Thoughts and ramblings on radical homemaking and such

I recently posted on facebook that I'm fantasizing about rural/communal living. I was only a little bit joking.

I am reading Radical Homemakers. (It feels ironic to link to big corporate Amazon for this book.) I'm thinking about society, what I value and how I want to live. Thinking about our consumer culture, and how I want to fight it, subvert it. Avoid corporate anything as much as possible. Make my own, or buy directly from the people who do grow/make things. Local meats, eggs, dairy, veggies, grains. Make our own pasta, graham crackers, soups, snacks ... what about cheese? yogurt? I haven't tried making these but I know it's do-able and well within reason. Sure it takes time, but I'm home. Plus I feel it's valuable to teach the kids how much we really can do or make ourselves. Teach them skills, not consumerism.

I'm also thinking about what I can do, what things I can make or services I can provide that might be tradeable; what I can contribute to my community. I'm not sure. I need to look into local native bee stuff, maybe start doing some outreach. I plan to talk to the Master Gardener group coordinator to see if I can maybe give a talk about native bees and how to manage for them.

I miss living next door to The Best Neighbors Ever, swapping kid care, feeding their chickens and stealing eggs, borrowing their dog for the occasional hike, and sharing the yards we collectively (mostly jokingly) referred to as The Compound. I miss seeing and interacting with our neighbors. This isolated living, houses close together but closed up tight is not my thing. People are hardly ever out in their yards. I've barely talked to one of our neighbors, and hardly ever see the others. It feels cold. It doesn't feel like home.

I'm thinking about the possibility of moving to a smaller house, one with a gardenable patch of yard (and just maybe a place to have 2-4 chickens). Less house square footage but more livable real estate as a whole. Maybe it's just a fantasy. I'm not sure yet. I don't know if it's worth the stress and hassle of finding another house and moving again.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, or where these ramblings and ideas will lead. We may or may not move. Someday we'll probably have chickens, though that may not happen while we're in PA. I don't know.

Crazy chicken lady

I worry that these stints of chicken-sitting for J's advisor are going to turn me, slowly but surely, into a crazy chicken lady. That I'll wake up at age 63 with 20+ chickens, all named. That this urge I have to pick them up and pet their fluffy feathers while they make tentative "brrruuuuuck" sounds is not normal. Is it?

Please, friends. Let me know if I need a chicken intervention before it's too late and our kitchen is all done up in chicken motif.

BDay celebrations

We had a great, fun-filled Doodle's Second Birthday today.

We awoke to snow, and lots of it. We are chicken-sitting for J's advisor up at The Cabin north of town and kinda in the boonies. It's peaceful, quiet, and gorgeous. Oh, and it gets a lot more snow than down further in the valley. So we played inside this morning, enjoying Doodle's new tea set and play food. Then we packed up and rolled into town where we did some mad-dash cleaning and decorating before The Party. Streamers and balloons were deployed, and the house was looking downright birthdayish (it's important with a December birthday to make sure this special day doesn't get lost in the pre-Xmas stuff. Daktari, the holder of the SoIL December Birthdays Suck party taught me this.).

Friends big and small arrived bearing gifts of music, books and eggnog (homemade!). I have a new-found appreciation for eggnog. Mmmm, fatty goodness! We ate burgers and cake, played with balloons and tea sets, and chatted. We ate too much, drank too much eggnog, and partied until the toddlers were exhausted. It was great.

Post-party we piled up the dishes, grabbed fresh clothes, and hit the road back out to The Cabin. The storm was letting up but we wanted to hit the snowy roads in daylight in case we needed to chain up to get to The Cabin. Main Street was icy and very slow, and Doodle was asleep before we even made it out of town - guess we really wore her out with The Party. Some sliding at a couple of stoplights plus a slower-than-usual drive, but we made it out to the cabin just fine. The snow was deep on the driveway but Elmo the Jeep just plugged along and made it up with no problems. Later one of the Advisor's neighbors came by to plow the driveway with his tractor. Very nice.

Now Doodle is playing with her new Playdoh, cookie cutters and rolling pin on the floor while J and I relax. We'll probably read a bunch of books, play tea party and go to bed early. Definitely a great way to celebrate the two year anniversary of Doodle's birth.

Tomorrow: sledding on the hill behind The Cabin, the first use of skis and snowshoes this season, and maybe an epic snowman. We shall see.