I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~ Thoreau

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

A little about us, our hopes and our dreams.

Fred and I love to be outside. That is pretty much from where all of this, our desires for a "greener" life, stems: our love of the outdoors. This blog will chronicle our hopeful, baby steps towards a more earth friendly, God driven, sustainable life. We are dreamers by nature and sometimes we out dream our means. We are imperfect humans who get angry and make mistakes. We are Americans by birth so we want what we want and we want it now. We are learners by choice, with some formal (useful & useless) education between us. As we age and grow we find we have much more to learn from the Bible, from people with experience in our interests and from the endless resources available at the library and on the internet.

We aren't trying to start a revolution (except in our own home) we simply want to document what we are doing for ourselves, as a learning tool, & to interact with other like-minded people who also sense there is something more for all of us if we merely try to lead a more thoughtful, less busy existence.

I was a vegetarian for many years, I've been a Christian (although an imperfect one) since I was a child, I became interested in yoga as a young adult and since Fred and I have been married I've transitioned into a dietary vegan. Simply put, it is my personal belief that you are what you eat. If you eat things that are unsanitary, that have lived lives of pain and torture or that are chocked full of chemicals you will be unhealthy and unhappy. I will state once again I am not perfect I do own leather shoes & handbags, throwing those away will not save any more animals. I will point out though I am not eating my old shoes either :)

Fred is also a Christian, he is an accomplished outdoors man and an avid fisherman. He is obviously not a vegan but we share an equal passion for a more healthy, less separate connection to our food and our food sources. Fred works a factory job where he is trapped indoors all day. We know that for now that is where God has put him to financially provide for our family. Some day though, Fred & I both dream of a life less enslaved to a time clock. We are planning now and working towards our future. Fred will hopefully also make posts on this blog and not leave all the writing to me, so I will leave off here and let him tell you more about himself in a later post.

I am not opposed to others eating meat. I am opposed to them eating poison. We don't have some hidden agenda or any political ambitions we only want to help our family and work toward being the good stewards of the earth that God charged us to be. I myself would consider renouncing some of my vegan ways on a limited basis, were we able to raise our own eggs, milk and honey. This is part of what we will be documenting as we move towards green. We will try to discuss our choices and our reasoning. We know we can't do it all at once so we are taking small steps, starting with little things and dreaming of a bigger picture. We've started with two beehives & a porch garden. We hope to soon include some chickens and a compost pile. Some day we dream of solar & wind power, a few goats and a spring fed well.

People may call us liberals, people may call us hippies, people have already tried to discourage us although with nothing but the most well-intentioned motives. We have heard everything from it is too expensive, to bee/chicken/gardening is too difficult and too time consuming and too dirty. We are not afraid of hard work and we know that what is even more difficult than managing these tasks is battling cancer and other illnesses caused in part by the things we eat.

I made the transition to veganism in my life out of laziness and convenience. I could not live with the repercussions of eating things I knew to be so harmful yet I had neither the time nor the inclination to raise those things myself. Last year all that changed. As a medical condition made it impossible for me to continue in my job as a firefighter I found myself stuck at home eating over processed junk-food (yes there is vegan junk food) listless and with no direction. I am now left with scads of time and limited means of transportation. It took a while for me to get past the crushing disappointment of loosing a job I'd worked so intently to have, however I now realize that God has given me a great opportunity that very few people are ever afforded. I am home with unlimited time to make something out of our little patch of dirt.

So Fred and I have begun our journey with 2 beehives and a dream. We hope you will all feel free to post comments and suggestions. Don't be afraid to offend or correct us but please don't pick fights either. We want your help and your suggestions but we have plenty of our own sarcasm and challenges, so you can keep those :) We hope you will enjoy this journey with us and we hope maybe you'll be inspired too!

Thank you for reading and please come back,
Autumn

3 comments:

  1. Hey, just to let you know, you all have a really cool blog. I would love to have the land to produce my own food. That would be awesome. I get so anxious for the produce stands and such to be by the road, just to have something fresh and not chemically produced. Produce just doesn't take the same at the store compared to coming from a garden. I admire you all for switching to a greener lifestyle. I really like your blog pic too, Fred looks like a nice guy. :O)

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  2. I am so happy for you guys. It is great to know that you have found something that you want to do together and since it is something that is good for you too, then that is just AWESOME!!! Good luck with the bees. Honey is really good for you and can help with so many home remedies and so forth. As for the chickens, just don't get a really noisy rooster, you may regret that. LOL! I love things from the garden, especially tomatoes. I have a little herb garden going along with some roma tomatoes. Wish I could have more, but in military housing, we are at our limit. Take care and look forward to more posts.

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  3. Sounds like you all are getting along well with the steps towards a self sustaining life style. We have already talked some about the chickens and if you need any help or have any questions let me know. We are travel the same path as you all are.

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