With all the things happening in the world its hard to not feel the magnitude of life's uncertainty. In the picture my son is checking out the thickness of the ice, skates in hand. He looks a bit uncertain. Maybe his face is showing what lots of people are feeling now. How he is checking the stability of the ice is not a method I would recommend but he was willing to take the risk. He is not a child so the choice was his.
Several people have come up to me in the last little while and said things like,
"when the world starts to crumble we are going to come stay with you. You folks know how to live like they did in the old days". Then they finish up by saying, " We admire how you live, but we sure couldn't do that". Couldn't do what ? Hang up clothes, cook from scratch, heat with wood, use very little electricity, grow our own food, make soap, milk goats, gather eggs, butcher when the need is there, sew, spin wool from your animals, go to sleep bone weary but content ? Simple things really. Part of daily life for most of the country less than 100 years ago. Or perhaps it is not the things we do, but the things we don't do or have. Don't have a cell phone, eat out, have a fancy house, take vacations, nice cars, new clothes, rush around going here and there, two jobs, frantic life, babysitters, debts ? Live like the majority of Americans ?
I wonder if there was something like a depression again in the US if the younger generation could cope. What if you couldn't afford a cell phone, cable TV, DSL, no credit cards, no money for the mall or that latte or walk places instead of drive, had to make your own clothes, and bake your own bread, no bread machine ?
It's a comfort to my husband and I to know our children would do just fine. They know how to work hard, work when you are not feeling good, work when you are tired and how to milk cows and goats, how to make cheese, spin wool, garden, butcher chickens, cook on a wood stove and how to walk places or how to drive a horse drawn buggy to town. Live off the land. I feel good knowing we taught them how to cope under all types of situations.
Maybe people should think about learning some skills to prepare for doing with less or managing if the way we live takes a turn backwards.
I guess when it comes down to it, I am pretty thankful we are homesteaders. If the world keeps on keeping on, we are still happy and content, if the economy falls apart, we are still able to go on just as we are.
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