics
for more info on Aquaponics).
Another permaculture value is about building communities and so the second reason that the poly-tunnel project made me proud
was the community driven building process.
As usual, most of the materials are salvaged and reclaimed. The building took a lot of blood sweat and
tears, but nothing in comparison to the day we put the poly on the damn
thing. The day was miserable, wet, cold
and windy, not ideal conditions for manipulating giant swaths of poly! However, my heart had plenty of opportunities
to swell. Our friends and neighbours
turning up and enduring these conditions to help us wrestle to wrong-sized,
fly-away poly rendered me speechless.
Also, although I am usually loathed to publicly credit Ian with
anything, watching my brilliant husband problem solve and lead the troops was
awesome. After we started pulling the
poly over the frame, we realized that we’d been given the 20ft wide poly
instead of the 30ft we needed. But what
can you do when you’ve unrolled it and got it covered in mud and there’s
volunteers there waiting to help?
Nothing, you have to make it work.
Anyway, as we discovered the problem I turned to one of our friends and
said “Wait for it, Ian will think of something in the next 30 seconds” and I
saw his brain whirring into action.
I counted down from 30 and by the time I got to 6 Ian started “Maybe we
could….”. Of course, he made it work and
I was so proud. I normally resent it
when people say “Good job Ian” every time we complete a building because I’m
there too working through the cold and the dark, but he can have credit for the
poly tunnel, he made it a triumph.
I’ve been forced to think about my place and approach as a
homesteader. This occurred when I had an
accidental meeting with two inspiring women.
The ladies in question are two sisters, each one a homesteader with a
family. They live in different places in
the North of BC. Immediately this evoked
admiration. Homesteading is hard work
and takes commitment, but doing it in the north with extreme weather and Kodiak
Bears rendered me awe-struck. So when
they asked if they could come and see our little homestead, I was both honoured
and struck by inferiority complex at the same time.
Watching these two ladies walk around Laurica Farm admiring
the projects and bickering about the ‘right way’ to homestead was fascinating
and hilarious. One of the ladies’
approach to homesteading is to make EVERYTHING from scratch. She literally spends all her time making
everything from bread (including grinding her own flour) to candles, deodorant,
and household furniture. She even artificially
inseminates her own cow…! The other
sister claimed that this was fools work.
She informed me that while her sister worked her fingers to the bone,
she was sitting in the warmth of her kitchen cutting out coupons. Of course this means that she has to run 3
chest freezers and might have to eat pizza for weeks at a time but she’s happy
that she’s never broken a sweat on her homestead.
This exhausting visit, which seemed to involve me doing a
lot of mediation between the two sisters in their 70’s, made me think about my
place in the homesteading community. I
had never thought about my individual approach to the lifestyle. I feel like I’m at a happy medium between
these two women. I make all our food
from scratch but will look for deals on my deodorant. And I’m ok staying along that
middle-road. It may not be as cost
efficient as the ladies’ lifestyles but it’s not as time consuming either, nor
do I have to face a freezer full of processed foods just to save a few
dollars. I think we’re doing ok at it
to. We’ve significantly reduced our
grocery shopping bill to $75 - $100 a week for a family of four; that’s pretty
good.
The next part of this blog is a personal observation. Some of you might not like it because I’m at
risk of sounding a bit preachy. I
apoligise in advance but this blog was always meant to document the transition
from our urban lifestyle so here goes.
The final reflection, sparked partly by the
sisters, relates to how mass consumerism and societal pressure makes us believe
we need certain things & that we must live in a prescribed and generic way. As our family has stripped luxuries from our
life to reinvest in the basics, I come to realize what a load of corporate BS
it is. I looked at the sisters, both in
their 70’s, and saw two healthy, fit, astute and empowered women who have
always enjoyed a stress free life (the one thing they did agree on). I thought about the things I imagined I would
miss about our old lifestyle. For
example, I used to indulge in the occasional pedicure but view it as a necessity. I haven’t done this since we moved, not due
to some grandiose hippy gesture, purely due to lack of time and money. But hey, I managed to keep my toenails
painted all by myself. I haven’t developed
scales or dry skin on heels. The only weirdness
about my feet is my freaky tiny toes, and that’s genetic. My hair is not freshly cut or coloured, but
my husband hasn’t left me, no one has de-friended me and I haven’t been asked
to leave any respectable restaurants due to my offensive roots. I haven’t shopped for crap from Home Sense
and people still visit my house. There
are no new shoes from Aldo in my closet or new clothes from whatever the trendiest
shop is at the moment, but no one says a word when I go out in my farm footwear.
I haven’t set foot inside the new Cactus
Club restaurant to dine from their generic, franchised menu and I haven’t been
cast out of society, nor am I starving to death.
The things that seemed important to me before (all of which
cost money) have been undermined by my
new outlook and that fact that nothing bad has happened to me by going without
them, in fact, I feel more relaxed, more liberated and less pressure.
I’ve realized that there is not a set homesteading model
that I have to aspire to, meeting these two ladies and 7 month out of suburbia
has encouraged me to forge my own path down the long and windy homesteading
road. Let’s just hope I don’t trip on my
uncut hair on the way!
