lifestyle

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Tips for the Modern Homesteader

In case you didn’t know, in addition to what I write over here on Living on the Diagonal, I also blog for Mother Earth News Magazine. This week, I’ve decided to lead you to some of my most popular Mother Earth News posts.

I Blog for Mother Earth News-1

You can find my tips for repurposing common household items here.

To get ideas for planning a memorable picnic, click here.

If you want to discover some of the easiest vegetables to grow in your home garden, this is the place to go.

But if, like me, your ideas for your garden outpace the space you have available, you can see how I choose which crops NOT to grow.

I love the look of Love-Lies-Bleeding amaranth, but it isn’t a feasible garden crop.

AND . . . if, like me, your knees are getting cranky, you might be interested in knowing how the Gnome and I are learning new approaches when age and illness invade the

homestead.

One tip is to take a break from backbreaking garden chores and just revel in what you’ve created. Actually, that’s a healthy idea at any age.

I write on all sorts of topics for Mother. You can find more of my Mother Earth News posts here.

 

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More Plant-Based Meal Ideas

This is Part II of my plant-based meal ideas to help you feed your family healthy, tasty meals without stressing about meat shortages in grocery stores–or to help you get started on a plant-based diet regardless of pandemic supply issues. For Part I, click here.

Hippie Power Bowl

Nothing brings out my inner hippie more than a simple, healthy, super-tasty dish. And this Hippie Bowl is just that. I recently dug out a clipping for the Hippie Bowl from a 2015 issue of Rodale’s Organic Life. Of course, I changed it up a little to fit what I had on hand— which goes to show you can be a little flexible with the ingredients. It takes a little preparation time, but it stores well in the refrigerator if you want to prepare it a day ahead.

I made this just for me and it made four tasty lunches. To prepare it as the main course for a family of four or so, you may want to double the recipe. If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, store the extra in the refrigerator. A zap in the microwave is all you need for a quick lunch.

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked short-grain brown rice
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup sliced mushrooms of your choice (I used baby portabellos)
1 large carrot
1/2 medium onion, sliced lengthwise
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup tahini
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp tamari, soy sauce, or teriyaki sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425. In a large bowl, mix broccoli, mushrooms, carrot, and onion with olive oil and salt and pepper until vegetables are well-coated. Place on a parchment-lined baking tray and roast for 20-30 minutes until lightly browned.

While veggies are roasting, whisk remaining ingredients together until smooth.

Stir rice into vegetable mixture and mix in half the tahini sauce. (Reserve the rest to dress a salad or as a dip for raw vegetable sticks. It’s yummy!)

Serve with a few avocado slices or a green salad.

Slow Cooker Chili with Winter Squash

I found this fabulous recipe at the Real Simple website. It has become a real family favorite at our house—comfort food that’s healthy and a real treat on chilly winter nights. You can use sweet potatoes or any winter squash. Our favorite is butternut. Pumpkin is just as good. If you think the addition of cocoa and cinnamon is a little weird, give it a try anyway. They add piquancy without being identifiable.

It only takes twenty or so minutes to put this together. Then you can walk away and forget it. Yield: 4-6 servings.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2(+) teaspoon ground cinnamon
kosher salt and black pepper
1 28-ounce can fire-roasted diced tomatoes or 1 qt home canned tomatoes
15.5-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15.5-ounce can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 medium sweet potatoes or one butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1⁄2-inch pieces
sour cream, sliced scallions, sliced radishes, and tortilla chips, for serving

Directions:

In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine all ingredients. Add one cup water.
Cover and cook until the sweet potatoes are tender and the chili has thickened, on low for 6-7 hours or high for 3-4. (Check the last hour of cooking to see if you need to add more water—or tomato juice if you have it.)

Add your favorite toppings: grated cheese, sour cream, green onions and/or crushed tortilla chips.

Cream Curry Casserole

This oldie but goody is so old—it comes from our earliest hippie-ish days—I’ve forgotten its source. I think we may have found it in one of Frances Moore Lappé’s Small Planet books. It has always been a favorite. I’ll be the first to admit, though, that even though its flavor is mild, this one may not go over well with any unadventurous young eaters in your household. Yield: 6-8 servings.

(Note: If you have trouble finding dry milk powder, this ingredient can be omitted.)

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 T butter
1 T arrowroot powder or 2 T flour
2 c milk
¾ c non-fat dry milk powder
2-3 tsp curry powder

¼ c sesame seed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, diced
2 small to medium zucchini, diced
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp honey
olive oil for sautéing and oiling casserole dish

Directions:
Mix rice and beans together. Turn into oiled casserole dish.

Make cream sauce of butter, flour, and both milks. (To make cream sauce, melt butter over medium heat in a small saucepan. Whisk in the flour, until smooth—you may need to reduce or remove from heat to get it smooth, then return to heat, gradually whisking in milk. Bring to simmer; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.)

Sauté veggies and sesame seed until onion is transparent. Add zucchini at the end and cook for one more minute. Stir lemon juice, honey, curry into sauce, then stir into vegetable mixture. Pour over rice and beans.

To make this dish even simpler, mix all ingredients together into a large bowl, then pour the whole thing into baking dish. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

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Sanctuary and Salvation

Again, my writing has taken me where I did not want to go. I fear we are all too bombarded by this theme, and I promise to leave it soon.

* * * * *

Home is my sanctuary. It’s where I feel safe, protected, loved. It’s where I am inspired—reborn. But seasonal depression traipses after me like a needy two-year-old, and demands constant vigilance. I know only one ‘cure’—to get Out, listen to bird trills, see the trees wave in the wind, smell the grasses and, when spring finally teases me, the flowers.

If Home is my sanctuary, Out is my salvation. But these days, Out is nearly my undoing. The intensity of it drains me. Out, I am a one-woman SWAT team, always on alert for snipers.

On a walking trail, I’m constantly checking all directions at once, zig-zagging to avoid fellow walkers who seem oblivious to the need for physical distance. Veering far off the path when I spy a jogger gaining on me or a gaggle of young roommates filling the pavement and headed my way. The responsibility for communal safety seems to be mine alone.

woman in face mask shopping in supermarket

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

In a grocery store, I turn into a one-way aisle only to see someone coming toward me. I stop dead, then wheel my cart around and drive it over two more aisles, down then back up the one between, finally returning to my starting point—only to find someone else illegally coming at me.

When I near the end of an aisle, I pause, then slowly ease my cart into the intersection, anxious that someone may be about to ambush me. I am reminded of the way my nervous Mother used to creep around a blind curve on our mountain road at two miles an hour, madly honking the horn all the way.

Sometimes, another shopper turns in my direction when another is not far behind me. Trapped, I twist and flatten myself against shelves of canned goods like a squirrel plastered to the ground to avoid the predatory hawk. I dare not breathe until the danger has passed and the air might, just might, be slightly clearer than it was a few moments ago.

It is exhausting. I return home—to calm and solace, not knowing when the grayness will again swoop down and envelop me. But knowing it will. And, inevitably, the answer is Out.

I am intoxicated by the thought of Out—just the idea of taking trash to the dump excites me, even though Out is fraught with danger and the perception of danger. While governments ease restrictions, the modified protocols are for others. We elders—‘the vulnerables’—are still expected to stay home. When we do hazard to venture out, we will be at greater risk than ever.

He is okay with that. He says we are warriors. Ready for battle, ready to die for ‘the greater good’ as he thrusts us into the fray. “Yes,” he acknowledges, people will die.

People like me.

That’s what warriors do. But how can I be a warrior? Warriors have weapons. I don’t.

She* sees today’s world differently. She encourages us to be meditative and connected—our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Reaching out to each other, not with hands, but with hearts—because our lives are in one another’s hands in ways they have never before been. Our physical distance demands our connectedness to be stronger than ever.

I can live with her take, considering this respite from normal as a sacred time in a sacred place, a time to step away from the chaos of the world and into personal commitment, a time to, as she says, “Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly, where we cannot touch.”

I might even be able to stay sane at home.

_ . _ . _ . _

*     She is poet Lynn Ungar. You can read the entirety of her touching poem here.

 

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This Wild and Precious Life

My Wednesday Writing Group is now meeting via email since we are sheltering in place. Our fearless leader’s recent prompt forced me into some deep soul searching. I didn’t know where this piece was going when I picked up my pen, but it turned into something meaningful for me, so meaningful that I’m opening myself up to you now.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Naturalized daffodils in the woods

I remember when our children were young and complained about not having enough time to do the things that really mattered. My go-to response was to remind them that however they spent their time was a demonstration of what truly mattered the most to them (which was often watching TV). Sometimes the response was tears, sometimes an eye roll or two, but it never seemed to change behavior. Maybe that’s because I was better at preaching than practicing. I was chiding myself every bit as much as I was chiding them.

I live in constant awe and envy of many women whose orbit I circle: women who travel to far off places to do good, putting themselves in who-knows-how-much of harm’s way, risking their health and safety. They give their time, their creativity, and their financial resources to help others. They think of others before themselves.

Like theirs, my heart aches for the plight of so many in this world, but that is often as much as I allow. I’m filled with compassion more than passion. I am not moved to activism. A lifetime ago it was different, but I burned my candle down to a nub. I got burned and burned out, and the flame has never reignited.

Still, I find myself looking around me and wondering how I can help, how I can make a difference. I looked close to home—it’s not an easy place to find an answer. I’m surrounded by an enclave of family—theirs, not mine. Much of what they do, all four generations of them, they do together: farming, canning, eating, errands, playing. They are self-contained; they take care of each other. They do not seem to need others, even in times of need.

“Where am I needed? What can I do?”

That was the question I asked myself when one of the older generation among these neighbors received a devastating cancer diagnosis. They certainly didn’t need me to bring food or offer trips to the doctor. I had just recently retired from my far more than  full-time job when it came to me—the one thing I now had that family members did not.

Time. I could visit. While their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are off at work and school, I could give my time.

I had my answer.

At this stage in my own life, it seems the things I have to offer are the small things. A smile, a word of encouragement, a thank you or a compliment. They are indeed small things, but as I look around, they are things the world seems much in need of right now. These things I can do, and I have learned to be on the alert. Not always, not enough, but so much more than when I was so overworked and overwhelmed that I seemed only to live inside myself.

These days I actively watch for opportunities to smile, to make a small gesture. “Is there something I can get for you from that top shelf?” to the older gentleman in his electric shopping cart. “May I help with that?” to the woman struggling to get her arm into the coat sleeve.

I step out of my comfort zone to say something pleasant to a person who seems vulnerable. It’s an indirect way of saying, “You’re not alone. Here is a safe place.” Sometimes I just watch. How is this clerk from Pakistan being treated by her customers? How are those Latino customers being treated by that cashier? I’m ready to step in, though I have no idea how.

I’ve also learned that things I think and say and write can occasionally make a difference. It’s the main reason I continue to write—in hopes that I will sometimes find some combination of words that will touch someone.

In these ever more uncertain times, I believe it is more important than it ever has been—in my lifetime, at least—to look for the small ways I can help improve someone else’s day. Maybe it’s an extra large tip when my server is having a tough time. Maybe it’s a conversation with the overworked cashier at the big box store. Maybe it’s popping a check in the mail to make up for the appointments I’ll miss with my hairdresser for the current stage of the coronavirus shutdown—with a little something extra added in. Maybe it’s looking for a sliver of silver lining someone’s clouds.

What do I plan to do with my one wild and precious life? I plan to plant a little ray of sunshine wherever I can. Carrie Newcomer sings, “Between here now and forever is so precious little time.” With my precious little time I will seek out tiny acts of kindness to perform, following Mother Teresa’s counsel to do small things with great love.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

–Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems, 1992

 

 

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Our Modern Homesteading Journey

I’m not sure how it started, or when. But I do recall that the Gnome and I were early, early disciples of Mother Earth News Magazine. We landed a first edition copy of the Whole Earth Catalog and thumbed its pages until they were ragged and yellowed. We briefly considered looking for an old farmhouse somewhere in eastern Nova Scotia and learning to grub a subsistence living from the land.

We’re still the proud owners of this 1975 Mother Earth News Almanac. It’s where we found the easy, rib-sticking recipe for potato-cheese soup–the perfect way to cap off a cold day working outdoors.

There was a time, prompted by finances as much as a back-to-the-land ethos, when we quite literally stalked wild asparagus (and wild cherries) in Louisville’s magnificent city parks. We dug day lily tubers from our back yard for food. We made jellies from the thousands of purple violets which had overtaken our lawn and from rampant patches of mint. More than once we attempted a vegetarian lifestyle. (In those days, vegetarianism was considered the true sign of a back-to-the-lander in some quarters.) We got into crafting and selling our wares—mostly weaving and macrame—at local and regional street fairs and festivals. My favorite was ‘barefoot’ sandals. Sound a little hippie? You bet!

The Gnome had always had a hankering to design and build a home with his bare hands. In our first years of marriage, he got a little—and I emphasize little—experience working on home remodeling and repair jobs with a high school shop teacher in summertime and on weekends, which made the itch that much stronger.

Time passed, life intervened, and homesteading on any level seemed an insurmountable pipe dream. But the longing for a more sustainable, self-sufficient way of living never left us. Almost twelve years in, we decided the time had come to take that giant leap. We found a few rocky, sloped acres in the mountains of western North Carolina—way out in the country; sold our Louisville house; packed up children, cats, and our most essential belongings; and headed east.

You can start here to read the nine-part series (it’s long but chock full of fun pictures) about those days living in a tent, clearing land, and self-building our forever home, so I’m going to fast forward—but not before sharing this photo of me putting up corner bracing on our entirely self-built post-and-beam home oh so many years ago.

Too soon,  we found our dream of living an old-fashioned homesteading life a little too big to handle. We both had to find full-time jobs just to pay off the loan on our land, not to mention building materials; the kids were growing up and into extracurricular activities with college in their futures; and more than ever, health insurance was a priority. Jobs turned into careers.

Round and round the circle went. Finally, we were able to retire. Only then were we able to dedicate ourselves to gardening, food preservation, rehabbing our home, drying clothes on the line, cooking and eating at home instead of on the go.

Along the way, the term ‘modern homesteading’ began to surface. As I learned more about it, I realized that’s what we were doing, what we’d been doing all along to one degree or another.

What is modern homesteading? In short, it is a way of finding your own path to a simpler, more self-reliant life. Modern homesteading allows a person to weave old-fashioned skills into modern life. To find what—for you—is the best of both worlds. By this definition, even city-slicker apartment dwellers can be homesteaders. Personal values, life circumstances, and individual demands make both the path and the destination unique for everyone and allow anyone who wants to give it a try.

Our path? We built our own house with our own hands. We’re definitely on the grid, but a chunk of our electricity comes from a community solar garden, and we have lots of south-facing windows for passive solar heat gain.

We compost and recycle. To the extent our skills and tools allow, we do our own maintenance and make our own repairs. We prefer giving and receiving simple gifts, homemade if possible. When the weather cooperates, we line dry our laundry.  For several years, we’ve grown and preserved enough vegetables to pretty much get us through the year. We even continue to forage a little.

Our typical grocery list during gardening season

We support and encourage wildlife. We prefer spending time outdoors to seeing a movie. We support local causes that matter to us personally.
Of course, we’d done some of these things all along, even in the midst of child-rearing and busy careers. Things like recycling, loving the earth, conserving electricity, making do. But now, we have a name for it. And these days we are even more conscious in our earth-friendly decision-making.

We’ve cobbled together a life that teaches us resilience. One that keeps us closer to the land even as we type on our computers, drive our gasoline-powered car, and use electric tools and appliances. We try to live with purpose, asking how little rather than how much is necessary for living the good life. We don’t feel the need for the newest, best, or most. To be sure, it hasn’t always been a smooth journey and we’ve had bouts of backpedaling. But it’s not about perfection. It’s about striving.

Overall, our lifestyle gives us vast satisfaction as well as the confidence that, should circumstances dictate, we might be competent at true self-sufficiency, at least for a while.
We have found our own middle ground. As time and circumstances change, so will our relationship with this lifestyle. Age and illness will have their impact. But we’ll continue to do the best we can to increase our self-reliance and walk gently on this good earth.

That’s what the modern homesteading journey means to us.

The journey is different for everyone, of course.  At its core modern homesteading relies on exercising any or all of what I’ve dubbed The Four Esses: sustainability, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, subsistence.

Do what you can. Do it the best way you can. Do it one baby step at a time. It all matters.