Fall is my favorite season. I love the leaves changing and the harvest and pumpkins and cool weather etc. It's an amazing time of year. 

I haven't gotten to experience a good northern fall in years, and I am so excited for this one. 

All that aside, some of the maple leaves on our trees have started to turn. Instead of joy and wonder, I am filled with panic. There is so much to do, the harvest is soon, some plants need to get planted, and some need to get picked. Then there is the processing of the harvest. The house needs to get "painted" to protect it in the winter. The garage sale needs to happen, because who wants to go to a garage sale when it's 40 degrees out? It all needs to happen and it needs to happen soon. I am not ready for the seasons to change, but that doesn't really have any effect. The words "Winter is coming" have never meant so much to  me as they do this year. I've never had my own home to care for, and I've never had a harvest like this come in. Everything this year has been last minute and panicked. Maybe next year we'll get the plants in the ground on time. Maybe next year we'll be ready. 

I doubt it. 

This year has been a major learning experience for us, and though the thought of fall and the inevitable winter fills me with dread, I am also so excited to be up north for these things. One day, I will know (somewhat) what to expect with our garden and yard. One day, we won't be scrambling to make sure the house doesn't fall apart.  

Even with all of this panic and dread roiling around in my head, I am so excited for a the leaves changing. The crisp feel in the air and the smell of decomposing leaves. I'm also excited about the snow and the winter, but that excitement might fade fairly quickly after our first streak of bitter cold... we'll see. :)

I caved and broke out the DSLR and went around and took pictures of the house and garden and things. So, this is pretty much a similar post to my last one, but with better pictures. I didn't take any pictures of the herbs in the back patio. 

If you click on the pictures, a viewer will pop up and you'll see a larger version of the picture and the caption that goes with it. 

I have decided that life on the homestead is a triage system. We do what we need to do until something more urgent comes along, then our original task is put on hold while the urgent task is handled. Example: we have a wall that is coming down. The drywall is off, but the frame is still up. It will be a while before the frame comes down because we have some basement flooding problems that were the product of a landscaping flaw. Maybe in our down time the wall will come down. Who knows?

So here are some things that have altered our Triage List a few times:

It's not all bad, we have a lot of really awesome things going on this year too... assuming the awesome things don't get eaten by bugs.

Since we have moved into our new house, there is always something to do. In fact, at any given time, there are always at least 5 things to do. That being said, we don't have time to do much except what needs to be done. It's a triage system. We don't always do what we want to do, we do what we need to do. It is mid-June and we just managed to get our garden in. I've already learned so much. I love playing in the dirt and doing things in the yard, which means that the things that need to be done in the house (like unpacking) are put on the back burner. 

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the last month in Michigan. 

And here are some random, fun pictures!

And here is a crazy Rommy story. So, Rommy likes to chase squirrels. She can tree them well enough, but she usually loses them. Honestly, she is pretty dumb about it. Anyway, here is a picture of me next to a tree (note the dirty knees) to give you a height comparison and then a video of Rommy attempting to chase a squirrel up a tree. 

Could this be a Great Lakes reference?! 

It could be, but it's not. 

We recently bought a house in Michigan. It's been pretty much awesome, there is a ton of work that still needs to go into this place. We thought we were buying it and not having to put much work into it, but it looks like the previous owners never actually finished any of their billion projects. I mean, it's good because then we get to add those finishing touches and make it a little more ours. At the same time, it's a lot of work. 

We haven't really moved much up here yet, and it kinda feels like I'm house sitting... except I get to rearrange the furniture. 

Sooo, for your reading pleasure, I'm going to list the things I'm looking forward to and the things I'm not so excited about. I'll leave it at around 10 so you get the basic idea.

As with anything, there are things I'm looking forward to and things I'm not. Overall, I am 100% excited to have a house, and I'm glad we got this one. It's pretty awesome, and I couldn't imagine us living anywhere else. 

I am unemployed and not actively seeking employment. 

I am a stay at home person. I'm not a mom, but I stay at home (mostly because we only have one car).

People often say to me, "I couldn't do that, I'd go crazy! What do you do all day?" I've mentioned this before. You know, I often wonder that myself. What do I do all day?

Whatever I want. 

I finally have the time to do all of the things I've always wanted to learn how to do. I finally have the time to invest in the hobbies I actually enjoy doing. When you get down to it, I am actually quite busy. 

I have a cooking blog that I research and experiment for. Cooking takes up a large portion of my time, and I enjoy it. I spend a lot of time researching gardening methods and learning about which plants grow where under what conditions and how to save seeds. I implement my ideas and sometimes they work... and sometimes they don't. I've been learning how to forage for plants and use herbs in medicinal ways (I still need a lot more experience in this category). I am learning about all the different ways to compost and what would be most effective for us. I'm helping plan a trip to Scotland. I'm editing pictures (a huge amount of time is required for this, but I really enjoy it). I am scanning photos and editing old pictures as digital copies for my family. I spend as much time as possible outside with the dog.  I sew and knit when I can manage to find the time and have all of my craft stuff set up.

So, I have lots of stuff that I do, but I also have a very flexible schedule. I can hang out with friends at a moment's notice (if transportation is arranged or I have the car). I rather enjoy it. I just really wish people would stop assuming that, since I don't have a job, that I sit around the house and watch TV all day. I get a lot done. I am a surprisingly busy person. As I am writing this, I have a stack of notebooks sitting next to me, waiting for me to fill their pages with research. Two for Scotland, one for permaculture, one for recipes, and one for plants... so many empty pages... so much information to discover. It is a good life. 

For over 5 years I've had a pretty clear vision of my dream. I want to live off the grid. It's not that I want to hide from the government or anything like that, it's just that I don't like having to depend on electric companies or water companies to survive. Ever since then I've been trying to learn how to do things that will help my later on in my homesteading life (hopefully in the not too distant future). I don't know if you remember the first time I made pumpkin pie from scratch, but I didn't use electricity to do it. Making things from scratch and using the power of my muscles to mix and puree everything is something that I've been trying to do more. When I have a large garden, I will be able to make many awesome and delicious things without having to deal with chemicals and overly processed foods. 

Anyway, I can knit, understand the basics of crochet. I am learning to sew and have a manual/treadle sewing machine that I'm excited to learn to sew on. I can cook. I recently learned how to can via the water bath canning method. I can garden, and I love plants! I am kind of a minimalist. And the list goes on... I'm working really hard on preparing for the shift. 

In my current living situation, I don't get out socially very often. Besides walks in the park (which I haven't been able to do for the last 4 weeks because of my foot surgery), I don't really see other people all that often. That being said, I've often wondered if I could manage to go a week without showering. I decided to save this experiment for a time when TC was out of town for work. Well, I did it. I didn't shower or take a bath for a week. Let me be clear: I washed everyday and washed my hair give or take every three days. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Since then, I have significantly cut back on my showering. When we got our water bill, it had decreased by 2,000 gallons that month. 2,000. Well, a month or two after I made the effort to cut back on my showering, I went in for foot surgery. I am so glad I had that practice because after the surgery I couldn't shower or bathe for 2 weeks. By that time, I was a pro. 

I still have a lot to learn about livestock and critters, tools and machines, large crops and pruning, shearing sheep and spinning yarn, hunting and field dressing... but I feel like I'm off to a good start. I would eventually like to be able to do everything I need to without electricity.