Friday, February 1, 2013

Yesterday was warmer still. We've gone from lots of snow in the yard to lots of mud. Still have sick kids home with a cough. I'm hoping it will be warm enough and not windy enough that we can go outside and let them get some warmth and sunlight to help.

Some days seem like I move in a circle from kitchen to laundry room to living room to outisde for something, and yesterday was one of those days. I do enjoy it, though. Some days, I'm in the kitchen for six hours or more a day. But it's all in the name of providing the healthiest food I can for my family.

Photo Credit: La.Catholique

This is radical homemaking. Perhaps we could even call it retro homemaking. Maybe our grandmothers did it. For sure, in most cases, our great grandmothers did it. For centuries, farmwives have been tending the garden, preserving the food, tending the livestock, at least those for home use. They have known animal husbandry, seasonal eating, planting by the signs of the moon, how to make lard, soap, and the best feed for their animals.

As technology advanced, women began to move out of the kitchen and off the homestead. Workplaces became open to them, either by choice or by necessity. And a few generations or so ago, women began actively fighting for their rights to do things like vote and own property of their own and work. Whatever you think of feminism, the be all end all of it is that women have a choice. A plethora of choices, if you will. You choices are based on your wants and needs, as are mine.

So I am proudly a radical homemaker.

We have better technology now, and can do more, faster. It's not that I want to undo any of that. It's that I want to know that I can do it. It's that I need that connection, that touchstone, to the past. It's that our food supply is full of artificial that and GMO'd this and frankly, I want to move away from that. But mostly, it's that I want to give my children a legacy, and past full of memories and skills they can hold on to as they grow. Sure, dance lessons or soccer would give them the same thing, but those things aren't available here, and if we lived in the city, we probably wouldn't be able to afford them. This love for the earth, respect for the food, knowledge of where their food comes from-that I can give them.

And some days, being a radical homemaker means I spend six hours in the kitchen. Yesterday's circuit went something like this

Dishes
Laundry
Check the fire
Clean in some room
Check the fire
Sprouts
Dishes
Check the fire
Sit for ten minutes
Lather, rinse, repeat

That's all in a normal day here.

We did go by our little local market. We don't shop there often because their prices are generally higher, but I found myself in dire need of something or other (yes, it was probably chocolate) so we went. I stumbled onto a bounty of fresh vegetables on sale. I bought some cucumbers, which I will pickle with onions in vinegar in the fridge for Mr. S., and some carrots that will go into the dehydrator. I found a package of marked down tomatoes that won't last long, but Mr. S. will enjoy them sliced with dinner for the next few days. He's the only one that will eat tomatoes like that.

Since we had carrots and cucumbers I decided to buy a head of lettuce, and made some ranch dressing mix when we got home. I used this recipe and while I'll have to agree that it made phenomenal ranch, the mix itself did not fit into a quart sized canning jar. I have it sitting in a baggie until I can use more and then I will move it into a jar.

Dinner last night was the aforementioned salad, and spaghetti and garlic bread. It was fantastic!