The Almost-Amish Housewife Talks Trash

Rose off the front deck of the bunkhouse at the Western Edge

Pretty much my adult life has been a journey toward becoming this Renaissance woman who does all sorts of old-fashioned housewife-y stuff but with some assistance from modern technology....  even as I type these words, I get the strange sensation that Freud wanna-bees are stroking their chins and cuing up their tape recorders to document my case.  No matter.... Cowboy has already teased me about this...to my face....but I remain steadfast .....





And so, without further adieu, begins......DUN DUN DUNNNNN.....story of my transformation into the

 Almost-Amish Housewife 

(cue the heralding trumpets)

Where did it start?  Where does a thing like this ever start? 

Ok. It all started with the trash can on the back porch…a big, unsightly, blue plastic trash can – so big that the only size trash bags to fit it were the lawn and leaf bags.  When filled to capacity with our trash and garbage, that trash can was too heavy for me to lift and carry out to the dumpster in our barn lot.  I could fill that thing up twice a week!  To say that our family of five could generate some trash is a huge understatement!   

So anyway... It was one day while dragging the cumbersome tonnage of trash through the yard (easier to drag through grass than across driveway stones) that I heard my inner-voice ask,

“Holy fright!!  How in the world can 5 people make so much trash?!!” 

(I may not have heard "holy fright"--I may have made that part up).

Sure, I could recycle….but that would mean that I would still be buying stuff whose containers would have to be removed from my home.   I had to do something about how much I threw away.  So I made plan:  NOTE TO SELF:  HAVE LESS TO THROW AWAY!!

  

 But how?

I took a look at what was in the trash – milk jugs, cereal boxes, metal cans, glass jars, plastic containers, garbage, miscellaneous other trash – what to eliminate?  Start with cereal boxes.

What happened?!!!!  When did cereal become a staple at my house?  Why so many boxes?  Easy.  The answer:  cereal is a way-too-easy solution to breakfast.  Reality check time --> We took the kids out to breakfast from time to time.  Guess what!  Every.single.restaurant had cereal on its menu….did the kids EVER order cereal?  No {don’t be ridiculous}.   So why was I spending our $$ on cereal?

Good question.  

I decided to conduct an experiment:  I would make breakfast – at home, in my kitchen – more often.  More work on my part?  Yup.  Once I had a plan in place, I found ways to make the mornings easier:  prepare some quick mixes ahead of time or make all or part of the meal the night before.  I took baby steps.  I replaced cereal 3 - 4 times a week with homemade (from scratch) breakfasts. 

 My family’s favorites:  pancakes, waffles, bacon & eggs, breakfast biscuit sandwiches, biscuits and gravy, homemade doughnuts & muffins, hot cereals like oatmeal, grits and cream of wheat.

   Suddenly, the cereal wasn’t quite so popular….hmmmmm…..interesting……

At the conclusion of the experiment I looked like the most awesome mom ever, had more space in my cabinets, and threw away less trash….and before I knew it, I was transforming into

 the 

Almost-Amish Housewife!

What did I tackle next?  Glass jars!  Stay tuned.

Dawn's light over the hayfield at the Western Edge

Want some recipes or ideas?  Message me!  I'll share our favorites!

Confession Time: My Amish Fetish

The farm located at the western edge of my world is situated very near a large Amish settlement.  We have been making a concentrated effort to patronize their establishments. 

 

Let’s screech to a halt here and let me confess something (it’ll help you understand the workings of my brain—so you can tell me later how my brain works):

A gazillion years ago (more than 20) I cut a recipe out of the paper (Wednesdays’ papers had the food section—favorite!!)  for Amish apple pie.  Yum!!  Then, to my great surprise, that very cook/author had a series on PBS where she cooked from her recently published cookbook.  THEN…to my astonishingly great surprise, I found her cookbook for sale in a gift shop, of all places.  So…I bought it.  AND THEN, I begged Cowboy to drive me 3 hours north so I could “see Amish people.”…and he did!! (to my drop-dead-from-shock great surprise).

I saw lovely Amish farms, immaculately kept…. surrounded by stunning flower beds and bountiful vegetable gardens.  Barefoot Amish children, 3 at a time, on a horse.  An Amish farm wife grilling out … on a gas grill …. Wait!..... POP! went that romantic bubble!  I cook on a gas grill!     Nonetheless, I have been fascinated by the Amish lifestyle.   Over the years, more and more Amish settlements have sprung up in our Midwestern state that serve to both foster that fascination and smack me into reality.

So now … here out at the western edge …  there are many Amish who run delightfully simple yet charmingly fun shops….there, see….the romantic bubble is filling back up!  Added to the list of stores to shop are the boot store, the variety store and the bulk foods store.  Today we headed out to the variety store…’cause I needed a few kitchen gadgets – and I like to look around that their handmade things for sale.  I ended up buying more than I had on my list (went in for a covered butter dish…came out with a bottle brush, a dish-drainer tray, a pie server, and a butter dish).  The young clerk was working on an embroidery piece while we shopped….I know, cute! Right?

Then.. off to the bulk foods store…Cowboy “needed” a tray of their sticky buns.  The gravel roads wind so confusingly and are marked with both tire tread and buggy wheel tracks.  We’re trying to learn our way out here without the help of the GPS.  Slowly but surely we’re getting more familiar!  We met a horse and buggy driven by a lady wrapped in a black shawl.  We all exchanged waves.  Then we met a couple guys on tractors from the county highway who were mowing the roadside.  They were too busy to wave.   We finally reached the store, our taste buds geared up for sticky buns!!   <cue the game-show loser sound-bite:  whah whah whahhhh> They don’t bake those until Friday…frown….and to top that off:  they have a funeral to go to this Friday so they aren’t going to make the sticky buns at all this week.  Boo hoo!   So, we bought some rolled oats (for my oatmeal cookies to be baked later today…my recipe is on my Farm Girl’s Kitchen page) and brown sugar, chili powder and …a pumpkin for the front porch….see, Cowboy…it wasn’t a wasted trip!!

It’s an incredibly beautiful October day! 

Do I Wanna Be Amish?

Saturday morning the Cowboy brought the leaf blower down to the house. “Close up the house, Mom. I’m gonna blow the leaves off the front porch.”

“Couldn’t we just use a broom?” Stupid question.

“Nope.”

Why do machines cast such a spell over guys? A broom seemed like a logical tool – ok, it takes longer. I could be Amish if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve grown right fond of phones and lights and motorcars and every single luxury. Oh, no! I’m spellbound, too. Haha…sorry Gilligan, I’m stayin’ with the machines.

After the leaves were blown away, we planned a trip to town to get stuff to fix the broken heater hose on the big tractor. How did it break? Don’t know. There are so many dangers lurking…stuff around here gets jabbed, poked, ripped, gashed, cut, shredded, shot, stabbed, poisoned, frozen, electrocuted and burned…. Anyway, I had to make a list of things to buy in town…ohhh, the days when I could just rely on my memory…..Gone! I also had to find the numbers on the filters for another of the tractors…hands and knees and reading glasses….ohhh, the days when I could see up close without reading glasses….Gone!

We picked up the goods in town and came home by another long, winding way that included going over a covered bridge (over or under?...across). I will never tire of dirt roads, and woods, and creeks, and ravines, and bridges…Way out here.

Fixed the tractor, fixed dinner (remember, that’s lunch). The special? Swiss steak, baked potato, broccoli-cauliflower-carrots in cheese sauce, sliced tomatoes. After we ate, the Cowboy mowed along the ponds. I watched…which is almost more than my nerves can take! The obscene angles make me sick. Is it obscene or obtuse? Oh, my wonderful math teachers, I really did pay attention in math. It’s a joke, people…I really know the difference between obscene and obtuse.

I counted 19 different wildflowers out in the pasture. You might call them weeds – they have flowers on them and they’re pretty colors, so they’re wildflowers to me. The Cowboy said they’re weeds, so under the blades they went. waaaaaaaa

No plans for the weekend…. “got hay down.” Don’t ya just love farm talk?