Thorns and Thistles

 Be thankful for the

          thorns and thistles which keep

       you from being in love

    with this world.

     - Charles Spurgeon -

Hello dear friends!  I had never intended to write a post again, but  a rather odd thing happened the other day, I guess you could say it was an answer to a prayer.  You see, the other day I was thinking of something I wanted to tell you all (I've forgotten what it was) and during my conversation with my Heavenly Father, I said "Lord, if you want me to continue on with this blog, you will have to give me a sign, like someone leaving a comment."  Well, within twenty-four hours I received a comment from Old Fashioned Rose, so Old Fashioned Rose, if you are reading this, you are an answer to a prayer!  

These past several months have been a time of thorn and thistles here at Sweet Briar Cottage, as I am sure this year has been for you all also.  It began with the gardening season, it was such a cold Spring everything was so slow to germinate and many seeds needed to be planted and replanted.  I know a lot of you had very hot weather, but we can't complain here, on the contrary, there were quite a few times that found us reaching for a sweater in July and August.  What we did have, was a drought.  Most of our days were taken up with watering the garden and keeping the intense sunlight from blighting the vegetables.  BTW, we discovered that hanging mosquito nets over the plants, helped with that.  We bought  our netting at a garage sale, it was intended for hanging over a king-sized bed, it netted (no pun intended) quite a bit of yardage perfect for protecting the plants. So that was that.  Never have we worked so hard in the garden.  It took Ran, Jamie and me many hours everyday to keep it going.  But we were blessed.  While we didn't enjoy the huge yields we have in the past, but they were sufficient for our needs.  Our philosophy is to eat what the Lord provides, so if a crop fails or doesn't perform well, we just say it wasn't what He intended for us to eat.  Evidently, He didn't think we needed much in the way of cauliflowers or Brussels sprouts,  but now broccoli, was coming out of our ears. Ha!  Seriously though, we do take this conviction with the utmost solemnity, and it has stood us in good health for many years.  You know you are on the right track when you visit the doctor and he queries you on what you are doing to stay so healthy and takes notes.  But alas, we are getting downright elderly and there is no cure for growing old.  We have noticed that the days of being a weekend warriors are over for us.  Things still get done, but at a slower pace.

On a personal note, I have just been shutting myself off from the world.  Just don't seem to have the patience any longer for people that want to bring drama into my life. So I've been letting one-sided friendships slip away and even this blog, which always has its "contrarians"  (comments you don't see), has been put aside. The few friends that remain, tell me they are doing the same.  Do you feel the same?  I once heard a sermon by Tolver that spoke of a believer's path being a solitary and lonely one, and I am finding that to be true.  It is difficult to live in this world and not be of it.  But oh the peace, dear friends, that comes from such a life. 

SELF SUFFICIENCY

I a big proponent of being a self-sufficient as one can possibly be.  We grow all our vegetables and fruits, and Ran catches (he holds a "master angler" award from the Michigan DNR) most of our meat in the form of walleye, salmon, pike and bass.  Other than that, our protein comes from beans and nuts.  Once in a very rare blue moon, we will find lamb  or some grass-fed organic beef on sale and stock our larder.  And at Thanksgiving I do buy an extra turkey to can, but on the whole, we eat between  one to two pounds of meat a week for our family of three adults.  A lot less than the national average, the average American consumes over 224 pounds of meat a year.  Yikes! No wonder everyone is complaining about the price of groceries.  Meat is becoming a luxury item, that's for sure.  I just spied a grocery store ad for a sale on hamburger at $4.88 a pound.  Even lowly ground turkey is over three dollars.  I can remember for years it was a cheap option for meat at  ninety-nice cents a pound.  Even dried beans are selling for over two dollars a pound.  So I can understand how all this inflation is very scary for a lot of people.  

So anyway, I encourage everyone to get out there and grow some of your food, don't be discouraged by bad weather and nay-sayers.  At the very least, it's good exercise.  And get the whole family involved.  In our family we say, "if you don't work, you don't eat".  To grow a productive garden takes a lot of time. and work.  Too many people become discouraged if their first attempts don't produce.  The other day, once again, someone told me how "lucky" I was to have such a nice garden, and was bemoaning the fact that they weren't blessed with a green thumb.  I was too polite to say it, but what I wanted to say was that luck had very little to do with it.  I didn't see them out there hoeing at six in the morning before it got too hot.  I didn't take a week-long vacation and leave my garden to its own devices.  I didn't see them out there hauling buckets of water, or picking potato bugs off the plants.  I don't see them studying up on how to get rid of garden pests organically.  I don't see them composting, then carrying heavy shovels of compost into the garden to amend the soil.  Yes, I am blessed, but lucky I am not.  It definitely doesn't feel lucky when I'm standing in a ninety degree kitchen peeling and canning beets while they are sitting in the air conditioned living room watching TV.  So to get off my soapbox and get back to self-sufficiency, the other day I made a list of everything I would need to purchase for a year in addition to what Ran catches and we grow.  Here's the list:

2 gallons cider vinegar (canning strength)

1 gallon white vinegar (canning strength) 

12 pounds of cheese ( 1 pound per month)

12 pounds of shortening (for use in baking and frying)

1 gallon cooking oil (we use olive oil)

50 pounds of sugar (mainly to be used in making jams, jellies, and wine)

100 pounds of flour ( this may seem like a lot, but we bake everything from scratch and I only bake sweets once a week)

24 pounds of coffee (what can I say, we love coffee)

50 pounds oatmeal (oatmeal is our staple breakfast)

100 pounds dried beans (2# a week)

10-20 pounds cornmeal ( beans + a whole grain make a whole protein, thus beans and cornbread is a common meal among the poor)

2 quarts of molasses (no need for brown sugar add 1 tablespoon to sugar, plus black strap molasses has a lot of minerals in it and is very healthy for you)

Baking powder and baking soda, a couple containers

12 jars of organic peanut butter (a jar a month)

2 pounds canning salt (not just for canning but also for cleaning cutting boards and possibly for curing meat)

1 pound of cinnamon ( cinnamon is good for keeping your blood sugar level, hence we put a big spoonful into our oatmeal every morning)

Even at today's prices I think I could purchase these things for around a thousand dollars or maybe even a little less, if I shop carefully at the bulk food stores and our Amish discount stores.  And yes, if I really needed to, I could go without the coffee. Ha!  I could resort to my own herb tea, while tea isn't my jam, I have given some to several of my tea-drinking friends and the say it is very good tea.  Basically, I just put everything in my garden I know to be good for you into it; raspberry leaves, chamomile, peppermint, rose petals and hips, anise hyssop,  lemon balm, and dried blackberries and raspberries.  It's a pretty tea, if nothing else.  So any way, I hope the list helps you, if you live as we do.

 There you have it.  My camera bit the dust, so I cannot share with you any of my creative endeavors, but the period I have been away from blogging has been one of my most creative periods I have experienced in a long time.  Will I write another post some day?  I'll have to see how this one goes, I'm aware blogging is sort of a dying medium, and those that do read them prefer style over substance.  So will anyone even look at a blog without some sort of pretty photography?  Well, all that will depend  upon you dear  readers and the prompting of the Good Lord.  So whether we meet again or not, I  pray that you all have a peaceful and fruitful life!

Hugs

Jane