Boring Blog

So there is another blog I read from time to time, from a conservative columnist living on acreage in Northern Idaho. ( http://www.rural-revolution.com ) While politically we are polar opposites on almost every issue (therefore I usually skip her political posts), I love reading her posts about life in the woods -- their livestock, their weather, their homesteading efforts (which are significant).  

But she posted this morning that someone had complained about her blog, saying something to the effect that writing about broken chest freezers, biscuit recipes and other around-the-house topics was just a big yawn.  And of course instead of just getting lost and reading a different blog, the letter writer felt the need to let this lady know how boring he/she thought that kind of life was.

Which is the total and absolute conundrum about homesteading blogs.  If someone is really homesteading, you are going to see a lot of repetition and unless you are a homesteading fan, it will likely become boring to read about over time. Because, compared to modern life, the simple life of homestead tasks IS boring, by comparison. There are no Tahitian vacations, no outlandish luxury purchases, and very little of what people have come to expect for online entertainment, which is D-R-A-M-A. There are chest freezers breaking down, a little blood spilled here and there, fence issues and animal stories.

There is another blog I used to read (which I will not dignify with the term "homesteading blog" since it is not) which panders more to what your average reality-show consumer desires.  There is always drama, giant, metaphorical wolves at the door interspersed with sticky-sweet, bucolic farm life monologues, lots of self-promotion and advertising, and lots of opportunities for readers to send money to keep it all going and see the drama continued. 

The readers fund the drama in this case, and you donate money to ensure the next "episode" pops up on your blog feed tomorrow or the next day, although the official tagline usually runs something like "your donations keep the farm going." Because as we all know, farms are successful due to online donations, right?

Anyway, this second blog is not a blog about homesteading, although it may look like that on the surface. No, instead, it's actually a soap opera/reality TV show set on a few acres, with the blogger seeking not the simple life, but rather attention and recognition. But, I suppose the complaining letter-writer on the other blog would like it, because it does have a constantly rotating cast of new animals and new purchases, usually followed by lots of crisis and commensurate panic.

I will just say here that I love true homesteading blogs because they inspire me. Honestly, I also love decorating blogs if they inspire me.  In my opinion, if you are a real person doing real and creative things, that is interesting.  If I read a post about making butter, then I want to make some. If I read about planting a spring garden, then I get excited about planning mine. I do try to stay away from serious decorating blogs for this reason...if I see a newly remodeled bathroom, I start wanting one myself.  Better to just make some butter and be content with that. It's a lot cheaper that way.

But regarding the homesteading blogs I do read, I do not expect life on the average, honest homestead to read like an episode of "The Bachelor," with trips, roses and tears in every episode.

Here's to keeping it real on the homestead and the legitimate bloggers who help chronicle it. Let's leave the roses and tears to the drama queens.

Laundry Woes

Big Ag and I have a pretty harmonious marriage.  Some of that comes from marrying later in life; when you marry late, you don't change much and it makes it easier to predict exactly who you will and won't get along with in your advancing years.

But we do have some differences, and some of those differences can happen on the homestead front when you're trying to live a chemical and addiditive-free life.  The latest example is laundry.  

And the difference is this: He wants to stink and I don't.

Before you judge, I will tell you right now that what you just read is probably not what you are thinking it is.  Neither one of us wants to smell of body odor.  We love our showers and we love clean clothes.  But here's where we part ways:  Big Ag likes his shirts to smell "fresh" -- fruity, flowery, and what most of our culture considers a "clean" smell, meaning highly-scented, and I like mine to smell natural, also known as "unscented."

And so our Washing Wars began, where he complained his laundry did not smell like anything and was, in fact, "musty," and I battled back and told him his clothes smelled like actual clean clothes, hung on a line in the fresh air to dry, and that he just wasn't used to that, after years of clothes dried in a clothes dryer with scented fabric softener sheets.

Then he told me someone had hugged him at work and made a face.  Whether or not I think this was his imagination or not was unimportant at this point.  The point was, I'd had enough of the critiquing of our laundry, and the fact that he was uncomfortable.

And so I broke down and bought some in-wash Downey "scent booster" (aka super stinky chemical "dots") which you shake into to your wash, and which gives you shirts you can smell from 50 yards away.  I wash his shirts separately from the other clothes now  -- not a very eco-friendly practice, I know -- but they have the extreme scent Big Ag apparently equates with "clean."  

I try not to focus on the fact that I have no idea what's in these little scent dots, what they do in a septic system, a human immune system, or what they are made of.  I keep them out of 3/4th of the rest of the laundry (his underwear, jeans and socks get washed with our regular, homemade detergent, which cleans just fine but which has no scent), and that is our compromise.

When you homestead as a couple, you will find differences in how you want to live, and this is an example of ours.

The bane of my existence.

And now I'm going to go and throw all the windows in the house open because I just washed a bunch of Big Ag's shirts and our entire house smells like a fruity, flowery, chemical candy store.