We live a simple life, by choice. We don’t take grand vacations, most of our clothes come from the thrift shop, we rarely eat out, etc. Still by most of the world’s standards we have a ton of luxuries. We have cable tv and a computer and a laptop and a smart phone and running water and more shoes than a person truly needs and and and…
We also work really, really hard. I have no complaints, Jeff doesn’t either, we talk about it often. We both love getting up and puttering around the farm. We enjoy seeing the work of our hands surrounding us, love seeing the wood shed fill as we work together stacking the logs. We like seeing the pantry shelves fill with glass jars from the plants we nurtured in the garden. We also love falling into bed at the end of a long day and chatting about it as our eyelids fall from the day’s work.
The thing is all that hard work makes us appreciate every luxury. The wood heat is amazing and comforting on so many levels beyond just keeping our bodies warm. We couldn’t have that heat without the work of stacking the wood. A jar of home-canned peaches or cherries opened during a blizzard in February is pretty close to heaven in my book. We couldn’t appreciate that in February if we hadn’t done the canning in August.
Beyond just appreciating the luxuries, I appreciate the teamwork in our lives. I appreciate that we do it all together. I know how very lucky I am in that, I know how very blessed I am not only to share my life with someone I adore but to also share and work towards a dream with that same person.
Over the weekend, we harvested the remaining beets and put them up for our winter eating. I had tomato sauce in the pressure canner as Jeff dug up the remaining beets and trimmed them for their peeling bath. After I boiled and peeled the beets, Jeff helped me chop or put the small beets into jars for me to finish off with boiling water before going into the pressure canner.
Canning beets is a long process, but worth it. Beets are one of our favorite vegetables and they can well for winter eating. It is a bit of work getting them all peeled but again, worth it. We did the beets in two sessions this summer and ended up with 27 quarts and 1 pint for our pantry. All organically grown and put up in glass jars with Tattler lids and not a drop of BPA in sight. Hard work? Maybe, though not drudgery. Worth it? You betcha.
What bits of hard work are you appreciating right now?
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I really need to invest in some of those Tattler lids. Another thing to add to my never-ending list!
We lit the wood stove for the first time last night and I appreciated all the work of cutting and stacking wood, and the mini woodshed Himself and a couple of friends built one weekend while I was at my mom’s.
Oh I am appreciating all the hard work cutting down all the dead trees and filling our machinery shed now that the weather is turning we are going to enjoy that hard work.I love this post we live simple and are very happy with it. We work hard and sleep well. B
We are busy taking out all of the last summer plants and shredding them up to use in a new compost bin my fiance built me. I can’t wait to use that black gold in the spring!!