Making Do With My Lawn Mower

One of the things Dan and I have been learning to do, is to think outside the box. We've tended to approach homesteading with a conventional farming mindset; certain jobs require certain equipment, right? One doesn't, say, plow an acre of land with a garden tiller. Or does one? ;) It's times like that that really get me going in the "if only" mode. Still, that doesn't get the job done and doing everything by hand often takes too much time.

Our first inspirational breakthrough was when we decided to space the field corn and cowpea rows far enough apart to cut down the weeds between them with the lawnmower. (See "Of Corn, Cowpeas, & Lawnmowers.")

I'm still weeding rows with the lawnmower. At first I thought I planted
the rows too far apart. Now I think I planted them too close together. ;)

Then when our pasture improvement project got delayed, I found myself fretting over all the unwanteds growing there. If they all went to seed, it would perpetuate the very problem we were trying to get rid of. That was the first time it occurred to me to use the bagger attachment that came with our lawn mower.

As an aside I'd like to say that I love my lawnmower. It's a Husqvarna 7021 and it never skips a beat if the grass is too high or thick (which it often is). When we bought it, we were debating between one of these or a hand pushed reel mower. We couldn't get both, and even though I wanted the reel mower, Dan chose this one. The reel mower would have been fine for our flat front yard, but we have other areas that are steep and grow thick. I admit this one has been much better for that.

Until now though, I'd never used the bagging attachment. I couldn't see the point. Why bother to bag up the clippings just to make the lawn look prettier. The neighbors should be glad it gets cut at all. But when my future pasture was loaded with growing weeds I didn't want to reseed, it occurred to me that I could actually bag and use those clippings.

As chicken litter for example...

Grass clippings mixed with leaves make for a sweet smelling coop

The clippings make the coop smell fresh and clean, and the chickens love to scratch around in search of those seed heads and maybe even a few choice bugs to eat. I give them a quick stir once a day and when it's time to clean out the coop, these are well mixed with manure and nicely precomposted.

I've used grass clippings in and around the goat sheds too, especially where the ground gets too muddy for hooves to be continaully walking through.

Using grass clippings in the buck barn,
for bedding & to cover muddy areas

Dried, they make good worm bedding.

Grass clippings next to compost worm bed. These must be dry before
adding to the bed to avoid the heat from decomposition of green matter.

I pile them next to the worm bed and let them dry out. When they need more bedding, I toss some in.

Hand mowing an acre field and emptying the bag frequently is still a lot of work. There are some things though, that I have to get rid of, like deadly nightshade, which pops up frequently. Being able to accomplish that plus collect the grass clippings helps me feel more productive, because I'm killing two birds with one stone so to speak.

As we learn to make do with what we've got, we find ourselves analyzing our needs in a different light. Yes, we could certainly use some heavy equipment, but perhaps it isn't what we originally thought we needed. Some jobs can be done with alternatives, some can be done by hand. With just two of us though, we need to consider wise use of our time and energy. I'm not saying we've reached any conclusions yet, but we are rethinking. Maybe, for example, we don't need a farm tractor. Maybe a 2-wheeled tractor (AKA walk-behind tractor) is all we need for our small acreage. This is an instance where experience and not having a lot of money have worked in our favor. Hopefully when it's time to make the final decisions, they'll be good ones.

Making Do With My Lawn Mower © August 2012 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

The Problem With Wealth

I was returning blog visits the other day, and ran across a really good post at Nancy's, "Inspiring Depressions Era Stories & Where We Are." The thing that struck me, was not how terrible these folks had it, though I know some did, but the wisdom and common sense of their forced frugality.

I remember my grandmother telling me about the depression. My grandfather's family was in mortgage banking and lost everything. I've been through the old census records and noted servants listed as members of the household. When the depression hit, my grandmother recalled all their families having to move into the same house together. She told me her father-in-law was never the same after that.

The generation that experienced the Great Depression seemed to come out of it with one thing in mind, to not let their own children experience the same lack of want. They worked hard and sacrificed to make sure their children had a better life. Most of us grew up under the passed down influence of that and have raised our children the same way. But at what cost? I know those parents thought they were doing a good thing, but if they could have looked ahead into the attitudes of future generations, I wonder if they would have made the same choices. Human nature never seems to appreciate what it doesn't have to work for, what's handed over on  a platter so to speak. Instead it takes those things for granted.

My first husband's grandmother lived in Louisiana. She gardened and canned much of her own food. When I asked her to teach me, she was shocked and refused. She even scolded me for it saying, "you don't have to do that. You can afford to buy food!"

That this is an inherited attitude in the South has become obvious to me during the years we've lived here. It also explains why so many folks in our area don't get what we're doing. (For an insightful, fun read about some of the differences between Southern and Northern attitudes, check out Tami's post, "Twinkie".) To many native Southerners, we appear to be going backward and they can't understand that.

Showing off wealth however, seems to be a universal tendency. Isn't that why folks buy the cars they do, the homes they do, the toys they do? People are enamoured with status. Unfortunately marketers take advantage of this tendency, tracking and creating what is now known as "trends." I find myself wondering if this strong human desire to be one of the in-crowd doesn't make us easy to manipulate.

When it comes to wealth, it seems the "have-nots" are always clamoring to be "haves." I don't think this was always the norm. When I read the Little House series, I see a contentment with what the Ingalls had, or didn't have, even though they had no money.

Nowadays people assume they have a right to what everybody else has. I think in part we have been trained this way. When my daughter was little, the trend for birthday parties was that everyone received a present. The idea behind this was to be fair and that nobodies feelings got hurt. I disagreed. To me it seemed unfair to create this expectation in my children, that they should always get what everybody else got. Reality is that life simply isn't fair. When 100 people audition for an opening on the team, only one person makes it. We are not equally talented, equally statured, equally inclined. For birthday parties, I preferred the concept of turn taking. On their birthday it was their turn to get presents. On So-&-so's birthday, it was their turn.

Now we hear political promises to equalize wealth. We assume this means that this nation's wealthy are going to have to give some of their money to us. We jump on the tax-the-rich bandwagon.  It never seems to occur to us that 1) the rich know the loopholes and have tax shelters to keep from paying higher taxes, 2) they have the means to pass higher taxes on via higher prices, lower wages, and job cuts, 3) that if the politician making the promise is a globalist, then equalizing wealth means taking it away from us as a nation, and passing it on to impoverished 3rd world countries. Equalizing wealth means poorer nations will have more, but we will have less.

I think one of the bottom line problems with wealth is that as humans, we are never satisfied with our lot in life. We all tend to think, if I only had _____ (fill in the blank)_____ . Many would say, "more money." The question we ought to be answering however, isn't even being asked. What we ought to be contemplating is, when is enough, enough?

Dan and I are not immune to this kind of thinking. Our blank would be filled in with, if only we had a farm tractor, or a real barn, or had the mortgage paid off. I rationalize this by saying we're still in the establishment phase of our homesteading. I have to consider though, that if my goal truly is self-sufficiency, then at some point I'm going to have to stop wanting more, I'm going to have to stop spending money, I'm going to have to get off the consumer mindset merry-go-round.

Do I have answers to any of this? Honestly, I don't think there are any, at least not in the sense we tend to think of answers, i.e. politics and isms, because these tendencies of human nature are universal. I think the problem is with our worldview, our mindset about money, and with how we define economy. However I reckon I've written enough about it all today. If you're curious about what I mean, you can check out these related posts:

Mindset: Key To Successful Homesteading?
A No Waste Way of Life
And a 3 part series:

1. Contemplations on Value & Money 
2. The Lost Art of Bartering Part 1
3. The Lost Art of Bartering Part 2

The Problem With Wealth © August 2012 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

Kitchen Remodel: My New Dish Rack

I'm pleased to report a little more progress on the kitchen. When the weather's nice, we usually focus on outdoor projects like the garden or firewood, but on rainy days we can tackle a few other things. The other day, Dan finished this...

My new dish rack

A dish rack. I love it. It's one more wonderful space saver and I love that it shows off my dishes. :)

Close up 

Plus it helps make everything handy for putting away dishes. Silverware is in the top base cabinet drawer, dishes are on the rack, and glasses and bowls are in the wall cabinet above.

That's one more thing checked off the list! All that's left now is finishing the dining alcove, and the trim in the pantry hallway. Then I'll finally be able to present you with a complete photo tour of my new kitchen!

Kitchen Remodel: My New Dish Rack © August 2012 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/