Northern Farmer

This family is on the slow but sure journey to simplicity. It humbles me to know that we are in agreement. At one time I thought it impossible to scale down the way we live. I’m not sure scaled down is the proper word, but will use it anyhow. Now slowly more and more ideas are forming and being put into use.

I’ve always burned wood for heat in winter, mostly with a fuel oil combo but did burn straight wood a few years. Three years ago we install by ourselve an outdoor wood furnace. I have to admit that I like it alot and we haven’t burned a drop of fuel in those years. Fuel was cheap when I installed the furnace and I was wondering if I was doing the right thing. Last winter and the one to come I’m pretty sure it was the right thing to do. Nice to be going into a winter season soon without one thought about how much it’ll cost to heat this winter. In fact I have to remind myself that this is a real issue with those that purchase their heating fuel or gas. Also this furnace heats our hot water and saves us almost forty dollars a month when the fire is going. All that said, woodmaking is one of my favorite jobs. I love being out in the woods or fencelines cutting firewood. After supper on cold winter evening I will dress up and work off some of the food, chopping some wood out back in the near dark. We’ve been thinking about adding a wood cook stove this winter to our house to cut back dependance of electricity and to help heat our home when we cook. Amazingly, everyone in the family is for it. Now the fun part, shopping around in catalogs and on the internet for a good old fashion cookstove.

Another family agreement seems to be forming, that is when we get gifts for each other they cannot be modern. Nothing that would take any energy in any purchased form. Tools would have to be true hand tools for example. The start of this is slow but I can see quite the collection a few years down the road. TV is steadily being cut out. We agree to hold onto the internet a while longer because of the helpful ideas of people on the same course as us, and for that reason only. Maybe the day will come when I can sit at my old colonial writing desk and write letters to my agrarian friends instead of using the computer. At first it seems overwhelming scaling back but it makes it simpler if we just zero in on a few things at a time. We get a few “looks” from well meaning people here but we’ll just keep on going. Mostly people do not want to talk or think about the course we’re on. The reason I believe this is that they know deep down that the world is on a collision course with disaster. It won’t, it can’t keep going at the mad pace that it’s presently going. Most people know deep down that the tremendous debt they have is wrong, but they can’t seem to help themselves because “that’s what everyone does”.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the point of my life where the agrarian seed took root in me, and remember that I had no idea what the word agrarian even meant until late winter or so, and I’m starting to beleive it was in High School. Shortly after I graduated I was already subscribing to two magazines, Fur Fish & Game, and the old Countryside and Small Stock Journal. Pretty good for a person in his late teens, eh? And I still have a few copies. The little bug was in my mind through all the years and I’ve been able to steadily apply it to how we do things around here. I remember so many times over the years when people would see the Countrysides laying around the house and get a good snicker out of the fact that I read it. Heck, one person I remember even called me a communist for reading it. Nothing could be farther from the truth but you never know the reactions of some people. All in all I lived somewhat modern but the modern way couldn’t snuff out the seed that these publications planted in me. Now instead of recreation as the most important thing to look forward to it’s yearly re-creation on the land the Lord has given us to steward. I’m so looking forward to our journey to simpler life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 11th, 2005 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.