Happy Halloween!!

From Country Wife...And Hubby...

Hubby made the mask..real steel. Cool, huh?

And the winner is....

Smallpines!! Congrats! Email me at countrylifewithcountrywife@yahoo.com with mailing info.

Thanks to everyone that entered my very first giveaway!

Any HT'ers out there??

Did the site crash? Or is it just my ISP not allowing access? Anyone know if the Ohio get together is still on for Nov?

Never ask...

..."What next?" !

Cause if you do, Fate will toss her cookies right into your lap, all over your new Carhartt evening wear. (What?! Carhartt doesn't make evening wear, you say?? Well, they should. Then maybe I'd wear the occasional cocktail dress.)

So much stuff has been happening around here lately, and not all of it good, though things turned out well and we are happy for that. We are worn to frazzles, or perhaps more frizzy than frazzles. *shrugs* I'm too tired to even be clever. What are the odds??

Just remember never to say those two words. Unless you like Fate puke.

**Don't forget, the blogaversary drawing is this Saturday!**

It's fall!

It's chilly and damp and dark around here lately. When the sun is out, we all pile outside, grateful for the little bit of light and warmth before winter hits full blast.

I'm freezing even more than usual. My summer job involved a very warm environment, usually about 90 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. So even the 40 degrees, that will seem so toasty come spring, is colder than a well digger's butt right now.

Tired of the cold and damp, we lit a cheerful fire in the kitchen wood stove Sunday night. It was the first fire this season. (Oct 4 - for my future reference)

So far we've only been lighting a fire in the evening, just to take the chill out of the house. But the forecast for this weekend is pretty chilly, so we may be back to a full time fire sooner than expected. Time to get busy on that firewood!!

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Here are a few harvest pics of things picked just before the first frost:

Pink banana squash is amazing! I've never grown it before. The taste is similar to pumpkin, but much smoother and easier to cook with. I've made several Pink Banana Squash Pies already, and no one can tell they aren't pumpkin. The biggest squash in the pic weighs about 25 lbs.

Here's our sweet puppy... well, not puppy...she's 11...checking out the Collective Farm Woman melons. We didn't get as many this year as last year, but it was a very cool summer. There's one lonely Tigger Melon on top.

Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway!

Blog-a-versary Giveaway

I can't believe it's been two years since I started blogging! Thanks to all of you that have been around since the beginning, and thanks to all of you newer readers. I appreciate you taking the time to stop by, leave comments, email me, etc.





So...this is my first giveaway ever. This is what I am offering:

Three bars of Fels-Naptha soap! I know it's kind of hard to find in some areas, so I thought it would make a nice prize.

To enter, just leave a comment here...at this post. I'll jot down all the names, throw them in a hat...or cup...or box...or something...close my eyes and pick one. The drawing will take place on Halloween, so there's plenty of time to enter.

Sorry, Continental U.S. only.

The simple life

Sometimes it's frustrating: so many people don't understand our desire to live The Simple Life. I think the most exasperating thing is to try to explain, to a person intent on living The Good Life (Livin' Large...big cars...bigger homes...lots of credit cards) that we don't live this way because we have to, but because we want to.

... I don't need boxes wrapped in string

and designer love and empty things...

-Goo Goo Dolls, Better Days

We could easily live the life of the Great Suburban Yuppie. Well, hypothetically we could, but I don't think any of us would be happy that way.

For some people, it's impossible to grasp that we would prefer to raise our own food. After all, organic groceries are readily available. Why get your hands dirty?

For other people, it's unbelievable that we'd rather spend an evening walking in the woods, holding hands and sipping wine, than to go out to dinner and a movie.

They can't understand our choice to homeschool; to keep our children close to us as long as possible. How can we possibly put up with them all day??

The majority of them can't comprehend why we'd possibly want to butcher our own meat.

They conclude we must be some sort of survivalists. Weirdos. Rednecks. Hillbillies. Militant Greenies.

I almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

...I need some place simple where we could live
and something only you can give and
that's faith and trust and peace while we're alive...
-Goo Goo Dolls Better Days

Then there are those that tell us, "You are so lucky!".

They envy our ability to grow our own food, raise whatever animal we want and live in the woods. They gaze at us with rapt awe, wondering what sort of clever maneuver put us here, and then announce they have to run because it's time for their favorite tv show.

While I appreciate their..well...appreciation...of our lifestyle, and while I feel very fortunate to have the loving husband, wonderful children (and grandchildren), and home with much potential that I now possess, I have to tell them, "Luck had nothing to do with it."

Which is entirely true. It's not as if we won the lottery. Our names weren't pulled from a hat to announce that we are now the proud owners of Simple Lives. We didn't wake up one morning to find The Simple Life Fairy had put exactly what we wanted under our pillows.

We are here because we worked hard, sacrificed a lot, and because we really, really, really want it. We bought a fixer upper, fixed it up, put up with drug dealers, loud stereos, and a million other annoying things, just to have money for a down payment on our dream. Hubby worked overtime, quit smoking, and gave up cable tv. Me, I nagged him to quit smoking and stopped paying the cable bill. We're a team, ya know. ;)

We settled for another fixer upper, in the woods, with a few acres. We made do, together, as a family. This was what we wanted.

We love our lives. We love the hard work, the aching muscles, the callouses and the dirty fingernails. Instead of an evening at the theater, we spend an evening walking in the woods. Instead of dining out, we pick produce fresh from the garden and experiment with new recipes. Some don't turn out so great, like the pickled crabapples or the bread and butter zucchini pickles. Ew. But it's all a learning experience for us.

Neither of us grew up with farm families. (My family did have a brief stint as homesteader type hippies, but that didn't last long.) We've learned everything we know from reading, from trial and error, internet research, and the occasional useful advice.

We've learned to plant, harvest, and put by. We've learned to cut, split, and utilize firewood. We've learned to scythe, to bale, and a zillion other things. But most of all, we learned to stop, to listen to nature, to breathe.

For those that think us lucky, I can't say we aren't. But with some hard work, you can be lucky, too.