Gone Country
I have been thinking a lot lately about how I have always lived in terms of being in a rural area and planting things and how growing food has always been a way of life for me.
I think about how planting and growing our own food has become an option and not as much of a necessity these days with farmers markets and organic grocers more and more available even in big cities.
I think about the emails I receive telling of how people live vicariously through my blog when I write about gardening, the farm animals and the hand crafts I love.
I think about all the people trying a little harder to be a little more self sufficient these days.
I think about how many of our grandparents fought to get off the family farm and now we are struggling to get back to that place where they came from. Of how we dream of living in those days of being one with the earth and caretakers of life – plant and animal.
I think about new ideas and plans for gardening next spring. Yes, already I have hopes for next year with new and better ways to try things.
My mind is often a whirlwind of thoughts, ideas, brainstorms, plans, wishes, dreams all about the things I can do and need to plan to do and want to do.
I know many of you out there have the same or similar kinds of thoughts. I know some of you dream of living in the country but make do with living in the city until you can get where you want to be. I know some of you live in the city and have no plans to leave but grow a tomato or herb garden in a sunny window or balcony. I know some of you visit festivals and fairs and you collect wool for spinning and yarn for knitting and crochet. I know some of you can jams and jellies and pickles. I know some of you keep a few chickens in a small yard in the suburbs and even a couple of you in the city. I know some of you sew and craft and make things with your hands. I know some of you do much more than I do.
So many things we do to give us that connection with the earth and life and sustaining ourselves to keep ourselves grounded and sane.
And that got me thinking even more. About women and agriculture and sustainable living (and adding shot of vodka to the lemonade life sometimes hands us – buts that’s another post).
We’ve gone country. Even in the tiniest ways we are searching and finding ways to get back to the roots of life, real roots, covered in dirt and fertilized with chicken poop.
If you have “Gone Country” I’d like to read about it. I am sure many others would like to read about you, too.
Do you sew your own clothes? Do you plant a garden? Do can your produce? Do you raise your own livestock? Do you have a flock of chickens? Do you enjoy traditional crafting – quilting, knitting, crochet, spinning, etc? What do you do that keeps you grounded? Do you have gardening tips and tricks? Do you have sewing ideas? Crafting ideas? Do you go to the farmer’s market? Do you buy local? Do buy organic? Are you into the slow foods movement? Do you make homemade soaps? Do you grow herbs on a city balcony? So many things we do!
So here’s an idea for us all to be able to read each others stories.
Take this button, upload it to your own photo storage, put it on your blog linking back to this post. In your sidebar is a great place to link the image.
Code format:
<a href="http://bigredcouch.com/journal/?p=1615" target="_blank"><img src="link_to_your_photo_storage_goes_here" border="0" alt="Gone Country"></a>
Write about how you have ‘gone country’ – big or small.
Come back here and post a link to your blog post.
Send your readers around the neighborhood to read about other women who have “gone country.” Each time a comment is left on this post saying a reader came from your blog I will put your name in my John Deere cookie jar. In 30 days I will draw a name and that name will receive a giveaway.
What am I giving away, you may ask?
A pink John Deere T-shirt, a pair of matching footie socks, a pair of pink John Deere gardening gloves, a quilted Barn Cat hot mat and a copy of Eat, Pray Love. I may even add a few more things as I get the time to make or collect them.
What if I don’t have a blog?
You can still play along with us and be part of the drawing.
Tell your story here in the comments. Tell others to come read also and have them leave a comment saying you sent them. Voila! There is your name entered in the giveaway.
I can’t wait to read your stories and learn new tips and tricks from you all.
** I am adding a bar of my homemade soap to the give away.
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me! (she really really wants that T shirt….)
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
“Mary from Curtin Call sent me!”
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
Okay, Ang! I think I win – can we just call this now?!?!?! LOL!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
I know you want that shirt, Mary!
Mary from Curtin Call sent me!
via Judy… you two are a great team.
Hi Angie,
Here’s my link…http://frugalsmith.blogspot.com/2009/09/gone-countryagain.html
Mary from Curtin Call sent me! and I think she’s desperate for that shirt.
We moved from the city to rural Oregon City and now to very rural Ione WA in the Pend Oreille River Valley.
We will heat with wood and currently have 5 cords waiting to be split and stacked to add to the 4 already done. We have a garden and we have canned and frozen a ton of stuff.
Thanks to Angie and the good folks at BackyardChickens, I am making my own bread and learning to cook again from scratch, which is so satisfying.
I make clothes, quilts and also make sewn items to sell.
Our ducks and geese provide us with eggs and I freeze the excess. I plan to start making our own soap items again.
“Making my own” keeps us close to working for what we need or want instead of just buying it on a whim. It means more that way. It makes us appreciate the life we have made for ourselves here when the reward is something we worked for and made with our own hands.
I don’t have a blog, but I will post my story here! I was given my property by my father who had 20 acres. Out plot is just shy of 3 acres. My brother’s plot is across the street.His is just shy of 5 acres.
As a child we had ducks, geese, chickens, a few steers and some hogs. We raised the hogs and steer for meat. Chickens were for eggs, and the ducks and geese were for the farm affect! Ok, we ate their eggs too. We did have a goat and a rooster that my brother’s friend tried to raise in his back yard in a close by neighborhood, but they always ended up at the “farm.”
My dad was a farmer at heart, where my brother lives now, was his corn field. My plot was thick trees and brush. He gardened and even canned some food. He mostly just grew it to give it to family and some close friends.
He was happiest digging in the earth.
I grew up and moved away, never dreaming I’d be back, but as just all us kids here(in this little neighborhood) left, we all just about came back!
Most moved in to their parents old houses, or bought a house close by. We all couldn’t wait to leave, but some how we were all called back! We moved here in 1998, cleared the property by hand and built out little home!
When my sons started going through puberty, they developed some lumps in their breast, my brothers didn’t remember it happening to them, so I called the DR. Everything is normal, it happens to all boys. Ok, didn’t think about it much until one of my sons came to me with the complaint that his nipple was leaking a clear fluid. I called the Dr. again, this time not normal, so we endure a battery of tests and stupmed the specialists! No cancer, no anything. One Dr. said he thought my son was getting to many hormones, let’s write down everything he uses from food to soap. We did that, and come to find he was getting an overload of progesterone. Progesterone in in everything from soap to shampoo to the food we eat. So we decided we need to do something. We started buying beef, from a man that grass fed, and only grain fed them as a supplement. And made him use baby soap and shampoo. We then thought will we will grow our own veggies.
slowly my son got better. A few years later,
we had another son, and he was into goats from the time he was 1, so when he turned 3 we got 3 goats. They are just pets, but my Dad who was ill wanted me to get some ducks. I was reluctant, I remembered they were smelly, but then a stray duck came up my driveway, and thinking it was a sign, we got ducks, and as it turned out we brought home some chicks too! We ended up with muscovy ducks and cochin chicks! When the ducks grew up, we had 2 males, the one that was a stray and one we brought home. We couldn’t stand all the fighting so we ate the one male. It was ok, but I didn’t really cook it right.
All along my dad was thrilled, and proud, cuz I was learning to garden and can my food! He passed away a few months after I got the ducks and chicks, but I know they were sent to me from God, they are what has gotten me through my Dad’s death. He knew I needed them to keep me busy. We now raise the Muscovy ducks for meat, tastes like beef, we breast them out and grill it, better than Filet Mignom. (SP) We now grow an even bigger garden, and can a lot more of it. I still give lots away to family and close friends. My Daddy would be so proud!
What a nice idea, Angie! I used to do some of the things you mentioned, such as growing vegetables, weaving, sewing. I don’t do much of anything close to the earth anymore, and I should. I really admire your way of life.
HEY! I was country when country wasn’t cool!
Kidding. I’m sadly suburban.
i’ll be gettin’ in on this later today….
Here is my gone country post, sorry it became a novel. It’s amazing how a simply question can envoke such a involved response! http://simplykneaded.blogspot.com/2009/09/gone-country.html
I made my way here from Pleasant Home!
here’s my post:
http://lifesspices.blogspot.com/2009/09/gone-country.html
Hello from Beautiful Northern Michigan, and the Family Centenial Farm. We havent gone country we are Country. Love your posts on BYC and your blog
“Mary from Curtin Call sent me!”
I added your avatar to my blog page http://www.backtobasicliving.com/blog. Woo hoo for country girls and pink John Deere t-shirts!!
Such a generous thing to do! We so enjoy our chickens and I LOVE BYC!! We plan on having a garden next year and are thinking of getting some pygmy goats too!!
Angie, we have 4 chickens in a neighborhood that’s never had chickens before. We are spreading the word of home grown food and local eating.
I love your quote: “About women and agriculture and sustainable living (and adding shot of vodka to the lemonade life sometimes hands us – buts that’s another post).”
Would love to see that post!
I want your pink prize package, but am a little scared of mary….
Well what can I say… as a child city born and bred, I always dreamed of living in the country, at the weekends I would walk for miles daydreaming about that special day when I could live within the green fields that is England…. where I was born…. no more bright lights, no more pollution… my parents then thought I was “mad” your a city girl and no doubt you will stay a city girl.. (((SIGH)))) I tendered that very very small garden that was thier suburbia always wanting more…. each weekend from whence I could drive was a special place amongst the lanes and green fields, as off I would go, more often than not alone… but equipped with my picnic basket. how wonderful it was to be truly outside and away from the stuffy offices of the”city” where I worked, to breathe fresh air…. even the smell of the muck spreaders was a delight to my senses!…. many many years passed as I toiled over my desk in that hot stuffy office….. then a chance meeting… love at first sight for both of us…. by a slight of fate I met my country farmer….. some 26 years later I still adore this man who swept me off my feet and took me to paradise amongst the green green fields….to this man whom I still count my blessings daily, I owe to him my paradise…. we have two children, I have many pets… and at last I have peace…. I am as self sufficient as possible, I grow our vegetables for eating, we eat our own home produced lamb and beef and we drink the milk from our own cows…. we are truly blessed. So many city dwellers do not understand the luxury that is home produced…they don’t have the space, for them I feel sad…. nothing compares to that vegetable/fruit/milk or meat that has been raised by your own hands.. nothing compares, nothing in the supermarkets ever will……….. Life is growing something blessed from the Lord that can be eaten within the home further blessed with love and understanding of everything country……… Country living for me ROCKS!!!!!!!
Mary does not scare me…………
I don’t have a blog, but I am trying to be more self-sufficient. I have a garden, peach trees, pear trees,cherries,blueberries,apples, and grapes. I try to can and make jellies but life is very hectic around here and I do what I can. We also have 8 chickens, for eggs not meat. I try to get my children involved as much as I can, because as they say “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for life.” I want my children to grow up knowing where there food comes from, and not just think it all comes from a supermarket. I recently bought a dehydrator, and my whole family can’t wait for me to make some beef jerky. It is supposed to rain all weekend, so I suppose that can be our weekend project this weekend.
I grew up in the suburbs of Louisiana. Every Sunday after church we would go “out in the country” to visit my Grandfather at his store. He came to this country in 1899 from Sicily, not knowing but a few words of English, unable to read or write. In 1901 he was able to send for the rest of his family. He settled here in Louisiana and built a small country store, did a bit of farming and eventually acquired 80 acres of land. When my Dad, who was the youngest, was 5 their mother died of cancer and so they all raised themselves.
It used to be the highlight of my week to get to go visit out there & see all the cows and chickens, pigs and goats and sheep and even ponies. I was an only chicld and I loved all animals.
When I turned 10 years old my parents bought me my first horse, and then we drove out there every evening-”to the country place” to feed and take care of her.
I used to ride her across the family property and the neighboring plantation and dream I lived out there.
There was one part in particular I loved, the bayou ran through the back of it and I used to bring a PBJ sandwhich & sit under 3 old pecan trees and share it with Lady, my white mare.
When I was 13 my Grandfather decided to divide up his property as he was getting older & not in good health. He had 8 children. He divided his land into 8 lots of 10 acres each and put each lot number in his cap. They drew, oldest to youngest. When Daddy’s turn came, he told me to go pull the last slip of paper out of Grandpa’s cap.
It was my favorite piece of the land.
When I was a senior in high school, my parents finally paid off the house in town, immediately sold it & built a house out on our 10 acres. They have always been master gardeners and fully indulged their passion for all things growing from flowers to vegetables. They were doing organic before anybody knew what the word meant.
I became engaged at 21 and the first thing I did was bring my fiancee out to our land and tell him this was where I wanted us to live. And so, a year later, we moved into the house we designed and in fact, built most of it ourselves.
We’ve been here 30 years now, and I would not change one thing, not one. My parents are still alive, retired and enjoying their days still gardening & tending to their dogs and cat.
I have a big garden also, and fruit trees and do a lot of canning. I have chickens, ducks, dogs and cats.
And every morning I sit at the dining room table and look out at those 3 pecan trees and thank God for allowing me the opportunity to have all of this. We are truly blessed.
Forgot to add, on BYC I am TerriLaChicks!
I come from a long line of farmers, starting back in Germany and England. Maybe that’s where the love of the land comes from. NO matter how I acquired it, the need to be close to the land is a big part of me. 3 years ago my SO and I bought 6 acres in Southern Illinois only about 1.5 miles from my parents’ 35 acres. Having a pole barn and a fenced pasture is awesome! Dad helped me convert a roughed-in bathroom in the barn to a great chicken coop and my poultry obsession began. I now have about 10 hens, 4 roosters, 5 guineas, 3 Royal Palm turkeys, 7 Pekin ducks (getting 2 more Saturday!), 7 Muskovy duckings and 1 Miss Goose. I have a small egg clientele – the gals I work with – and love providing them and me with wholesome fresh eggs.
I get so much joy from living rural. I can see thousands of stars at night, hear farm sounds when I’m home, and get strength from the knowledge that I’m a FARMER. Wow, would Grandpa be impressed.
OH, yeah, I forgot to say that I was a member of BYC as well — gwennym.
Gwen (mbr of BYC and gwennym) sent me!
Gwen Menz (mbr of BYC and gwennym) sent me!!
Nuthin’ like cousins to come to your aid … THANKS GALS !!
I was raised by a mom that had an organic vegetable garden back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Dad was there to but not into the gardening thing. I watched my mom bake 60 loaves of bread for friends and family each week. I learned early about canning and cooking from her, and her best friend my second mom. I have always been trying grow something. Sometimes it as been people kids, pets, and house plants or just trying to make grass grow where other people didn’t think it would grow. I won that battle. hee hee. These day’s it’s more like how many hanging baskets and pots can I fill each spring.( I am at about 25 hanging baskets or so) I am stuck in a sub-division housing track house and lot, but darn it I am stuffing it as full as I can with flowers and pets including 34 chickens at the moment, 8 dogs, 4 or 5 cats, and a 75 gallon fish tank . I really need a acre or two. I think that maybe I need to make this my dream right now. I need more space for the goats that I would love to farm. I have run out of property to put in a vegetable garden, but I think we are going to stuff in some raised beds in whats left of the lawn. I just scared of not have anyplace for the dogs run. I live so close to the country. it’s less than two blocks away. I am just going to have to work on the DH, and see if someday we can pack this up for a little more land. I am a country girl at the center of my heart, and soul. My web blog is a http://www.justbugged.tumblr.com I have puppy pictures on it right now because I have been raising Yorkies for the past few years.
Gwen sent me. I’m a geek that lives in the country too.
When I was a young girl, my parents both worked full time at the local GM plant. I always had to get up by myself in the morning and get ready for school, and walk to school alone or with a neighbor child. I always dreamed of having a mom to stay home with me and be waiting in the afternoon to hear all about my day with fresh baked cookies. My poor Mom had to work, and when she came home she had a house and 4 children to take care of. She really didn’t have time or energy to spend with us. I remember trying to help as much as I could. My father (God bless his soul) was a good man, but he came from that generation where the wife did it all. He was no help in the housecleaning and childrearing department.
Now I am the Mom, and I remember that little girl who just wanted a mom to stay with her. So I am fortunate enough to be that Mom. I only work part time at my children’s school, and am here for them. When they get up in the morning I help them get ready. When they get off the bus, I am waiting with a snack and a hug to hear all about their day. I am their number one fan at sports! I am a taxi driver, cook, and playmate for them. I am so blessed and happy with life.
This is what I have always wanted, a family to love, and a home to run. God has truly blessed us, we have what we need, and a little bit of what we want. Yes we could have more, but we definitely have enough, because we have each other.
Great stories everyone! You each need a blog! I would love to read more about your country dreams and farm life.
Gwen sent me. I was born in Chicago and wanted to run away and live in the woods when I was 4 years old. Finally got to move to Tennessee when I was 49 and have 9.8 wooded acres. I love the country and the people and farm fresh egg. The fresh food,air,and scenrery are the best.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more and more countrified and self-sufficient, though I’m certainly not the superwoman my good friend Angie is! We raise chickens, grow a garden every year, and have planted a small orchard of apple, pear, peach, and cherry trees, as well as blueberries and a very small vinyard. We heat our home with our wonderful soapstone stove and shun the use of the electric heatpump.We are absolute do-it-yourselfers by necessity these days and have built numerous coops, using scrounged materials, yet trying to make things look great, even with used supplies. I’ve made quilts by hand for about 20 years now and since the addition of a very special sewing machine from my dear friends, will continue in spite of my old aching joints, LOL. I wish we had decided to live this way when our sons were growing up because I feel that we and they have missed out on a more satisfying lifestyle! Hopefully, in a few years, this property will be paid-in-full and we can really feel more self-sufficient and be able to do even more.
Your blog is wonderful and so inspiring!
Angie, I really enjoyed this idea–where or when do you have time to do all of this! I know the contest is over (the soap would have been my first choice), but it made me think. My mother died last year at 89. I grew up in a family of six children, although she later had a change-of-life baby. As I grew up, mom told different relatives that I was “funny turned.” The other day it occurred to me that I am the only one of the six who is completely uninterested in “things.” My parents left the farm in the late 1930s and of the six children I am the only one who is “country.” Even my cousins who grew up on a farm left the country mentally in pursuit of “things.” I’m not criticizing those who are not country, but isn’t it an irony that a child would be called “funny turned” by former farmers simply because she is not coveting jewelry, clothes, and possessions, but instead just nice clean comfortable “things” and a different lifestyle? The things I care about are old family photos,quilts, a few old pieces of furniture, things a country woman wants to pass along to her children. My brother died at 16 and he was “country” too–my sweet, favorite sibling.
A chum recommended me to read this website, great post… keep up the nice work!