In the land of the cold sunshine

"Under blue and silver sky, far from the sea snow-laden breezes, wild and free
come to do-si-do my love and me
in the land of the cold sunshine

where the highway runs, a scar, right through the snow

every turn a vista or a glittering plateau

we take the high road
through the land of the cold sunshine "
                                                                                                        -S.J Tucker "Cold Sunshine"


Here in Rockford and in all towns of the Tennessee Valley, everything is coated in ice. All the roofs sport icy teeth, all the tree coated limb from limb. It is cold, wind and white. Last night around 8pm we lost power and did not regain it until eight hours later. I awoke at 5am to being bathed in the golden light of my overhead lamp and reluctantly dressed myself to wander downstairs and attend the fireplace. The house was chilly but not badly so. Most of the house is made of red brick and prudence saw that I had turned on my space heater and charged my phone hours before the black out. We were low on candles but this family still manage to turn up five jar candles, one pillar and half a dozen tea lights. I found the old light blub keychain that, thanks to its LED bulb, made for a great little lamp. We made it through with plenty of water and food, if a little less light than we would like. The point was that, even during the black out, we were warm and prepared.

 Thank you Jenna Woginrich for the wonder blog about constructing a black out bag. I will be making one this week. That's Episode 14: Make a Black Out Bag for any who would like to take a peek. You can find her on Youtube or take a look at http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/

I hope you all are snug in your own homes, your animals fed and clan warm by your side. Times like this remind me to be grateful for the comforts of this age but also grateful for the ice that will melt and fill our rivers, lakes and streams. We live in a cycle and this storms is but a part of it. Tomorrow I expect to return to my day job and even work Saturday to make up the hours we have missed. For into the yoke of work I slip my head and shoulders, for there are miles to go and miles on my heart.

Thank You, Postmaster!

Last week the first issues for 2015 New Pioneer and Mother Earth News came to the house. My hours have been filled with pouring over articles and ads, except for the handful I took to leave the house and attend the beautiful wedding of a dear friend, held at a church that was 146 years old. Sitting in that grand, old place I could feel peace in the very wood of pews and looking through the windows wondered if there was a woman who came before me, dark of hair and cool of eye, who sat in that very pew and gazed longingly at the silver sky beyond. Did she ever watch a wedding there, did she smile as her husband held her small, pale hand and did those cool eyes flick down to take in the warm glow of her wedding band? Did she sit their with her mother and father, waiting for the day her sweetheart came back from the war? The church was built in 1869, so did she wait for a handsome and good man in a grey coat to come back through the door. Did any of my ancestors see this church on their way home from the Civil War, did any of their blood stain this southern soil?

Such thoughts come easily to my dreamer's mind. As do Buff Orpington chickens and heirloom seeds, Kiko goats and Katahdin sheep. One day these will be mine, as well as pigs and turkeys. One day, like Jenna Woginrich did, I will find a unicorn in the shadow of my dream horse. Or in the eyes of my mule.

Bad weather is on the way to the Tennessee Valley and it has already dipped to -2 F last night. Today we warmed our tummies with shrimp and grits. I hope all of you out there are keeping warm, have plenty of food and water on hand with shelter for you and your animals. Happy Sunday and stay safe!

Love,
A.N

Sunday Storm Clouds, Sausage and Sweet Times

Storm clouds gather in the horizon as the wind picks up, balmy right now but likely to turn colder as

the hours progress. We take advantage of this mild moment in time to open the partition in the back door and let the temperate air wash over the kitchen and living room. I meant to sleep in this morning but I woke at the same hour I did Saturday when I had chores to do. That's the opulent hour of 8am EST. I know, not the 4am most homesteaders seem to rise and attend their dairy cows and goats. Truth be told, I am not sure when most homesteaders rise in the morning. I imagine it has a lot to do with their work load. Sunday morning finds me taking the trash out, wiping down the counters in the kitchen and cycling the dishes. I thaw some pork sausage patties and links out of the freezer and into the cast iron they go. All of both packages, for even with two of the Clan out of residence we still have six people to feed.

Kieran had a friend some school spend the night yesterday; the girls take up down in in our library and play video games into the wee hours of the morning. I put pork steaks to the cast iron last night for supper, finishing them in the oven with a maple glaze. Black eyed peas and dark red kidney beans went toward making a bean medley, potatoes were smashed with cream and butter. Apple pie was made and set to cool on the side board. I wish I had time to make a quick batch of vanilla ice cream but we drizzle heavy cream on the pie in its stead. All in all, it was a good weekend and here again we find ourselves at Sunday. Here again, once more in to the breach of a new work week. We work so that we may work, words I tell myself often. I work this job of cleaning rich people's houses so that I can someday build my own house. Even now, I am encouraged by Colin to search for the property and I smile to think of green meadows and winding creeks. I also thread my fingers through my night dark hair and sigh, wonder how I am going to make this all work. I put forth all my spoons toward working, writing, hoping, praying for the means to get to the Heart of Home. Heart Journey's end, I call it. For now I continue to work, write and remember to be thankful for the warm lemon tea in my favorite cup, the rich baritone of Stan Rogers in my ears and as I was writing, Colin and Ang returned from their weekend in Gatlinberg. Lemon tea makes me smile as I sip; we are so blessed to have clean water to make sweet lemon. So blessed to have elements in our house to keep it warm and to heart our food. I never forget I have a good life here because it is this part of my life which is laying the groundwork for the life I hope to build on my homestead.

Adventures in Brewing

The Clan is seeing in action my education in brewing. After years of watching Colin bring bottle after bottle of homemade mead and wine to the gaming table, a little seed was planted in the fertile fields of my mind. Those roots reaches down and took hold in my heart. Once the Clan was living all under the same roof, I was presented for the chance to learn to brew. I wished to make a cyser but fate dictated my friend brew child to be a pyment. A pyment is a mead made from both grapes and apples as well as honey. I was pleased to see this past Sunday when we racked the pyment that my six gallon baby had experience a great yeast drop out. This bright gold elixir was the result. This was just a taste cup, a testing to see if the integrity of the fruit aroma had held.

Gods be praised, it did. Though still very young and with a mild yeasty flavor, the pyment smelled wonderfully grape and apple. It tasted like apples hiding under a blanket of grapes and loaves of fresh baked bread. To say I am pleased with the first priming does not cover the scope of how proud I am. This is my brew baby and she's coming along as good as gold.

So the pyment has been racked and now we go for a cool, long secondary. We added honey to the pyment to continue to feed it and soon I will add organic apple concentrate or another organic grape-apple juice. About mid April, we will bottle this pyment and lay it down in a dark, cool place until its ready for my birthday, which is May 18th.

31, here I come!

As a side note, I am proud to announce that is just 24 hours the Heart of Home blog has seen 50 more page views. I cannot tell you how excited when I see that people are reading the blog and how grateful I am that people give me their time to hear my story and view my humble life.

Thank you.

Peace of the Pie

Today the temperature hovered in the mid forties and the sky was clear as crystal, a blue so rich and deep it steals your breath for a moment. It was beautiful and the work hours flew by as I bathed my face and soul in the cold, clean light of the work day. Then, as is the case when pleasure rises too high, a reality sharp and severe pierced the peace of the clan. Though no one was hurt in the accident, the Geo is not in good shape and my niece's plans for escaping to The Classic City for spring break were dashed.

Stress wrapped it's coils tight around the Clan tonight but I find peace in doing something I do best.

Making pie crust. 

Cutting up half a pound of unsalted sweet cream, hard from being chilling in the 7 degree meat freezer, adding in King Arthur All Purpose Floud and shifting through my clean fingers until little flecks of butter was merged with the flour. Chilled water added until everything comes today and boom! Pie crust, enough for two crusts for a 9 inch pie.

Saxon pie graces the table and tummies of the Clan this night and the butter crust reminds me that simple pleasures are simple treasures.

What is your simple treasure that provides for you simple pleasure?

Dreamweaver

"Well I've heard the old folks say "You'll never work a day if you like what you do." And I'd say it's probably true. That the only way to find the path to peace of mind is to follow your heart, right from the start. But it's never been as easy as it seems because it is hard to get ahead when you're chasing someone else's dreams. "

-- "Chasing Someone Else's Dream" by Balsam Range

This song never fails to bring happy and frustrated tears to my green eyes. Happy because it encourages me to keep trying and frustrated because I feel like I am working hard and gain is hard to see unless you are looking carefully. I know we are making progress: every week I give a portion of paycheck to the savings account and Colin always shows me the total when I ask. He has asked me to comply a list of available properties and I have found some promising places. I research goats and sheep both, making plans for Italian honey bees in a few months. A thrill of excitement goes through my blood when I realize the bees I have been talking about all winter will be here soon.

Today when Colin gets back from the store, we shall begin racking my pyment. I am giddy as a schoolgirl to begin this next stage of the brewing process.

I will post pictures of the pyment soon. Until then, Happy Sunday and here is to a another blessed work week.

What this life is about.

One month of Winter is under our belts, with two more on the horizon. This is when the true cold of the Tennessee Valley is born. It starts of staggering about in fits and starts like a newborn calf. A little snow here, a heavy rain there. That calf grows quickly and by February, you get an idea that you might have the meteorological equivalent of Bodacious the Carbray Bull. We don't (usually) get storms as large as our neighbors in the northeast; Lord and Lady watch over all your farms as you weather the white north, my homestead brethren.

Homesteaders...we seem to be a wide and varied fraternity, a Clan like a quilt of many colors. Whether you are raising organic chickens and eggs, non-GMO grains, angora wool or fresh, hormone free milk, you are helping the Earth. Our lives were never meant to be lived in slave service to companies such as Monsanto or JBS. To each individual or couple, clan or community willing to break good, rich earth and bring back green life to our planet, I tip my hat.

Finding my homestead is more than just securing a house for my family where I will have the space to raise animals that please me. It is more than filling my freezer with goat, mutton, pork and chicken though that is certainly part of it. It's about freeing myself from the chains of a society that has dictated my life lived like food in a TV dinner. All prearranged in the proper order: Birth, School, Work, Marriage, Children, Death. Freeze dried corn, high fructose corn syrup sweetened GMO apples, something shaped like a chicken breast which is really factory feedlot chicken parts, hydrogenated vegetable solids and soy.

It is about finding the life that nourishes me with its sustainable bounty but also with its generous work. To nurture my spirituality with the tending of goats, bringing forth life and understanding death. My church is in the good, rich earth and I pray with dirty hands for gentle rain, bountiful harvest, good stock and a healthy Clan.

And I am grateful for the time I have been given.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...it was a mantra that I learned while siting cross legged on the floor of my first grade class room. It is a daily physical activity that lends itself to the spiritual notion that we are the caretakers of the earth. Every day I get out of the company vehicle I take out my plastic water bottles, my aluminum soda cans and my glass juice bottles, placing them in our recycling bin.

Reusing is a practice I cherish. Every small trashcan in my house is lined with a grocery bag, the yarn I found discarded places in my yarn bag and awaiting the day I use it to crochet something lovely. I constantly reuse water bottles to carry water with me where ever I roam.

Reducing is hard in a family of seven folks but we do our part by feeding all the cat and dog the same protein rich, corn, soy and wheat free food. We wear our shoes until they fall apart on us; loathe is this Clan to buy something new unless absolutely needful. Clothing that my daughter grows out of is given to family members with younger children or donated the local shelter. Left overs are always eaten in this house, what humans can not eat goes to the dog or cat, what they cannot eat goes into our compost heap.

We do what we can to ensure we have a planet to give to our children. I think of my children's children and the children to come after them. I want them to know a world rich in trees, animals and humans that actually care. Little things make the start to a change big enough to affect our entire world. Next time you are in the park and see a piece of paper on the ground, place it in a near by recycling bin or if nothing else, a trash can. Take your plastic bags with you the next time you go to Aldi's or reuse those empty Aldi's boxes you brought your groceries home with as a handy place to put your cook books. That is what I did with one of those giant Taco Bell promotion boxes!

Do what you can, when you can and be grateful for the time you have been given.

Through December

I've been to the mountain left my tracks in the snow
Where souls have been lost and the walking wounded go
I've taken the pain no girl should endure
But faith can move mountains
Faith can move mountains of that I am sure.
Just get me through December
A promise I'll remember
Get me through December
So I can start again.

- "Get me through December" Allison Krauss
I have taken so much away from this song during these cold, wet and shadow drenched days. I have the love and light of home; even so the soul wanders down the sheer passes of my mountain mind. I think of the losses of the Dying Time, bidding goodbye to some the fiercest joys of the flesh and giving farewell to soft orange kittens with white feet. From this song I have taken peace, I have touched the face of serenity and laid down in comforting arms, knowing no pain and slipping into the softest of lavender kissed sleep.

"Get me through December" is from Allison Krauss' album "A Hundred Miles or More."

It is a wonderful song to sit and sip cold pressed Red Jacket apple juice watch the night waltz in like a beautiful woman in a black ball gown. This post isn't really about homesteading but about the homesteader, a piece of her joy shown to make her human. We will return to the want of the farm and thoughts of goats and fresh eggs, to the pyment steadily dropping out yeast and of the sourdough starter in the baking cabinet.

Until then, listen to this song and know sweet joy.

Pyment on my mind, miles on my heart

My pyment continues to settle out yeast and is maintaining a good temperature even after last night when the outside dipped to a frosty 8F. The moon was just a drop down from full and the night was clear and sharp. If not for the 19 mph wind, I might have been tempted to build a fire in the pit and watch the stars come out. As it was I brought Durellen inside, made myself a mug of pipping hot orange tea, dolloped honey and settled in for a few episodes of United States of Tara.

The 2015 Murray McMurray Hatchery catalog came in the other day; I want chickens so badly. Winter brings a waiting time for all the promises of spring. For sure and in fact, we are getting our Italian honeybees when the weather turns warm. It means honey for the summer if we are lucky, mean in the autumn and winter.

I am also considering attending a writing class to sharpen up my ideas on how to write a novel and get it published. Eventually I hope to write about my life on my homestead, how I give back to the community surrounding Knoxville. In the current time, this is the function of this blog but the makings of a book surrounding my year with honeybees can almost be heard buzzing in my head. The course would be held at UT here in town, so I will look into the possibilities of enrolling.

My mind keeps wondering "I can see it but how I am going to get there." My homestead, something that seems to be soaking into my now life like wine into a carpet but only just so. I long for the day I can work for me, all day and into the night if I want to or must. I continue to clean houses in the mean time to put food on the table and pay the rent. Sometimes I worry that this is all my left will ever be, that I will put everything into this and not put for foundation to my dreams.

Negative thinking...it comes with the head cold. Cold sunshine in the morning will shake off those doubts and tomorrow is Friday and then the weekend. I will tuck in early tonight with a bowl of soup on my belly, under my unicorn blanket and next to my heater. I will remember to be thankful it is not -12 degrees F and say a prayer for Cold Antler Farm. Winter is a strict master in the white north.

I carry around a card in my pocket that says "One day I will sit on my homestead and I will not remember how this life left me hurting."

One day, I will sit there in my rocking chair and make it true.