The Thursday Ramble: The Simple Life

A few days ago Cro did a post about life on an Edwardian Farm, what a lot of people dream of as the Simple Life. There was a time when I dreamed about 10 acres in the country, with pigs and chickens and ducks, and a garden that would feed half the county. If I win the PowerBall lottery, I just might do that, and hire younger stronger backs to do all of the work.  Over the years I have come to realize that my body is no longer capable of the kind of work that is required to lead that kind of a simple life. It is a wonderful, a self sufficient idyllic dream, but the reality is there is too much titanium holding my spine together to do that. 

My mother's parents grew up on farms, farming with horses and mules. My sister has my mother's childhood oil lamp, they didn't have electricity and running water in the house until she was a teenager. Her mother baked bread twice a week until they were forced by health to retire from the farm in the early 1960's.  

How can I live "the simple life"? 

I shop and keep raw ingredients in the house.  

From time to time, I bake bread, I should do that more often and buy less from the store.  

I can bake cakes, and pies, and cookies. I should buy less, and make more. 

I make fresh pickles in the summer when the ingredients are in the local market.  The pickles I make need to be stored in the refrigerator. I am limited in how many I can make.  Over the past couple of years, more of the vendors at the market have pickling cucumbers, the last summer there even some gherkins (tiny pickling cucumbers.) 

Last summer I canned 6 pints of pickled beets.  I bought golden beets from an organic farmer at the market, peeled and cut them up, roasted them, prepared the sweet pickling solution and processed them in a boiling water bath.  

Veggies are expensive at my local farmers market, next summer I should drive an hour out into the countryside for tomatoes, home made tomato sauce is wonderful and processes in a boiling water bath.  

I can minimize my intake of processed foods.  I actually enjoy cooking.  We keep a well stocked pantry and refrigerator.  

I can check books out of my local library, real print books are a joy to read. About 75% of books sold in the United States last year, were print books. (I sat in on a book publishing board last week.) 

Most of my letters are electronic, I enjoy new fashioned letter writing. Try it and surprise people.  I still send physical cards for holidays, birthdays and other events.  At our age, we buy sympathy cards by the dozen. 

This is a simpler life, in a modern world.  I don't have to go back to plowing with a mule, to enjoy fresh vegetables prepared in my kitchen. I don't raise chickens, but I try to buy field raised eggs where the birds have had the best life possible.