A Reason for Writing

I want to gingerly step back into blogging again.  I am a little unique, to say the least, among my friends in terms of my interests, and so it is a way to connect with like-minded people, even if we never meet face-to-face, to ask questions and learn and share experiences and express desires for a life that is more connected to the natural world we are so privileged to have access to.  When I started blogging, I think that I became a little dazzled by the crazy amount of knowledge out there, by the quasi-professional blogs that have tonnes of readers and loads of information and a kind of authority that took a simple dream of mine and turned it into an enormous reality right before my eyes--a reality that I realized I knew very little about!

I started trying to write more often, filled with enthusiasm and an excitement for everything that I was learning, but I think that along the way I started to feel a certain amount of pressure to compare to some of these other blogs.  A comparison really wasn't possible, but I started to want to impress people rather than just share who I was and how honestly inexperienced I am in this area.  I think I was pretty straight about my lack of experience, but I was trying to be interesting at the same time.  In some ways, it was a good thing, because it nudged me into trying things that I had thus far only been daydreaming about.  However, I think it became a little overwhelming.

I am, after all, not a homesteader extraordinaire.  I'm a "hopeful homesteader".  I am just taking the first baby steps on a journey to a lifestyle that is much more in sync with the earth that I love and that was so lovingly created.  So I'm scaling back.  I'm going to be brutally honest and I'm not going to feel that I have to live up to any other homesteading blogs out there.  I'm not making money from this, I don't have classes to teach, I am most certainly not an avid photographer, and if what I write isn't earth-shattering to a lot of people, it might spark a conversation with one or two or inspire another newbie, like me.

So here I am, the lowly and humble but very much hopeful homesteader.  I hope you'll be back for a visit soon.

Still living, still hopefully homesteading, not writing a whole lot...

So if there is still anyone out there interested in this neglected little old blog, I'm back.  I was so enjoying blogging last year and then, as is quite apparent, I took about a 6 month hiatus.  Not at all due to lack of interest, but rather, lack of time.  So as a quick recap of where I've been and what I've been doing:

Harvesting, cooking with, and enjoying veggies from our community plot.

Introducing my darlings to some friendly livestock, since we live in town and don't regularly get chances to visit with our ruminant friends.

A beautiful weekend away in Cape Breton with my love for the wedding of a much cherished and adored friend.

Spending as much time as possible outdoors with my family before the start of the university year!

Processing tomatoes...

And canning them in my new pressure canner!

Apple picking with my gorgeous girl...

and my beautiful boy!

Doing a lot of reading, writing, and...

other projects for my BEd degree (in French, in case you hadn't noticed--this makes it a little more challenging)

Taking our precious bean to the children's hospital in Halifax for an MRI (she is perfectly fine, but we were concerned).

Loving our Acadian forest during the most gorgeous (and unseasonably, worryingly warm) autumn that I have ever experienced.

Enhancing our Acadian forest with my sensitive little tree hugger, by planting hemlocks (a response to the horrible project outlined here).

Enjoying Christmas with loved ones.

Having fun in the long-awaited snow.  There's something about frigid air that makes me feel relieved, actually.  Especially after a crazily warm fall.

This is such a small fraction of how enormously busy my fall/early winter has been.  I took more than a full course load last semester, was working part time, commuting two hours a day, involved in three volunteer boards, and then having the true priorities of family and home life.  It was a bit much, but I enjoyed it.

I'm hoping to come back now to blogging, at least one post a week.  I have some figuring out to do about how I want to go about this, and what my motivations are.  But I hope there are still a few of you that would like to come along and have a read once in a while!