The Experimental Year Project-cont'd...

I think I must define some parameters, a few ‘wills’ and ‘will nots’, which is a bit difficult with all the ideas jostling for space in my head.


Perhaps some aims would be more constructive?

I want to be well, or as the Book of Common Prayer says, ‘to renew a right spirit within me’, which is a beautiful and succinct way of expressing the desire to be at peace with oneself and the wider surroundings.

I want to live so closely with the Land, the Countryside, Nature (??) that I experience the rhythm of the seasons and can see, smell, touch the changes which go with the seasons. I have an idea that this disconnection, which is part of modern living, is at the root of some of our collective malaise.

I want to grow more of what we eat, and to forage what can’t be grown due to the short seasons and stony soil. I want to learn more about the growing habits of edible and medicinal plants too, and any others which would have been common in the past…preferably without poisoning either myself or my family!

I want to find out more about the country ways, how they evolved and what needs to be kept and remembered against the future- and how I’ll do that I don’t know.

I want to use the camera to keep a record of what there is to see; to see beauty in the everyday and the mundane, not for the sake of ‘art’ but simply because it’s there and I can.


August is a pretty daft time to start such an Experiment, is it not? The end of the growing season, of the Summer, and the beginning of Autumn and the drift into cold and dark. I have always loved Autumn and also Winter, the bleakness, the low sun, the appearance of bare trees and branches against the sky, and the way one can see so much further without any leaves on. I love watching the rain blow up the valley, and sitting by the fire on a stormy night. I don’t like the nor’easterlies we get up in the mountains here, but at least my Rowan tree is good and strong so there’ll be no witches blown into this house!

Yes, August is not really the best time to begin. Have you ever looked at the date of some important event or historical achievement and thought, ‘isn’t that an odd day to have done….?’ It took me the best part of secondary school to figure that history is a progression, and the likes of Walter Raleigh and Henry the Navigator weren’t necessarily looking at the calendar when they finally achieved their dreams.

Not that I rate myself among such august company, it’s just an observation! So, August it is, and so the Experimental Year shall begin…

Two things I need to get this week though, before I start hiking around the bogs and glens- a decent pair of shoes, and a waterproof raincoat, neither of which I own, odd as it may seem.

Job numero uno!

Queen of the Castle: Week 1

Colletta is running this 'project' and I sure do mean running, as to me anything to do with housekeeping, homemaking, managing, wifelification, home economist, home engineer, and all that jazz, is more of a marathon than an everyday occurrence.

Colletta has done a lovely introduction to the book, which you can read here, so I shan't repeat it, but just add my thoughts.
The first observation which made an impression on me was the conflict between the worldly view of a homemaker and the Godly woman's view of the same. Its difficult not to succumb to the worldly view often and often, I have found.

How many times has any Mother felt worthless, or useless, or on the wrong path, or just plain inferior, because she chooses to not work outside the home...as if there isn't a million times more work inside the home! How many of us have, or know friends, with small children, invalid family members, elderly parents or in-laws, who help with Sunday Schools and Church activities, Mothers' Union, look after working mothers' children after school or when they are sick, keep open house,and are then regularly envied because we 'do nothing' all day?

I have to laugh, really I do!

The women with the salaries, do they have to patch the bath towels, knit dishcloths from string, cut down clothes for another child to wear, grow their own veg, and scan every article on 'Thrifty Housekeeping' to cross their paths?
Heck! We are the ones who should be writing the Thrifty Housekeeping articles; it may be a 'life choice' for the salary earners, but its a way of life for us homemakers!

The second thing which struck me in the course of reading Chapter One was the realisation that I don't think I have my attitude in balance at all.
If I am a homemaker then what exactly are my priorities, after my God?
Husband.
Children.
Parents, brother and sisters.
And then the wider community; Church members, School staff and children, friends.
And finally, when all else is done, any projects like the Etsy Shop and commissions, and personal projects.

I have let the order become skewed, with School taking precedence over home, and the Shop rising slowly up the list of priorities.
Wrongly so.

So this week my aim is to redress the balance, in my own head as well as in my actions. To look after the family members with my whole heart rather than resent the time they take away from making dolls or playing with fabric.

Small aim, perhaps...but as L.B.W. says in the first Chapter- eternal repercussions!