Friday, May 31, 2013

Start at the Beginning

I thought I'd start things off by explaining why I decided to start this blog and it's name. I've been thinking of creating a little space for myself to write about the everyday happenings in my life: gardening, cooking, sewing, kid silliness, chicken raising, andother stuff around the house. About a year ago I started a sewing blog and set a regular posting schedule, but with a demandng 2 year old, I wasn't able to do a lot of regular sewing to blog about, so it quickly felt like a pressure instead of fun. 

Life with a 2 year old? There is already enough pressure, thank you very much. 

Still, as time went on, I wanted a space to share the little moments of my day to day and have a place to dream, so this blog was born. I don't have a posting schedule and frankly, I don't expect to have many (or any!) readers beyond my family and a few close friends.

Low pressure, low demands. That's my style right now. 

The particular format of this blog took shape as a record of my home life as a way to unite all my interests and as a way to encourage the pursuit of my "farm dream." 

Farm what? Dude. Seriously?

Yup. I suppose homestead is probably the more accurate term. Or maybe urban farm? Except I'm not exactly in the city (but close). I live on a small rural island one short ferry away from Seattle and it's sprawling metropolis. Whatever the correct terminology may be, I think of it fondly as my Farm Dream.

It started shortly after college. Well...maybe during college when I told my mom I planned to live in a large refrigerator box with my future-pet llama in their back yard as I had no idea what I wanted to do post-graduation other than have a llama. She suggested I might need two refrigerator boxes. Yeah, my mom is cool like that. 

Back to the point! After college I entered corporate job hell and during the mind-numbing boredness, began to dream of having a big piece of land where I could raise animals and have a giant garden. With a mountain of student loan, I dreamt big because it felt like it was just that: a dream that had no possibility of coming true anywhere in the forseeable future. I read animal husbandry books like crazy and dreamed that maybe one day it could happen. 

You know, after I hit 40 and finally paid off all my student loan debt, saved my pennies for another 10 years. And then maybe

Yeah, it seemed pretty hopeless, but I dreamed anyway.

Then, somewhere along the way in my reading, I became aware of the urban farm movement and, to a lesser extent, the concept of homesteading (which has only recently been fleshed out for me as I used to think of it as something a crazy ex-hippie did). Suddenly I realized that maybe I could make the essentials of my farm dream a reality. Maybe I could farm on a small scale, utilizing a comparatively small space to do "farmy things" like growing some of my family's food, keeping chickens, and milking goats.

I was also already interested in making my own stuff for around the house like cleaners, "beauty products" (I use the term loosely since I rarely wear makeup and usually don't even bother to clean my face each day), sewing some of my own clothes, and lots of food, of course (preserving, cooking, and baking). Often these interests overlapped with the farmy activities in books I read and I realized that maybe they too were part of my farm dream. 

Looking back now it seems silly these things didn't occur to me right away, but that's just how it was. Now, I realize what I'm working towards and dreaming of is more of a homestead and honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to farm on a large scale right now, even if I could . (But that's really a discussion for a whole other post.) Still, homestead still conjures up visions of crazy hippies and die-hard self-sufficiency nuts, so I still think of what I'm doing as my little farm dream, so the name remains.

If you're still reading this, you're likely family or just really dedicated. Regardless, I hope you'll stick with me and share my journey.