Quote of the Day: Mlle. Souvestre
“Even when success comes, as I am sure it will, bear in mind that there are more quiet and enviable joys than to be among the most sought-after-woman at the ball or the woman best liked by your neighbor at the table, at luncheons and the various fashionable affairs.”
Mlle. Souvestre to Eleanor Roosevelt in a letter from Hazel Rowley Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage
I really love this quote, it’s amazingly true, and so against what mainstream culture tells us. Quiet and enviable joys, I’ve been working hard to cultivate these things in my life.
The sun coming up right in front of my kitchen window,
enjoying a simple meal with Mr Chiots,
a warm cup of coffee on a frosty morning,
a big wooly blanket on my bed.
What quiet and enviable joys are you loving this week?
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Smile
With the slaughter of the pigs on Sunday and butchering happening today, our days have been filled with very heavy things. Luckily there’s still a lot of beautiful life around Chiot’s Run that keeps things from getting to be too much. Here are some sweet things that I captured with my camera yesterday:
Death brings a greater appreciation for life, I’m certainly loving all the beauty in the lives that still surround us. All these animals bring a deep richness to our lives.
What beautiful things are filling your day with life today?
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Quote of the Day: Granville F. Knight
Often against his better judgment, the modern farmer has been forced to use monoculture, artificial fertilization, pesticides, herbicides and mechanization in order to keep ahead of ruinous taxation, inflation and ever-increasing costs of production. The result has been productions for “quantity” rather than “quality,” and the gradual destruction of our precious topsoil and mineral reserves, in or beneath the soil. This has been well documented by Dr Wm. Albrecht of the University of Missouri. Our markets are flooded with attractive, but relatively tasteless, vegetables and fruits. The protein content of wheat and other grains has steadily declined; this being a reliable index of soil fertility. Animal foods such as fowl and meat reflect similar changes. Fowl are usually raised in cramped quarters and their food limited to that prescribed by man. As a result cirrhotic livers and common and egg quality is inferior. Both groups are frequently treated with antibiotics, anti-thyroid drugs and hormones which produce castration, myxedema, and water logged tissues. These practices are designed to stimulate more weight gain on less feed. The advantages to producers are obvious; to the consumer they are indeed questionable.
-Granville R Knight (1970)
As we’ve been raising our first pigs this summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about industrialized food. About how it moves animals from living beings into commodities to be brought from infant to slaughter weight as quickly and as efficiently as possible. That’s not at all what our focus has been, in fact we’re amazed that our pigs weigh what a normal pig does when butchering time has come. These pigs have been great, truly a joy to have around (at least most of the time). No doubt we will measure all future pigs by these two.
Our pigs were raised for meat, but also to work for us. They have spent the last 6 months happily rooting up the soil in our woods eating acorns, grubs, saplings and whatever else they found tasty. They have cleared the woods of low growing vegetation all the while leaving behind beneficial manure that will fertilize future hazelnut and apple trees we plan to plant in this area. They were as happy as pigs could be.
It would certainly be easier to take them to a local butcher shop for slaughtering, but we believe that more of them can be used if we do that as well, right here. We also want them to have the least amount of stress when that time comes, something I’m sure a trailer ride and a few hours in a corral would bring.
If all goes as planned, today will be pig slaughtering day. We spent all day yesterday in preparation, getting the scalder set up, cleaning the back porch and hanging rods to make it into a small butcher shop. We are also in the process of building a smoker.
It certainly is a lot of work, but we’re excited to do it. We love new experiences, and this will certainly be an experience.
Have you ever taken part in a slaughter day?
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Warm & Cozy
I finished up my scarf yesterday morning, it’s just what I wanted. The scarf is long, and it will be joined into a large circle to become an infinity scarf. It’s an idea that appeals to me because I hate it when my scarf blows around, this way I won’t have any loose ends. This will also make it super warm, I’ll be able to wrap it around my neck twice.
I’m going to join the two sides with buttons, then I can wear it as a regular scarf if I want. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I LOVE buttons. I’m lucky enough to have received both of my grandmother’s button collections as well as my great aunts. After opening up my grandmother’s jar I found these two beauties inside.
These may be the ones that grace my scarf, or I may cut small discs from a birch branch to make birch buttons. But I rather like the little piece of history that these carry.
Are you a scarf wearer, or do you prefer other methods to keep your neck warm?
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Winter Crafting
I’m pretty excited about winter to arrive. While I’m still spending every spare hour of daylight working outside, the sun sets at 4:30 so I have a good portion of time in the evenings. Usually I catch up on work and write my blog post, then I have a little extra time or reading or crafting. This winter I’m planning on making a quilt from old clothing and I’d like to crochet a wool afghan for the living room.
I haven’t crocheted in years (except for a scarf I made Mr Chiots a few years ago), so I need to brush up on my skills. I purchased Reader’s Digest COMPLETE GUIDE TO NEEDLEWORK: Embroidery, Needlepoint, Knitting, Applique, Quilting, Patchwork, Macrame, Crochet, Rug-Making, Lacework, which is the book my mom owns and the one I originally taught myself to crochet from.
To get back into the swing of thing, I’m going to be making myself a scarf. Yesterday I found this scarf pattern, which should be perfect for this lovely handspun wool lavender yarn from a farm in Ohio.
The past couple evenings I’ve been practicing my stitches, in the next couple days I’ll start my scarf.
Do you have any crafty winter hobbies?
