I didn't realize apples was a thing to feel inadequate about? We always visit an orchard and buy more apples than we need and just eat a bunch of apples. I don't bake much because I don't enjoy it. It's a fun outing and I'm grateful for the people who run orchards!
It's a process. A little each year until you learn what grows well. Steep learning curve. And everybody's garden conditions are different. Don't buy in to the wonders of gardening in Australia when you live in Nevada.
I confess I don’t personally like picking apples - too many hornets - but I do like going to orchards and buying lots of honey crisps and apple cider doughnuts.
Buying the doughnuts is an absolute must. Our local orchard has an amazing playground, so sometimes we go there off-season just to eat doughnuts and play!
Yes ... for a while I felt bad that I found paying a premium to pick apples myself among swarms of hornets too annoying to do, but now I’m mostly over it.
Soon enough the kids will be old enough to send into the trees in a little pack while you sit on a rocking chair with the doughnuts! Then you'll get the best of both worlds!
👏👏👏👏 100% this! There is such a purity contest culture invading the homestead-y world at times...that anyone who isn't doing ALL THE THINGS to the DEEPEST DEPTH is just another consumer-driven sheep. (Ironically, these sorts of things are said while simultaneously turning homestead skills and lifestyles into products to be consumed. And don't even get me started on the modern use of the word 'homestead'!) So much doesn't get taken into account, from limitations due to urban life, to life circumstances (jobs, illness, divorce, etc). Buy the store-bought pie crust, without guilt!
Farming is my life and my profession, so it's not like I don't value heritage skills. I'll make a chicken pot pie from our own meat and vegetables, with grain we grew and ground for the crust. And then I'll go through McDonalds the next day and have the best dang fries. My idyllic art desk of whimsical delights is next to a TV that's currently playing Paw Patrol. I'm so glad you wrote this piece - it's needed!
Thank you, Kristin! Yes! A purity contest! Why do there seem to be gatekeepers everywhere sometimes, to tell you that you Don't Fit the Bill or otherwise Aren't Good Enough?
The Hearth & Field E.I.C. and I were chatting about how it might seem to our readers that all the H & F staff and editors are living some sort of idyllic perfect homestead life but that in fact, we're all just doing our best. I live on 1/3 acre but still manage garden, chickens, grape arbor, etc., but that's all because I love it and think it is good. I homeschool, but not because I think it's the only good way -- I do it because it is my good way! Etc.
There have been many years when I've been pregnant or something else is going on and it all goes to weeds, literally for the garden and metaphorically for the rest of it. It's not about living up to some sort of standard of perfection but about trying to seek to grow in goodness. And working hard but humanely, as another H&F piece in today's issue puts it.
It's so true! Undergirding this sad gatekeeper phenomenon is both a prosperity gospel of sorts - if you do these homestead-y things to the fullest, you will be happy, healthy, and wealthy - as well as a lot of judgment...that anyone not doing these things, or at least not to the degree that they would satisfy the gatekeepers, isn't living well enough. It really gets me riled up! haha
So many of these skills that used to be skills of necessity are now privileges - our modern culture just doesn't have the generational skillshare or infrastructure to support all these homestead ways anymore. So to then say that someone not living out those skills isn't living life as fully...! It breaks my heart when I see it.
I will enjoy my farm-grown pot roast with my favorite bev, Coca Cola, in honor of this chat tonight. Let's normalize "I'm doing my best!" among the homestead/ag crowd!
Amen sister! I feel like I want to start putting a disclaimer at the bottom of every post, especially involving crunchy recipes, saying "I LOVE MCDONALD'S FRIES!"
We had a pumpkin crop failure this year that I’ll be posting about today. It sent me into a mini-spiral to have to buy pumpkin at the store. This post is exactly what I needed 🤎🤎🤎🎃
Looking forward to reading your post today - you're not alone! Last year, our winter squash did terribly and we had practically none for our CSA. This year, we have them coming out our ears. Farming is a lesson in humility, and how little control we really have! So much of the influencer culture makes us feel like we *should* have control, which is just false.
What an excellent occasion to tell you that we discovered we have our very own apple tree in the backyard of our new house! The apples are small, and the tree has not been tended very well... and we don't exactly know what to do with them--we do like the idea of cider--but it sounds like it's time to harvest them! Thank you for the encouragement to do what I can with what I have!
The Leila Lawler interview is excellent, well done to all at H&F who worked on it--I felt like I could really "hear" her.
Oh, how exciting! H&F has a method for making cider even if you don't have a press -- did you see? Also, I'm very partial to apple butter. Stick it in the crockpot overnight, can it in the morning. It's delicious!
And thank you about the interview! It was my first piece as one of the lead editors (the EIC and I collaborated on it) so I am very happy you enjoyed it! I loved having the chance to ask her to tell us more about her background and purposes.
Loved this essay. I too feel inadequate in tackling the farming efforts that my husband has done since we bought our little acre. He's experimented and learned what grows here on the western edge of Nevada down the hill from lake Tahoe. Sandy soil, little rain, lots of wind, and wildlife that consume whatever they can. We did chickens a couple of times, but couldn't even give the eggs away except to a very grateful Food Closet. Potatoes, onions, garlic, and chard do well, even in the cold frame. But not in amounts that will get us completely through the winter. And storing them is another very steep learning curve. I've done canning and hydration, but the lower half of my body is starting to rebel against standing in the kitchen too long. This year, husband successfully harvested five pint jars of honey from his first beehive. Yay girls! So that too is a win. And the apple tree has managed to survive the spring freezes. We've just yet to harvest those. We'll make cider with those. Yum! Little by little day by day. And we just have an acre that has a lot more room to experiment. I plan to write about some of the successes and failures come November. Hope you'll check out Ring Around the Basin for scary stories and poems in October. So glad I found your page.
My boss from years ago would say "bird by bird." A little at a time, and being content with what is good! My garden is always full of powdery mildew -- just can't beat it, and it was clearly there before we bought the house -- but you know what? We still get vegetables! It is good!
I will definitely check out Ring Around the Basin! Thank you. I will have an essay later this month about Halloween -- not a spooky story, but a serious one, alas.
I loved this article! The real-lifeness (not a word but felt fitting here) to it all! I hope so many people who think they are inadequate due to the (fake) world of these influencers find your article and can find solace in the words! I know it did for me!
Although not related to homesteading per say (though I do find there is some overlaps these days), this is why I left the social media world, especially as it pertained to my background in health. It is the same, the unrealistic expectations of people who try to tell you how to do this or that— things of which I find completely ridiculous and unable to live up to as a mother—or possibly as a human! There is so much that needs to get grounded back in reality in both health and homestead and even Christian worlds at this point. And I do blame social media for its picture perfect aesthetics and reels. Anyways I will ramble on and on with this, but am grateful for your words, for finding like-minded mothers here that live in reality and are trying to show others, that it is okay to just BE, to go buy some store-bought dough and enjoy your time with your family — because that is the most important part anyways!
Health is such a good example, especially regarding medicines and, perhaps worst of all, nutrition! In some ways our food culture is so compromised and immoderate that it makes a lot of sense to become really hardcore about organic food or low-carb food or no preservatives or what have you. But when that becomes a doctrine that creates fear or a need for control over others or even over yourself -- when it moves away from nourishing body and soul and turns to punishment and restriction -- wow, it is so destructive!!
We make a point of never telling our kids a food is bad. All foods are good. Desserts and even Twinkies are good in that they help us celebrate, comfort us, and add to our joy! It's all a matter of when and how much.
Same with the clean house or the homeschooling or discipline techniques with children; there are important basic standards to meet but so much here is about following good principles rather than following ironclad rules!
absoultely!! And I fear that is what has happened, it has become a weird controlling and even policing over what others do and don't do. It all got so very twisted. Everything, all of the topics you just mentioned, are so unqiue to each individual and family. There is no cookie cutter that can fit all. It is about us knowing ourselves and being able to use our intuition as our guidance, ignoring all of the noise we are bombarded with daily.
So very grateful to have found your words in this online space, the widsom you bring will help many!
I've been thinking a lot about this desire to control the behavior of others lately. Somehow people feel that if they can prove their prudential judgments to be universal truths it will be better for them. This seems connected to insecurity and the hope that if you just find out what is exactly right and then do it all exactly right, suffering will not come to you. You will be safe. Sadly, that's not how it works.
I wonder what we can do to help. I try to help by writing things like this and speaking things like this in person to others, especially younger mothers. Some of us have a project going to try to portray liturgical living in this way -- trying to tag Kristin Haakenson here about this but it's not working for some reason. Have you heard of this or been in contact with her?
Haha what's with the tags in comments?! I'm glad it's not just me - I can't get it to work!
Yep, I've been in touch with Jennifer and am so excited to see where the liturgical community goes. I also wonder what we can do to help when it comes to these issues of homemaking/homesteading/heritage skillshare. I've received a number of emails about it since our chat in the comments/Notes here, and even had some folks come up to me in the barn yesterday during CSA pick-up (I didn't know they subscribed, haha!) to talk about French fries.
There it is - the prosperity gospel finding its way into everything! We want to avoid suffering at all costs, and now every niche and avenue has some solution offering a false guarantee health & wealth. Some folks treat these things as proprietary, and aim to be at the forefront of leadership in promising these impossibilities to the masses. Breaks my heart!
I loved this! With all the gatekeeping nowadays it can make our transitions into something we are interested in, make us feel like an imposter! Imposter syndrome at its finest.
My husband and I are currently trying to switch to that lifestyle. It’s our biggest dream. Yet we do not have land and live in suburbia right now. Does that stop us from trying?? Not at all! This passed Tuesday we went to our local Apple orchard with the kids! We go every year at the minimum 3 times. We got all kinds of fresh apples and veggies. We got pickling cucumbers to pickle, corn to make (instead of using the store bought canned stuff), bell peppers and tomatoes (our two favorites!)
We have a (just turned) 9 year old, and we just had a baby who is 5 months!
In our homestead journey (well the start of us transitioning) I have made my son so many different kinds of homemade purées. One of them being applesauce from those apples we picked! He absolutely loved it!!
We love the lifestyle and there are certain things we can do NOW, so we are going too. Sure we don’t live a fully homestead lifestyle, but we just can’t right now. On top of not having the land or an established garden (yet), money is our focus at the moment. Once we get to a safe point I think our transition will be full fledge!
Also, when we can (last years harvest) we have made our own pasta sauces and salsa from scratch (the only difference is we picked the veggies instead of growing them)
Kayla, it sounds as though you are doing wonderful things and are on a life-giving path! What a great example. I think sometimes we think that full-blown homesteading is white and full-blown TV-dinnering (and the rest) is black and there's nothing in between. You're either a City Mouse or a Country Mouse, in other words. But really, you can be a person seeking a good life for your family in many different circumstances! The gates of the good life are open to us all!
I look forward to reading your Halloween story. Meantime, you essay today reminds me to get off my duff and pick a few apples. The heavy winter last year turned Carson Valley into a fruit orchard extravaganza. Everybody's trees are producing. Some people didn't even know they had fruit trees in their yards. Quite a pleasant discovery. What kind of veggies are you getting?
We transitioned to a no-till garden this year so I just planted crops that I expected would cover the soil rapidly and well to prevent first-year weeds. Pumpkins took off like crazy; watermelons somewhat; lettuces and sweet corn and sunflowers did wonderfully! I'll put in a winter cover crop soon. We also put in a grape arbor and have prepared to plant 2-3 apple trees of our own.
WOW! Your success boggles my mind. Jeff planted cover crops, which the rabbits and squirrels loved. Also a three-sisters garden in the "lower 40" that was also consumed. ANTS! My hat's off to you. Bon appetite! BTW, where do you live ... roughly? We're on the edge of the BLM desert land exurbs.
Virginia, but I grew up in Southern CA and also lived in Vermont and Indiana, so I'm familiar with a number of climates! My mother tried so hard to garden in our desert region and it just took too much water...sigh.
I didn't realize apples was a thing to feel inadequate about? We always visit an orchard and buy more apples than we need and just eat a bunch of apples. I don't bake much because I don't enjoy it. It's a fun outing and I'm grateful for the people who run orchards!
PS I think the link is not working
I'm glad to hear that, Mary! I think I was gesturing more to the folks who want to be homestead-y but don't have the wherewithal to make that happen.
Thanks -- I'll check on the links!
It's a process. A little each year until you learn what grows well. Steep learning curve. And everybody's garden conditions are different. Don't buy in to the wonders of gardening in Australia when you live in Nevada.
It's so wonderful to have a process that you can get a little better at year by year. Quilting is also like that!
I confess I don’t personally like picking apples - too many hornets - but I do like going to orchards and buying lots of honey crisps and apple cider doughnuts.
Buying the doughnuts is an absolute must. Our local orchard has an amazing playground, so sometimes we go there off-season just to eat doughnuts and play!
Yes ... for a while I felt bad that I found paying a premium to pick apples myself among swarms of hornets too annoying to do, but now I’m mostly over it.
Soon enough the kids will be old enough to send into the trees in a little pack while you sit on a rocking chair with the doughnuts! Then you'll get the best of both worlds!
👏👏👏👏 100% this! There is such a purity contest culture invading the homestead-y world at times...that anyone who isn't doing ALL THE THINGS to the DEEPEST DEPTH is just another consumer-driven sheep. (Ironically, these sorts of things are said while simultaneously turning homestead skills and lifestyles into products to be consumed. And don't even get me started on the modern use of the word 'homestead'!) So much doesn't get taken into account, from limitations due to urban life, to life circumstances (jobs, illness, divorce, etc). Buy the store-bought pie crust, without guilt!
Farming is my life and my profession, so it's not like I don't value heritage skills. I'll make a chicken pot pie from our own meat and vegetables, with grain we grew and ground for the crust. And then I'll go through McDonalds the next day and have the best dang fries. My idyllic art desk of whimsical delights is next to a TV that's currently playing Paw Patrol. I'm so glad you wrote this piece - it's needed!
Thank you, Kristin! Yes! A purity contest! Why do there seem to be gatekeepers everywhere sometimes, to tell you that you Don't Fit the Bill or otherwise Aren't Good Enough?
The Hearth & Field E.I.C. and I were chatting about how it might seem to our readers that all the H & F staff and editors are living some sort of idyllic perfect homestead life but that in fact, we're all just doing our best. I live on 1/3 acre but still manage garden, chickens, grape arbor, etc., but that's all because I love it and think it is good. I homeschool, but not because I think it's the only good way -- I do it because it is my good way! Etc.
There have been many years when I've been pregnant or something else is going on and it all goes to weeds, literally for the garden and metaphorically for the rest of it. It's not about living up to some sort of standard of perfection but about trying to seek to grow in goodness. And working hard but humanely, as another H&F piece in today's issue puts it.
It's so true! Undergirding this sad gatekeeper phenomenon is both a prosperity gospel of sorts - if you do these homestead-y things to the fullest, you will be happy, healthy, and wealthy - as well as a lot of judgment...that anyone not doing these things, or at least not to the degree that they would satisfy the gatekeepers, isn't living well enough. It really gets me riled up! haha
So many of these skills that used to be skills of necessity are now privileges - our modern culture just doesn't have the generational skillshare or infrastructure to support all these homestead ways anymore. So to then say that someone not living out those skills isn't living life as fully...! It breaks my heart when I see it.
I will enjoy my farm-grown pot roast with my favorite bev, Coca Cola, in honor of this chat tonight. Let's normalize "I'm doing my best!" among the homestead/ag crowd!
Brava, Kristin! Cokes and pot roasts and low-pressure liturgical living all around!!
Amen sister! I feel like I want to start putting a disclaimer at the bottom of every post, especially involving crunchy recipes, saying "I LOVE MCDONALD'S FRIES!"
We had a pumpkin crop failure this year that I’ll be posting about today. It sent me into a mini-spiral to have to buy pumpkin at the store. This post is exactly what I needed 🤎🤎🤎🎃
Tag me when you post, Adrienne! Would love to read it.
Just posted :)
Looking forward to reading your post today - you're not alone! Last year, our winter squash did terribly and we had practically none for our CSA. This year, we have them coming out our ears. Farming is a lesson in humility, and how little control we really have! So much of the influencer culture makes us feel like we *should* have control, which is just false.
It was a good post. Everybody should go over to Adrienne's and read it!
What an excellent occasion to tell you that we discovered we have our very own apple tree in the backyard of our new house! The apples are small, and the tree has not been tended very well... and we don't exactly know what to do with them--we do like the idea of cider--but it sounds like it's time to harvest them! Thank you for the encouragement to do what I can with what I have!
The Leila Lawler interview is excellent, well done to all at H&F who worked on it--I felt like I could really "hear" her.
ALSO -- "if you do not have children or if they are grown, consider borrowing someone else's kids."
sage advice for all times, especially apple week.
It is such a gift to a mother!
Oh, how exciting! H&F has a method for making cider even if you don't have a press -- did you see? Also, I'm very partial to apple butter. Stick it in the crockpot overnight, can it in the morning. It's delicious!
And thank you about the interview! It was my first piece as one of the lead editors (the EIC and I collaborated on it) so I am very happy you enjoyed it! I loved having the chance to ask her to tell us more about her background and purposes.
For anyone who is wondering, that interview is here: https://hearthandfield.com/to-be-a-sacred-space-a-discussion-with-leila-marie-lawler/
Loved this essay. I too feel inadequate in tackling the farming efforts that my husband has done since we bought our little acre. He's experimented and learned what grows here on the western edge of Nevada down the hill from lake Tahoe. Sandy soil, little rain, lots of wind, and wildlife that consume whatever they can. We did chickens a couple of times, but couldn't even give the eggs away except to a very grateful Food Closet. Potatoes, onions, garlic, and chard do well, even in the cold frame. But not in amounts that will get us completely through the winter. And storing them is another very steep learning curve. I've done canning and hydration, but the lower half of my body is starting to rebel against standing in the kitchen too long. This year, husband successfully harvested five pint jars of honey from his first beehive. Yay girls! So that too is a win. And the apple tree has managed to survive the spring freezes. We've just yet to harvest those. We'll make cider with those. Yum! Little by little day by day. And we just have an acre that has a lot more room to experiment. I plan to write about some of the successes and failures come November. Hope you'll check out Ring Around the Basin for scary stories and poems in October. So glad I found your page.
My boss from years ago would say "bird by bird." A little at a time, and being content with what is good! My garden is always full of powdery mildew -- just can't beat it, and it was clearly there before we bought the house -- but you know what? We still get vegetables! It is good!
I will definitely check out Ring Around the Basin! Thank you. I will have an essay later this month about Halloween -- not a spooky story, but a serious one, alas.
I loved this article! The real-lifeness (not a word but felt fitting here) to it all! I hope so many people who think they are inadequate due to the (fake) world of these influencers find your article and can find solace in the words! I know it did for me!
Although not related to homesteading per say (though I do find there is some overlaps these days), this is why I left the social media world, especially as it pertained to my background in health. It is the same, the unrealistic expectations of people who try to tell you how to do this or that— things of which I find completely ridiculous and unable to live up to as a mother—or possibly as a human! There is so much that needs to get grounded back in reality in both health and homestead and even Christian worlds at this point. And I do blame social media for its picture perfect aesthetics and reels. Anyways I will ramble on and on with this, but am grateful for your words, for finding like-minded mothers here that live in reality and are trying to show others, that it is okay to just BE, to go buy some store-bought dough and enjoy your time with your family — because that is the most important part anyways!
Health is such a good example, especially regarding medicines and, perhaps worst of all, nutrition! In some ways our food culture is so compromised and immoderate that it makes a lot of sense to become really hardcore about organic food or low-carb food or no preservatives or what have you. But when that becomes a doctrine that creates fear or a need for control over others or even over yourself -- when it moves away from nourishing body and soul and turns to punishment and restriction -- wow, it is so destructive!!
We make a point of never telling our kids a food is bad. All foods are good. Desserts and even Twinkies are good in that they help us celebrate, comfort us, and add to our joy! It's all a matter of when and how much.
Same with the clean house or the homeschooling or discipline techniques with children; there are important basic standards to meet but so much here is about following good principles rather than following ironclad rules!
absoultely!! And I fear that is what has happened, it has become a weird controlling and even policing over what others do and don't do. It all got so very twisted. Everything, all of the topics you just mentioned, are so unqiue to each individual and family. There is no cookie cutter that can fit all. It is about us knowing ourselves and being able to use our intuition as our guidance, ignoring all of the noise we are bombarded with daily.
So very grateful to have found your words in this online space, the widsom you bring will help many!
I've been thinking a lot about this desire to control the behavior of others lately. Somehow people feel that if they can prove their prudential judgments to be universal truths it will be better for them. This seems connected to insecurity and the hope that if you just find out what is exactly right and then do it all exactly right, suffering will not come to you. You will be safe. Sadly, that's not how it works.
I think you are on to something with this--I very much agree!
I wonder what we can do to help. I try to help by writing things like this and speaking things like this in person to others, especially younger mothers. Some of us have a project going to try to portray liturgical living in this way -- trying to tag Kristin Haakenson here about this but it's not working for some reason. Have you heard of this or been in contact with her?
Haha what's with the tags in comments?! I'm glad it's not just me - I can't get it to work!
Yep, I've been in touch with Jennifer and am so excited to see where the liturgical community goes. I also wonder what we can do to help when it comes to these issues of homemaking/homesteading/heritage skillshare. I've received a number of emails about it since our chat in the comments/Notes here, and even had some folks come up to me in the barn yesterday during CSA pick-up (I didn't know they subscribed, haha!) to talk about French fries.
There it is - the prosperity gospel finding its way into everything! We want to avoid suffering at all costs, and now every niche and avenue has some solution offering a false guarantee health & wealth. Some folks treat these things as proprietary, and aim to be at the forefront of leadership in promising these impossibilities to the masses. Breaks my heart!
I loved this! With all the gatekeeping nowadays it can make our transitions into something we are interested in, make us feel like an imposter! Imposter syndrome at its finest.
My husband and I are currently trying to switch to that lifestyle. It’s our biggest dream. Yet we do not have land and live in suburbia right now. Does that stop us from trying?? Not at all! This passed Tuesday we went to our local Apple orchard with the kids! We go every year at the minimum 3 times. We got all kinds of fresh apples and veggies. We got pickling cucumbers to pickle, corn to make (instead of using the store bought canned stuff), bell peppers and tomatoes (our two favorites!)
We have a (just turned) 9 year old, and we just had a baby who is 5 months!
In our homestead journey (well the start of us transitioning) I have made my son so many different kinds of homemade purées. One of them being applesauce from those apples we picked! He absolutely loved it!!
We love the lifestyle and there are certain things we can do NOW, so we are going too. Sure we don’t live a fully homestead lifestyle, but we just can’t right now. On top of not having the land or an established garden (yet), money is our focus at the moment. Once we get to a safe point I think our transition will be full fledge!
Thank you for writing this piece!!
Also, when we can (last years harvest) we have made our own pasta sauces and salsa from scratch (the only difference is we picked the veggies instead of growing them)
Kayla, it sounds as though you are doing wonderful things and are on a life-giving path! What a great example. I think sometimes we think that full-blown homesteading is white and full-blown TV-dinnering (and the rest) is black and there's nothing in between. You're either a City Mouse or a Country Mouse, in other words. But really, you can be a person seeking a good life for your family in many different circumstances! The gates of the good life are open to us all!
I look forward to reading your Halloween story. Meantime, you essay today reminds me to get off my duff and pick a few apples. The heavy winter last year turned Carson Valley into a fruit orchard extravaganza. Everybody's trees are producing. Some people didn't even know they had fruit trees in their yards. Quite a pleasant discovery. What kind of veggies are you getting?
We transitioned to a no-till garden this year so I just planted crops that I expected would cover the soil rapidly and well to prevent first-year weeds. Pumpkins took off like crazy; watermelons somewhat; lettuces and sweet corn and sunflowers did wonderfully! I'll put in a winter cover crop soon. We also put in a grape arbor and have prepared to plant 2-3 apple trees of our own.
WOW! Your success boggles my mind. Jeff planted cover crops, which the rabbits and squirrels loved. Also a three-sisters garden in the "lower 40" that was also consumed. ANTS! My hat's off to you. Bon appetite! BTW, where do you live ... roughly? We're on the edge of the BLM desert land exurbs.
Virginia, but I grew up in Southern CA and also lived in Vermont and Indiana, so I'm familiar with a number of climates! My mother tried so hard to garden in our desert region and it just took too much water...sigh.