The Farmer chose this week’s words well.
Mel the Cat knows all about patience; if it’s raining outside, so what?! Just find a comfortable spot to chill out…there’ll be time enough for fun in the sun.
With Spring a-springing all around us, from the flower garden and fruit trees to the paddocks that surround the Homestead (way too much of our time of late has been spent watching lambs enter the world), it gets more and more difficult to keep our heads clear, our eyes on the prize, and ourselves on task. All we really want to do is roar off down to the local merchants of Darfield, credit card in hand, and obtain all those gizmos that would fast track our Homestead vision-to-reality (oh for a ride-on lawnmower *swoon*) but that’s really not our way. We’re not keen on debt and have also found that a delay in getting what you are hankering for often fine-tunes the want-list, if you know what we mean. So, while the blossom may be turning our heads a little, we’re keeping ourselves in check.
As well as shunning debt, we’re also a little old-fashioned about the food we eat. With no vegetable garden to speak of, we’re reduced to buying our greens and are very lucky our local greengrocer does a great line in local produce. When it comes to the meat on our plate, we have some pretty hard and fast rules: it has to be New Zealand grown (food miles), have had a happy lifetime (free range), and, where possible, humanely dispatched. That means, while we are currently enjoying the result of our first joint foray into pig-rearing, chicken has been off the menu for a long time. Our chicken production was interrupted by The Grand Tour and we need to fine tune the coop before we start up again.
This menu gap is felt most keenly by The Farmer who was very wily in finding a way round the problem while keeping ethics intact.
Organic, fair trade, chicken in his favourite Caesar salad…yum! Put down that hammer, good things do come to those who wait.
Union Homestead 
Sage words indeed! Patience is not one of my virtues, but it is a trait I certainly admire.
Oh, me too. Luckily there are those Homesteaders who are a bit more geared to being considered
Hi, Unless you acquire more grass eating creatures or you can convert grass into hay, a ride-on lawnmower may continue to be near the top on your want list – and it will be heaven when you get it. That’s the outcome of delayed gratification – a greater level of appreciation.
Our thoughts exactly. Yhr main problem is grass along the road verge where youre not allowed to graze.
Inspirational as so often, you encourage me to follow your guidelines.
Thanks, Susan. Its a fine line between sharing and lecturng…and practicing what you preach…we try😊
Sound principals all round.
Its putting it into practice thats the tricky thing
Brilliant quote (where does he find these?). I highly recommend saving the shekels necessary for a good solid, probably second hand riding lawnmower. Mine is 30 years old and with an annual servicing is still going very strong. I bought a dump trailer for it a couple years ago (as you know) and that has been invaluable as well – it equals three wheelbarrow loads. I find us on the same page yet again – my youngest has trained me to tell people I am an ethical omnivore in an attempt to shorten the (inevitable) explanation of why I am clearly an enthusiastic meat eater at home and only eat vegetarian when in most restaurants or public meals (church potluck for example). The whole family is not entirely on the page with me, but they do humour me at home (also, I do the shopping :)). We are also debt averse – around the time number one child was born, we were in a very tight spot financially and had to borrow from parents to pay rent/groceries etc for a few months. It was a life lesson kind of thing, and except for a mortgage have not had debt since.
Lots and lots of parallels for sure.
The Farmer has the uncanny knack of finding the right words – even when he doesn’t mean to😊
We have had three very bleak financial slumps and if theres one sure thing its that you must cut your coat to suit your cloth. Neither a borrower nor a lender and all that.
I tend to eat vegerarian when out too..an ethical omnivore…I like it!
I do like your quote! Mel looks very comfortable. 🙂 We also try to be ethical when buying our food. Because of a number factors we haven’t been able to grow any vegetables this year. We have some late planted tomatoes which have just started to ripen and our apples and pears are looking good. We hope to do better next year. I hope you get your chicken coop sorted soon.
I hope your tomatoes, apples and pears make up forthe lack of vege crops for you. Every day we get a tiny step closer to getting ourselves sorted out😊
Wonderful news! 🙂