The Simple life.

Living in the country, I am surrounded by gardens. I have apple, most pears (for making an alcoholic cider) plum and walnut trees in our back garden. I always grow zuccinis and pumkins each year (as they are so easy to grow). The problem is, come harvest time, I always seem to be so busy and swear that next year I will do something about all the produce.

But not this year. I am so proud that I collected all the apples around. I have dried about 10 kilos worth (now that it is so cold I have the wood stove on where I can just put them on top to dry). I have stewed 15 big pots of apples to freeze. I have made apple pies and apple cakes. I have dried all the excess zuccinnis (I´m still not sure what to do with them. My attempts at freezing made them only OK for soup which we aren´t too keen on). The nuts are currently drying to be ready to be stored.

I feel like an old fashioned maiden working on my wood stove. I just need my pinny and hat to fit in. But at the same time I feel liberated. I feel that I am putting my feet on the towards living as self sufficient as possible (remember that TV show, The Good Life?). It feels like we can start reducing our dependency on the capitalistic forces which determine how things will be. Sometimes my Honey and I sit and dream of how we will enjoy our life - work to live, not live to work. We have plans on the wind generator in the back yard. How we will link the television to a bicycle so the children will get exercise and generate their own electricity if they want to watch. How we will have our alpaca (that is my dream too Julie,) where I will shear the wool and dye it with natural dyes, like from berries (I have a jumper I dyed with elderberries), spin it and then knit it up (Honey comments that our girls will be dressed in those wool outfits from the 70`s you used to see in magazines). All our food will be from the garden. Honey insists on a pig as he can´t be a vegetarian. Candles (with wax from our own hives), wood fires, making our own pottery and burning in our own constructed wood kilns....

This is just how people used to live here only 40 years ago. My grandmother kept rabbits that she would spin and knit into socks and shoes which she would trade with someone else who had something she needed. It´s amazing how far peopel have come in such a short life - overconsuming, debts, materialism, a Now society rather than a save society. Are people happier because of this? I know that I appreciate the chance to travel and see the world which wasn´t something that happened much before, but I also know that living here in my little world and the simpler my life gets, the happier I become.