Blogging Break and Neat Project

I took a break from blogging over a long weekend. I was not in any way in an emotional state to write. So I wrote draft after draft of emotional vomit and then deleted instead of published. No one would have wanted to read that drivel anyway.

So instead, over the weekend I cleaned the house, painted the upstairs long hallway, and watched X-Men 3. Dear Husband and Lil'Bug tiled the front parlor fireplace. It will be gorgeous when it is finished.

Both our fireplaces and surrounding tile were stolen by urban miners long before we bought the house almost 8.5 years ago. It was not on our priority list (as were floors and ceilings) but now they are. We have to set the tile before placing a mantle. I'll show the after pictures when we finish it (cross your fingers, next week!).

*Edited to Add:
Tile setting is a perfect project for a tot like Lil'Bug. She is great with shapes, color sorting, and placing puzzle pieces. She is incredibly eager to help Daddy at every opportunity and is now pleased that she helped with such an important project. It is one of those moments that I am so happy I remembered to take a picture!

Dangerous, Tot Chasing, and we're all Sick

Thoughts for the week:

There are homeschool blogger awards going on and here are my thoughts on them: anything that further divides and isolates a group of people that should be uniting and supporting each is not a good thing. At first I was disappointed that our blog doesn't qualify for a variety of reasons (though the fact that I am writing from "Mars" may have got me at least nominated in the geography category), I was then mad about other parts of it. The hostility and further division of our growing, yet still small, community is not good. One of the problems that we have with labeling the kind of schooling we do or don't do is that it further others us from the community, we're not radical enough or not normal enough or not religious enough or too religious or or or....we, as all families, are unique. Labels are the first step in othering.

That said, I am seeing similar things happening locally and to the children of some families. We talk good talk about becoming an individual and celebrating what makes us unique, but when it comes down to it a certain level of conformity is still expected. Guess what I think about that? In my daughter's wise words: boo boo to them. I have boundaries, I stand up for them, but I can still accept people as friends who are way different from me, even disagree with me on key issues, to a rational extent. I'm not passive about it either. But I am 30 and watching children explore this dynamic is heartbreaking, even when it is not my own.

On a totally unrelated note: we are all still sick. It has been almost two full weeks that the evil snots and fatigue and off and on fever have ransacked our happy home. Now it's a cough. Something must give. Why is it that wee tots can still have the energy to run and run and jump and jump and tear apart a clean room in a single bound....while they are dripping with snot sick? I can barely lift my weary, nauseous, pregnant self off the couch to turn off the hated Barney and she is feverish, yet dancing and tearing it up old school.

Birthday Girl!

My Lil'Bug is finally 3. She is insisting that she is four when you ask her though. :)
Funny things she still does:

• She plays with ears, mine or her own, to fall asleep. When she was a baby she would play with her fingers. So cute.
• She hates shoes. If I turn around she's barefoot before I turn back.
• She is so wise and kind and full of life.

I am so blessed to have such a child in my life. So, on to the birthday pictures! My sister, Aunt Beezer to Lil'Bug, made a cool three layer tie-dyed style rainbow cake. What a cool surprise. The big day with friends we had planned with only a family party at the end did not really work out as there was another formal birthday party that day and many people felt more comfortable with that idea and then other friends were ill. Lil'Bug was sad, but the few friends that came to art co-op and the science center were very appreciated. The e-card Lil'Bug received made her smile! The family party was good, but Lil'Bug wanted her friends there. I still don't think that the big deal themed parties are a good idea for little kids, but next year will just do one thing instead of making such a big day with so many things. We invited friends over the following Saturday to share the leftover cake. That seemed to make up for it.

The Farm Thing/Dream

Today is very very busy with Birthday Girl activities so you all get a post I've been working on.

Ok, the farm thing. I grew up on a farm/ranch sort of, in rural Colorado, off and on through my childhood. My dream then was to live in a concrete flat with metal furniture and lots of abstract paintings and weird music. Funny now. For a wedding present a neighbor taught us how to garden our 25 X 17 ft yard. We quickly out grew that and bought a bigger fixer upper house, with a bigger fixer upper yard, then bought an adjacent lot for more garden space.

There are problems with gardening/farming in the city. Livestock restrictions for one, though some places allow 10 or less chickens, if housed and penned. Lead soil contamination is also an issue. Exhaust, dust, noise, etc....

We built raised beds and planted fruit trees. We have yet to get any fruit because of the hooligan children who live next door; they keep vandalizing the branches before blossoms set. We have a 6 ft fence to no avail.

We garden the veggies and trees organic. This means picking off pests by hand (or shop vac) and composting.

We've been visiting farms and talking the business side of things with the farmers. Two sites I am following, both are unschoolers: Pile of Omelays and Sugar Mountain Farm. There is actually a homesteading unschooler's ring too; I found it on Doc's Sunrise Rants.

We are moving soon so we started looking at farm properties both near and far just to get a good idea of what we will need. Here is what I have learned so far:

1) Check for urban growth and development encroaching. 10 acres is a minimum for us, but it has to be away, away from housing (I don't mean other farm houses.)
2) Ag near by: no hog confinement lots please. Corn fields are a potential hazard too because of "drift" or over spray of pesticides. A slightly windy day could take out all of your vegetables. Pasture is good, but roaming livestock will require good fences. Wooded can also mean shelter for predators.
3) Out buildings. What we decided we need is a good multipurpose barn. One property we looked at had a 3 level: hay loft, main floor for pig, cow, horse, poultry, and a walkout basement level with more horse/cow stalls and a sheep/goat pen. Perfect. They had a milk house that had been converted to a smoke house. Then a machine shed/4 car garage. the multipurpose barn is something we are now looking for. We saw another property with twice the acreage but a separate building for each and it seemed sooooo much smaller. We also want a pond.
4) Viable well water. Past wells surveyed. Old farmsteads just covered the hole when a well dried up. In Iowa we have aerial maps for the past 80 years to tell us where these are and back fill them. Very dangerous.
5) The house itself. Electrical wiring, heat source, etc.....Farmers like to do their own repairs. Sometimes good, sometimes not. A modern update can be more detrimental than one done in the 1950's. Good, fast, or cheap: pick two. Can you guess which ones our "peers" like to choose?
6) Flood plains. Check.
7) Generator and food stock. Winter storms can really bury you in.
8) Internet access. Some places in rural Iowa are actually wire-less as in there is no way to get a wireless signal or even dial up. Satellite connection only. Can be very expensive.
9) Nearest hospital? Get trained as an EMT first responder and volunteer with the fire department. This alone may save your life or someone you love's. In rural Colorado, the nearest neighbor was 20 miles and the nearest hospital was 120 miles. My aunt was the paramedic and they owned their own firetrucks. I can remember more than one occasion where someone knocked on the door and said their been a car accident. Sometimes, they were a bloody passenger/survivor who walked 5 miles to her house on the hill. Sometimes it was too late. I also remember when my baby sister ate a bottle of heart medicine, there was no trip to the ER. We had to work fast. Cells phones (where there is a signal) and helicopters have made this less of an issue, but not much less. Ah, and fires? If your house goes up, it's likely a loss since you'd hope someone is close enough to see the smoke, call it in, and then wait for the volunteer fire department to gather.
10) Gas prices are only going up up up. Cost of commute and activities with friends will too and might be impossible in adverse weather. Consider changing vehicles (though what we drive will work rural too...)
11) An added concern in Ohio are the natural gas well pumps on almost every rural farm we looked at. Bonus is that some of these homes get free gas from the gas companies as a kick back for the pump and royalties, downside is how dangerous the pumps can be.
12) Check for meth labs. Check in the woods, in the outbuildings, in the basement/crawlspace, in the bathtubs. Those chemicals are very very toxic.

We've been practicing for years now. We are so ready. We will not be doing it as a business though. We will be "homesteading" and producing only what we will need and maybe selling meat to friends or setting up a booth up at a farmers market on a whim. We will start with chickens and a pig, then add a cow, and go from there.

Ok, that's all I have for now!