Homesteader Life

We who live off the land live by and with the seasons. They are part of our very fabric, you can’t seperate them from our lives. The modernist knows that there are such things as seasons, but they only effect their leisure activities not the whole of life. I’ve noticed over the years that this is one of the biggest differences between us and our “city cousins”. Those who don’t live close to land live in endless drudgery when it comes to work. Same work day in and day out no matter what the season. Here on the farm, where we work at survival and providing the basics of life, every season brings a new task and a variety to life that can’t be found in the concrete jungle. When the blackcaps are ripe we drop everything and pick. Wait to long and they be gone, and they won’t be back till next year. When beans are ready we drop what ever we are doing and pick beans. Once they are picked they are canned, a job which requires the help of every member of the family. When the weather cools down its time to butcher hogs and beef so they can hang and age proper. Its also the time to harvest a fattened whitetail or two. Come early spring its maple sap and the evaporator to fire up. Spring turn out on the pastures is anticipated all winter long. When the sun shines, you make hay. For every task they is proper time, from cutting firewood to planting the potatoes to canning tomatoes. The seasons provide a rhythm to life that is part of God’s created order. To choose a life that ignores these seasons is a choice to deprive yourself of some of the most basic blessings life.

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