Homesteading, is the goal!
Homesteading. A lifestyle of self-sufficency where you depend as less as possible on grocery stores to provide you with the majority of your food. Growing your fruits and vegetables from seeds, seasonnal eating, home preserving and cooking from scratch. Is there something more soothing than homemade raspberry and pear jam on freshly baked bread?
We lost so many skills from the times our ancestors lived off the land. Sewing, knitting, gardening, cutting and logging trees, making soap or identifying differents mushrooms and wild plants to forage. These are just a couple of exemples of the things we just don't do ourselves anymore.
Not that long ago, cooking and baking were the type of skills that would be passed on from mother to daugther, along with the family recipes. I remember my grand mother, in the kitchen, making all kind of delicious treats with no written recipe. It smelled so good! Nowadays, priorities have changed and people spend less time in their kitchen. Less and less people have a garden and ready-to-eat food is a convenient choice for our over busy schedules. As a matter of fact, we're so busy that some of us don't even take the time to eat together, at the table, on week nights.
In our big cities, disconnected from
nature, surrounded by concrete, buildings and too many people, we got caught in a spinning wheel of fast rewards and we've lost focus of what is really important : being gratefull! Being gratefull for what nature has given you after you've worked hard for it, brings a whole new purpose to life. Being gratefull for the meals on our tables, being gratefull for the time spent together as a family, being gratefull for the beautifull flowers that the kids have picked up in the garden, being gratefull to have fresh water to drink.
It also seems to me that with the technological advancements, we've become confused about what's really important and our priotities have gotten mixed up over time. Time and money are now at the top of the list. Quick, efficient and cheap. These are the modern standards humans rule by. What happenned to love? Love of nature, love of family, love of others, love of self? Why don't we know our neigbours names and why aren't we going out of our way to help others anymore?
In a world like ours, where profit is more important than fair labor wages, money has taken to much importance and way to much value in life. Instead of being gratefull, we now feel like we deserve what we have because we've earned it. Life is NOT about money. Buying everything you want to posses WON'T make you happy. I now understant that happiness is found by being gratefull for the little things and that the easy and instant rewards that money can bring you are totally meaningless to LIFE itself. Ask yourself what will you be gratefull for at the end of the journey, as you lay on your resting bed.
I understand, now, that the life I choose to live needs to respect my values and that I need to set my priorities accordingly if I want to be happy. Sure it takes money to survive in our society. But hear me out : YOU and ONLY YOU are responsible for the amount of money you really need to survive and YOU and ONLY YOU can decide how you want to spend the time you have on Earth.
Right now, we're being dependant of our employer, the government and the system. Waged slavery is what I call it. We need money to buy groceries because we don't have time neither to garden, preserve, cook nor eat with the family! We also lost almost every homesteading skills that had been passed on for generations because it became easier and quite faster to buy anything and everything in large stores. We slowly became dependant of society. How did we let money do this to us? What is the purpose of LIFE in those circomstances?
Not that long ago, cooking and baking were the type of skills that would be passed on from mother to daugther, along with the family recipes. I remember my grand mother, in the kitchen, making all kind of delicious treats with no written recipe. It smelled so good! Nowadays, priorities have changed and people spend less time in their kitchen. Less and less people have a garden and ready-to-eat food is a convenient choice for our over busy schedules. As a matter of fact, we're so busy that some of us don't even take the time to eat together, at the table, on week nights.
In our big cities, disconnected from
nature, surrounded by concrete, buildings and too many people, we got caught in a spinning wheel of fast rewards and we've lost focus of what is really important : being gratefull! Being gratefull for what nature has given you after you've worked hard for it, brings a whole new purpose to life. Being gratefull for the meals on our tables, being gratefull for the time spent together as a family, being gratefull for the beautifull flowers that the kids have picked up in the garden, being gratefull to have fresh water to drink.It also seems to me that with the technological advancements, we've become confused about what's really important and our priotities have gotten mixed up over time. Time and money are now at the top of the list. Quick, efficient and cheap. These are the modern standards humans rule by. What happenned to love? Love of nature, love of family, love of others, love of self? Why don't we know our neigbours names and why aren't we going out of our way to help others anymore?
In a world like ours, where profit is more important than fair labor wages, money has taken to much importance and way to much value in life. Instead of being gratefull, we now feel like we deserve what we have because we've earned it. Life is NOT about money. Buying everything you want to posses WON'T make you happy. I now understant that happiness is found by being gratefull for the little things and that the easy and instant rewards that money can bring you are totally meaningless to LIFE itself. Ask yourself what will you be gratefull for at the end of the journey, as you lay on your resting bed.
I understand, now, that the life I choose to live needs to respect my values and that I need to set my priorities accordingly if I want to be happy. Sure it takes money to survive in our society. But hear me out : YOU and ONLY YOU are responsible for the amount of money you really need to survive and YOU and ONLY YOU can decide how you want to spend the time you have on Earth. Right now, we're being dependant of our employer, the government and the system. Waged slavery is what I call it. We need money to buy groceries because we don't have time neither to garden, preserve, cook nor eat with the family! We also lost almost every homesteading skills that had been passed on for generations because it became easier and quite faster to buy anything and everything in large stores. We slowly became dependant of society. How did we let money do this to us? What is the purpose of LIFE in those circomstances?
I want to get back to a meaningfull life. A working-hard-in-the-field kind of life. Completely surrounded by nature and wildlife (and bugs), not knowing what it will give me each year. Because every year is different on a homestead. Being gratefull for what my garden gives me, being gratefull for the maple trees, the nuts and the mushroom foraged in the forest, being gratefull for the fireplace and the warm patchwork quilts on cold winter nights, being gratefull for having more time to cook, dance and knit, is what I'm aiming at.
It's not done. Where not there at all. But it's our goal.
Mélanie
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