Anyway, Flower started reading the Little House books a couple of years ago. One year for Christmas, she asked for the Little House Cookbook. Her lovely Aunt Lisa and her family gave it to her. She looked at it for days, and we cooked a few of the things in the book, and then she couldn't find the book. She finally asked me about it, and I told her that I was reading it. She said "Because you are looking for more recipes for us to try?" I said "Well, yes, but I'm also reading it because I find it really interesting to see how they cooked back then, and what they used, and how they used food that was in season and things like that." She looked at me a little funny, but just said "Well, give it back pretty soon, o.k?" I promised that I would. And I did.
But from that time on, I really started to become interested in cooking and eating more naturally (Sorry Laura, I do draw the line at lard, but I try to eat whole foods and things locally and organically and in season.) I decided to start storing food and other necessary items, but I knew that I didn't have the space or the money to have a large supply. I started with trying to have two weeks of the food that we eat on hand, and now, I have three months of most things, with the exception of eggs, milk and fresh produce.
Then after a few months of trying to live like this, a friend gave me a book called "Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection." This book is a collection of articles written by Laura for the Missouri Ruralist, a widely-read farm paper, between 1911 and 1918. They talk about what she thought about and how she lived. I read this book in one sitting, and then again more slowly, and a third time to pick out the quotes that I loved.
After reading this, I knew that I wanted to try and live a more simple, more self-sufficient life, and it was when my journey toward simple living really began.
So in this post, and whenever I feel like it LOL, I'll include little snippets of articles that spoke to me. If they don't speak to you, well, skip 'em. :)
From "Doing Our Best":
I am proud of Marian because she is not a quitter; because she can take
disappointment without a whimper and go bravely ahead with her undertakings even
tho things do not always work out as she would like. I am sure, as the
years pass, Marian will answer perfectly that good, old description of a lady,
"Still mistress of herself tho china fall."
Marian failed to send her application in time to become a member of the
Ruralist Poultry Club, but she is hustler nevertheless and should not be classed
as being too slow to win in the race for membership. It was not really her
fault, for the Missouri Ruralist does not come to her home, so she had not read
about the club and as she is a little girl, only 10 years old, I did not tell
her of the club until I had spent some time telling older girls about it.
You see she did not have a fair start.
When she received word that the club membership was complete and her
application was too late, the least that might have been expected was a crying
spell, but not this little girl! She sat still a moment and then said
quietly: "Well, I'm going ahead just the same. Maybe some of the other
girls will drop out and there will be a place for me, anyway I'll be learning
how."
Doing the best we can is all that could be expected of us in any case, but
did you ever notice how hard it is to do our best if we allow ourselves to
become discouraged? It is so easy to slump a little when we can give the
blame to circumstances. I think Marian has found the way to overcome this
by being so busy with mind and muscle at the work in hand that there is no
thoughts of failure or for bemoaning our hard luck."
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1 comment:
We too love LHOP here at our house. K even has the DVD's season 1&2. Sometimes I even refer to them like, When Laura was little they didn't have this many outfits" etc... Sometimes I think it would have been a lot easier then, then I remember no washing machines EWE.
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