Women, Farm and Food

This is the title of a conference that my daughter and I went to today.  The first keynote speaker talked about her experiences in buying and running a farm in Pennsylvania, she was inspiring  and at 62 is going strong!  Some important  issues for me to remember are:
    a. throw out the negative actions and compormise less
    b. Success equals happiness NOT $ means being sustainable not rich this is my goal
    c. Reading, research, knowledge is all good, I need a place to jump in and make it work
We also heard the stories of 3 local ladies in the 'farming' business.  One that works for a seed company (Osborns), another who was a field manager for a CSA with 300+ members and last an owner of a CSA in the City of Seattle (an acre and a half, very successful).   Some very good information.                                                                                                                                                                The 2nd keynote speaker is an author on the sbuject of procrastination, a very good subject in connection to farming and the tug of war on time between house, children, gardens, animals, a possible outside job and marketing if product is sold.  I take away from this lecture that the path in my home of downsizing is in the right direction.  In the basement, I am going to implement setting aside 1 hour of time with NO distractions, No breaks and using a timer.  Giving a reward for every hour is a bit of overkill and she said a pat on the back was too lame, I disagree.  An accomplishment can be exciting if it's a job I don't want to do and overwhelming.  The speakers were via the internet and the connection for the 2nd one was bad which took away from the lecture, her humor came thru fortunately because it was hard to keep the continuity going.

The dicussions after each lecture was also good, and hearing the experiences or questions of local women in farming left me with the knowledge we can do it in a man's world.

Thoughts on Life

I came across an article on self-sufficiency and a book review.  Amazing how close to my thoughts and beliefs, like mind reading. In a Countryside magazine article (jan/feb, 2010), regarding Jd Belanger's new book "he admonishes people to think of their frugal lifestyles as a business", "a business must be more efficient and less wasteful than a hobby, self sufficient living cannot tolerate waste". It's an "investment in a minimalist lifestyle  that can be just as profitable as investments in the stock market".  The Complete Idiot's guide to Self-Sufficient Living.  Definitely will get this book.  I am not a complete beginner, but being self taught in most areas of gardening and animals, a library of books for reference  is important.  Jd Belanger has been writing about homesteading for 30 years, that's a lot of knowledge.

'voluntary simplicity' . . . . .  I like the way it sounds!

I have kept track of eggs gathered per day, food bought, the few dozen sold to a neighbor and the year the chicks were bought. Should have also kept track of the dozens given away to family, and the price of the chicks.  It wasn't hard, I kept a paper for counts on the side of the fridge.  We also kept track of expenses for 4H horses, considered as part of the responsibility of the kids projects each year.  For home schooled kids, this is great for math lessons (gardening and animals), even the youngest can help with counting, weighing, writing the numbers, etc. Real life math makes more sense. While in high school and not understanding algebra, switching to bookkeeping saved my grade point average.  A light went off (in my head!), 'this is algebra', it made sense because of real life applications.  I feel that kids are not helped to understand why they must know math, especially in high school.