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| Milk can and roses near the front porch at Mrs. White's House. |
We are getting ready to be shut in from the outside world and just keep house. It is nearly July but we know winter and the cold weather will come very soon. This is the time of year when we have to prepare. We need to stock up on food. We need fuel for the heat. We need money for winter and for when hard times come. Most of all, we need to prepare our hearts and minds to enjoy a quiet way of life here at our homestead in rural Vermont.
Each week I head into town to buy supplies. When I get home, I am so grateful to be here. Everything gets put away and we settle in to a routine of living a homemade way of life. We make much of our own meals from scratch. We have a small garden which supplies us with nourishment from nature. I always feel so blessed and thankful when we have food coming from our own property.
The birds are singing so sweetly on the front grounds. We take our little walks around the yard and check on our flowers and garden. We see what work needs to be taken care of and we enjoy the peaceful sounds of nature. Home is a wonderful place to be.
My husband and I have a wedding anniversary coming up this week. The number of years we have been married will reach 36. Normally I will place our wedding album on the kitchen table so we can look back over the years and remember. This year I want to do something different. I want to look ahead and dream of the future years instead of looking back. We rarely spend money on our anniversaries because money is always scarce. It is needed for necessities and emergencies. Beautiful flowers on the table would be an incredible luxury. Perhaps we will dream of planting enough roses, in the coming years, so we can have a free source to decorate our anniversary table.
I am trying to think of all the things we need to do before winter comes. One of the trees on our property had fallen early in the year. It will soon become a nice stack of firewood for our wood stove to supplement the heat. We need to organize and simplify many things. Our bills and expenses must be as low as possible so we have enough money to pay our fuel bills. It takes a great deal of creativity to stay home and happily settled throughout the difficult cold season.
Yet all this work and planning brings a great reward. We are content at home. We feel safe and blessed. I know I will have to venture out many times for medical trips and errands, but for the most part, we will be happily shut in at the old homestead. We will work hard to spread peace and joy as we go about our days. We will do our best to provide a restful home for our children and grandchildren. And we will do it all while leaning on the dear Lord for our strength and provision.
Blessings
Mrs. White
From the Archives -
Remembering - The Blessing of Being a Half - Southern Mama.
Wouldn't You Like to be a Member? - Mother's Benevolent Society.
A Gentle and Necessary vocation - The Basics of Lovely Housekeeping.
- To find out more about this blog, or Mrs. White, please visit our About page. -
A Simple Method for a Clean and Pleasant Home -
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"Gracious House Keeping: Advice, Encouragement, and Cleaning Help for the Christian Housewife."
Complete with Encouragement and Work Charts to cheer you along in your Cleaning and Homemaking!
115 pages, paperback.
8 comments:
Happy Anniversary!
I can't believe that you have to prepare for snow so early! We are still waiting for a proper Summer, having days of rain and sun. In the Winter it is so good to draw the house around oneself and feel cosy and protected.
Happy Anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. White! Love for each other and love for God are the best anniversary gifts. Blessings!
I understand preparing for the next season! We start listing what needs to be accomplished before winter really settles in and at times the list seems daunting here on our small dairy farm in Ohio. We celebrate our 46th anniversary this month also - usually with a trip or a getaway if we can manage to get away. So Happy Anniversary to you also!
Dear Mrs. White, Oh my, there is such a difference in the parts of the country we live in! Our temperatures are reaching well over one hundred, 106 degrees per the heat index. We have to be very careful out in the heat and drink much water.
Your hunkering in is such a sweet thing, I love that too. It's a wonderful feeling to be in our homes, safe and sound from the world isn't it? Lately I've so enjoyed just creating soups and things and homemade meals...Such Joy and Peace in that. It reminds me of my grandparents.
Happy Anniversary dear one! Let us know how you decorate your "Anniversary Table"! This past year we bought four rose bushes from Sam's Wholesale, the kind that come in the cardboard tubes and they are doing wonderfully, so far I've been able to clip pretty pink roses to put in my kitchen window, one at a time but so pretty. One of the kinds is called "Cathedral Bells". I just love the name.
Your book here looks so good! I may need to just pick that one up for myself! : )
Love, ~Amelia
Your post had me nodding my head in agreement! Up here in northwestern Minnesota we, too, have to prepare for winter and the mud season. There's a saying up here that there are only two seasons: Winter is Coming and Winter is Here! And this is really the truth. We have a large garden and I am busy canning and freezing and drying produce and herbs. Husband cuts wood and tries to finish projects before the snow flies. Like you, we live a very homemade and simple life here in the country.
Congratulations on your 36th anniversary! You are a testament to what a Godly home should be.
Do you lay by extra food each week to prepare for the winter when storms keep you from getting out regularly? Not prepper-style, but just seasonal? Or do you wait until late fall and try to stock up some? I have to balance stocking up against not getting out because of weather with the risk of losing food to power outages, so some parts of the year I don't keep much on hand, and other times I try to keep a few weeks' worth. I am sure you could stock up on pellets for the stove or other fuel if you had the space - would you elaborate on how you use the good times or good weather to help prepare for the bad, and how you budget for stocking up on fuel and supplies? I think we all have fall chores or maintenance that has to be done before the cold/ice/snow sets in, if you live in a certain kind of climate, and times we can't get to the store.
Dear Mrs. White. I have not been by to visit for a long time. Much going on in our lives....new great grandbaby boy, a granddaughter getting married, health issues and care giving, but like you the joy of living long enough to enjoy this season of our lives.
Congratulations on your special Anniversary. I pray God will grant you many more as you live and serve our Lord. My dearest and I just celebrate 63 on June 24th. Where do the years go??
I love your simple life with it challenges and blessings. I will try to visit more often as I do enjoy your blog!
Love and Prayers, Wanda
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