The 16th of February was the thirteenth anniversary of this blog, my trusty journal here. I have been keeping it, at least lightly, for a lot longer than any other journal I have ever kept. In fact, I think this journal got that distinction about three weeks in. It is hard to believe that so many of the significant events of my life have been recorded here. When I die, I will probably write about that here too! Well, why not? It seems as good a place as any!
We are still raising llamas on the little farm. I want to narrow down some of the other animals, and focus more on the llamas. We could do with cutting costs, and focusing on the things that could best profit us. It is getting more and more painful to go out and tend to the animals, especially in winter, when the snow depth and the cold add to the laboriousness of the tasks. I have one friend around here who has a backhoe, and may help with getting a trench dug to get us some water access in places other than the side of the garage.
Some of what has changed for me, over these years, has been the expectations of modernity. I was tired of some of it back when I started this blog. And while I still appreciate some of it, there are many things I could do without. Above all, it is cheaply made products for which we flog our guts out, only to lose the time spent earning it to a part that was deliberately engineered to break. and force us to replace it. Because of it, I am trying harder to repair what’s broken, or build what I can myself to do the job for me.
I also heat the house with wood, a long time goal come to fruition. We can do much more with that heat than we can the furnace, and it costs us a lot less. But the modern world wants to tell us we are polluting, and we are poisoning. They feel at ease with saying that because they don’t see the coal power plants running, and all the trucks digging at the coal, and all the trains moving the coal. Instead, they just want to point to our chimney smoke and accuse. We warm our house, cook our food, and we can dry our clothes, heat water, iron clothes, stay warm and happy when the power is out and the system has failed, all for little fuel and our own hard work. We do good in the forest by removing dead trees that risk a fire, and we help our neighbors who have trees fall in the wind, and remove those for them. When the stove needs a service, we can do it all ourselves, without the cost of a repair man, but with a few tools and a little work. What’s more, we are aware of our system, and able to keep it running without the help of some expert whose service we have to wait on till he is available or his rates are affordable in the week. On top of it all, the trees provide more wood than just what is burnt, and we get pieces to use in many crafts and constructions around the farm and around the house. So, I’d say, that is something that nobody who hands out the modern bill would want us to have. And in that sense, I am more cynical.
It is true that we heat the upstairs with a furnace. If I could figure out a way, we would not. But it is more practical up there, where the wood would have to be carried up the stairs. It keeps part of the house on propane, but at a much more affordable rate. As heat rises, we offset a little with what comes up from downstairs. We are getting better at sealing off the house in the winter in a way that is more effective, and costs us a little less. But I think about it all a lot more with the woodstove than I think I would if heating were nothing more than turning a knob on the wall. And that is a big difference.
Those are only some of the things that have changed in the last 13 years. I have lost people. I have seen the world do things I never thought possible. I was sure that Bush was going to go down in history as the worse President ever, and now we have toppled that idea with someone who is far more narcissistic than he ever was, and has foolish Isolationist philosophies that are not American leadership, but turn us into ourselves and away from the world to let it turn on us. I only hope we can make it through the worst of it and come out of it as soon as the next election. He who must not be mentioned is an unmentionable.
13 years. How quickly they have transpired! Some of it has dragged on and on, while some has gone too quickly, and some too soon. I hold on to what is good, and keep what is bad as far at bay as I can. We have winters that we fight through, and summers that exhaust us. I sleep outside from time to time, just because I can. I try to take deep breaths, and keep life as far down into my lungs as I can. I should write more about it, but I find that too much of it is just for me.
Kelsey