Little did you know that I belong to the Mob. I didn’t know it either for that matter. My husband and I joined the mob in an unofficial way on the official date April 9^th, 2010. We purchased Belgian mares as a part of our heart felt desire to steward the land without dependence on overpriced, inefficient, fossil fuel guzzling tractors. This purchase transformed our lives in many ways. But, it began our work as unofficial mob members. Our friends invited us and we couldn’t resist. We were “wannabe”s with more passion than sense.

Mobs are “cropping up” all over this nation. I read this article and realized that we are mob members though we have not formally joined an organized group. As I share we are a part of the mob, I do so with trepidation. I already know that I have the USDA visiting my site. Will I be targeted with a raid?  Will my hoes, horses, and dirt be confiscated?  What will the consequences be? Too late, I have already shared that our behavior is strikingly similar to formal mob members. I have never articulated that we are mobs because I didn’t know there was such a thing … until today.

I read an article that described the mobs forming all over the United States and realized that we are mobsters. The mob I am talking about is the Crop Mob. Wanna be farmers and agrarians are teaming up through social networking media like Facebook and organizing efforts. These “wannabe”s volunteer their time and labor at small farms. The goal is to work with experienced farmers side by side to learn much desired and needed skills. Many who are volunteering are determined to buy their own land someday. Their participation in the Crop Mob will assist them in reaching their destination.

My husband and I volunteer three times per week at our plain friend’s farm. We are working in the green house, in the field, on the plows and in the garden. We have cooked meals on the wood stove, moved wood piles, cleaned up strawberry and asparagus patches and much more. We are not a part of the official mob. We simply prayed that God would guide and equip us for our journey. God answered our prayers a year and a half ago when we developed a friendship with a plain community that relied on draft animals for farm work and utilizes no electricity for daily living. So yes, we are mobsters albeit informally.

The Crop Mob is a national effort that may help others who are yearning for knowledge and the rewards of hard work. You can visit the official Crop Mob website here.

Stay tuned for an update on our Kansas Trip, a report on the impact of the economy on the health food market and more on our apprenticeship with the plain people. First, I must take advantage of the weather and finish planting our garden.
Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

Yesterday, my family took a long walk through the woods on our farm. Our goal was to find Jewel Weed. The recent rainfall kept us out of the garden and gave us an excuse to look for wildflowers. It was a nice break after four to five hour days in the garden last week. We use this time off from gardening to traipse through the woods getting acquainted with the land, trees, and medicinal wild plants. One of our many goals in reclaiming and redeeming the land is to use wild crafted herbs to create salves, tinctures, and teas.

My mother-in-law took me on a walk last Sunday afternoon and showed me how to gather Jewel Weed on her farm. Jewel Weed is important to Momma because she is active outdoors. Momma gardens. But, she is in regular combat with a beaver who works diligently at night to stop up water flow between their ponds. The beaver works all night, sometimes every night. Momma takes a rake, and sometimes uses her bare hands, to undo what the beavers did the night before. Beavers are clever as well as busy. Somehow they knew she was highly sensitive to Poison Ivy. Whether they stopped up the water flow with debris coated in Poison Ivy, or if they strategically built their dam near the Ivy, I do not know. But it was clear Momma was suffering in the dead of winter from the miserable rash. One day I ran across her in her kitchen. Momma had a circular shaped green ice cube with green vegetation dangling from it. She was rubbing it on a red rash near her eye. It was a strange sight indeed. Naturally curious I inquired about the ice cube that looked like a gift from the swamp thing. Momma had taken Jewel Weed the previous summer, boiled it in a pan, cooled it, and froze it in a butter dish for use when Jewel Weed was no longer growing. It was then that Momma told me story after story about the blessings of Jewel Weed to her and those she loves. The youth minister suffered from hornet stings earlier that summer. Daddy and Momma brought him to their farm and applied Jewel Weed. The swelling went down immediately. In fact, she encouraged me to make my own swamp thing ice cube for my husband as he is dangerously allergic to bee stings. We found a handful of Jewel Weed plants on Sunday. However, I was not satisfied. I wanted to gather a large amount to save in a variety of ways.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find Jewel Weed on our farm. Daddy says the plant is also called Touch Me Not. The seeds burst if you touch them. Perhaps, the plant exists here on the farm, but I haven’t found it yet. We plan to take regular walks through the woods to familiarize ourselves with the variety of plants as they bloom throughout the season. Perhaps we will find the Touch Me Not yet. Much of our woods are overrun with heavy brush making it hard to explore some areas. We are discussing plans to clear some of the brush in the late fall to help us better steward the woods.

Jewel Weed Preparation

I prepared the Jewel Weed by boiling it in water.  I strained the leaves and filled ice cube trays with the orange liquid.  This will give us an emergency remedy for bee stings or poison ivy.  I will continue to search for this herb as I walk our farm.

While I couldn’t find Jewel Weed, we enjoyed a fragrant walk. The wild roses and black berries are in full bloom. My strategy in working with herbs is to exhaust all potential uses of the plants I have identified. I was delighted to discover that Wild Roses and Blackberry leaves offer medicinal benefits for the homesteader.

Wild Rose Preparations

Wild Roses can be used in a variety of ways. I made a tea of the leaves and petals. It was an enjoyable and refreshing drink. Rose tea is a great blood purifier, acting as a mild diuretic, and benefits the liver, kidneys, urinary tract, and more.

Another way to use the petals is to toss them in a salad. I have not tried this yet, but the children and I have nibbled on a few petals. The children appear reluctant to have rose petals in their salad. I find this peculiar considering they have no problem eating cow tongue. Go figure.

Today, I followed steps to make rose water. I tried both the easy way and the more complicated method. The complicated method worked okay. I collected eight ounces of Rose water. I would have collected more but my bowl kept tipping. I think I had too much water in the pan which caused the inverted bowl and upright bowl to tip. The distilled Rose water smells absolutely wonderful. Whereas, the steeped rose petals do not smell as strong. It was an enjoyable experiment. The kitchen smelled fragrant. The children enjoyed the smell of roses wafting through the kitchen.

Blackberry Preparations

Blackberries offer wonderful fruits but that is not all. We discovered the leaves make an excellent tea to treat diarrhea. A few of the children experienced stomach upset recently. I gathered leaves of blackberry and made a decoction. In the past, I would have given them PeptoBismal. The active ingredient is Bismuth subsalicylate. Other inactive ingredients include benzoic acid, flavor, magnesium aluminum silicate, methylcellulose, red 22, red 28, saccharin sodium, salicylic acid, sodium salicylate, sorbic acid, water. The cost for this over-the-counter drug, if purchased on-line would be $4.70 (incl. tax & shipping).
The warnings and side effects are noteworthy and put me on edge. Click here for a listing of the damage possible by this OTC medicine.

Blackberry tea is rich in vitamin C and tannins. The active ingredients are not manufactured by a drug company in a sterile lab, but created by God and ordained for use by man. I noted there were no drug interactions, no contraindications and no known side effects for Blackberry tea. It cost me nothing to harvest this tea from the woods. In fact, some of the children helped harvest the leaves and enjoyed the walk. It is a far cry better than getting in the van, driving to WalMart and experiencing over stimulation due to all the advertising gimmicks. Instead of polluting my children’s blood streams with dyes and other chemicals, I nourished their system with vitamin C as I treated a specific ailment. Exploring the land God gave us and putting to use the medicinal plants is a rewarding endeavor. Using plants medicinally fosters a spirit of gratitude and awe for God’s creation. Many of the plants provide food like berries, or beautiful flowers like the rose. Yet, if we dig deeper we find there is more to these plants then meets the eye. Our Master, the Great Physician, created these plants not just to delight us and feed us but to heal and sustain us.

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

A day in the life of a large family is busy. Our quest to live an off-the-grid or simple lifestyle increases the flurry of activity. It is not uncommon in the flurry of life to have a child come to me with tears streaming. They point to a new cut, bruise, or other injury.

Living simply affects every area of my life health and medical included. We have found that eating food we produce has reduced the illnesses in our family. However, accidental injuries still occur and require attention. A few years ago, I started making my own salves. They are nothing special. Yet, they work. The children know to get the Healing Salve when they have a minor wound. Zach recently found some poison ivy and had a severe rash on his hands. He used the salve before bed. When he woke up the two-day rash was gone and so were all the symptoms. I enjoy making salves and other home remedies. When I refer to reducing my dependence on the medical industry, that includes the broad array of over-the-counter medications. I became skeptical of them when there was one recall after another. Over the past few years I have learned that simple items in my kitchen will address minor injuries and illnesses effectively.

For bleeding, we apply cayenne powder after the wound is clean. It stops bleeding instantly. Surprisingly the application does not burn either. The children follow the cayenne pepper with Healing Salve.

For pain and inflammation, I often use a castor oil heat pack. I recently suffered from on-going abdominal pain. Andrew also developed carpal tunnel. We used the castor oil pack to help decrease inflammation and reduce pain. I dipped an old cotton T-shirt in castor oil. I applied it to the area of concern, covered it with plastic wrap, and then applied a heating pad. In both instances we found this to be effective.

Recently, we treated a bruise with a poultice made from black strap molasses. Charity had hit her head when she tried to steal Zach’s math paper. She grabbed the paper and turned to run. Only she ran into the corner of the wall. By the time, I got to her, the bruise was present just above her eye. The swelling was larger than a small plumb. While it was not protruding a great deal, the area swelling was large. Moriah began by applying a cold cloth to her forehead. The other children began feeding her treats to calm her. Gotta love large family cameraderie. We applied ice on the area for thirty minutes. Most of the swelling went down. I wet a piece of brown paper and then dipped it in black strap molasses. I applied it to the bruise for a few hours. It worked. There is a slight abrasion but the bruise is gone.

My husband developed a severe stiff neck. He spends a great deal of time in the office before a computer. His recent training of the draft horses aggravated his stiff neck making it difficult to function. We did the castor oil pack and it reduced some of the pain but not nearly enough. I soaked cotton balls with diluted rosemary essential oil and applied it to the affected area. He experienced relief.

My goal is to continue to build a resource library so I can learn more about home remedies. There are many good books available. I am concerned that with the current political climate severe restrictions will be placed on herbal remedies. I perceive books and supplements will be more difficult to get. My long term goal is to build an herbal pharmacy so I can avoid buying herbal supplements. It does a person no good to step away from the medical industry and spend their life’s savings on the alternative health care industry. It is greatly fulfilling to find and identify wild herbs on our forty acre farm. There still maybe times when a doctor is necessary or a trip to the pharmacy. However, the average person can find a great deal of healing tools in their kitchen cupboard and the backyard.

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

I remember the first time I milked a cow. I was overwhelmed by the task. I had no idea what I was doing. All I had was Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia for Country Living to guide me. Believe me, that cow made the gettings rough. She kicked and moved and gave us a complete fit. The result: we had one quart of fresh milk to drink. Read that again: ONE QUART. The subsequent milkings were challenging but over time grew easier. Having to work so hard to get fresh milk caused me to treat that liquid as precious gold. Later we would master the milkings and a surplus resulted. I had the opportunity to pour the milk out for the dog. But, did I really want to take thirty minutes worth of work in the cold to feed my dog? Not hardly. I became intensely interested in creating other useful products out of milk. I made yogurt, cheese, butter and more.

Butchering our steer created the same result. We worked hard cutting, slicing, and dicing.  We were reluctant to waste any of the trimmings. My husband saw the extra beef fat and decided we should make tallow. He wanted to use the tallow to make soap. I was not delighted because I have an intense prejuidice for my luxury bars. They are made with high quality cocoa nut, palm, olive and castor oils. I developed a strong bias toward home made soap made with animal fats. Another reason for resistance to rendering tallow is that I knew nothing about tallow or its soap making properties. I was too tired to learn after a full day butchering.

Despite my reluctance, I began gathering information. Especially because I learned that tallow makes a nice laundry soap.  After butchering I drove to see my plain friend. I asked her how she rendered tallow. I always get frustrated when talking to my plain friends. Most of their answers to my questions involve, “Oh, I just cook it down, render it, strain it and put it in a bucket. Be sure and store it where it is cool”.

It is not that my plain friends are intending to frustrate me. We just have a huge culture gap. They forget I wasn’t raised at my mother’s skirts rendering tallow, so I need detailed steps and I mean detailed.

What normally happens is I will go home and follow my friend’s instructions and make a big mess failing miserably while I am at it. I go back to my friend’s house where she laughs with a Pennsylvania Dutch laugh. Yes, they laugh with an accent too. Then she tells me. “No, you have to cook it down slowly over a low heat or a double boiler so you don’t have to use a fire extinguisher”. I am joking. I did not start a fire when rendering tallow. My friend has finally learned that I am a newbie and that when I ask questions she should warn me of the safety hazards. The point is that when you turn to people who have been raised living the old paths, it is important to work with them side by side. Often they fail to include critical details and summarize instructions by saying, “ Oh, I just cook it”. Many of my plain friends can’t tell me how hot because they use a wood cook stove. Makes it tough. So I have learned to stand beside them at their stove and use my finger or wrist to tell temperatures. When the wrist cannot be used, you have to learn to look at the texture of what you are cooking. Either way, there are real benefits to apprenticing with someone when learning the old ways.

Upon arriving home, I also consulted the internet for tips and pointers on rendering tallow. My research was not thorough so I encountered some problems. I will discuss those later in the body of the article.

Here is a piece of beef fat before we cut it up.

At first I just cubed the fat into small pieces. I cooked my first batch this way.

Cutting the fat into cubes quickly became tiresome.  We had a lot of fat, so we decided to speed the process up by using our meat grinder. 

I learned about this tip somewhere on the internet.  The fat cooked down much faster by grinding it.  I had cubes and ground fat in one pan and the cubes took forever to cook down in comparision. 

I cooked some of the fat on the stove top, some in a roaster oven, and some in a couple of baking dishes in the oven.  Again we had a massive amount of fat to work with.  I needed to make progress and quick.  It is important when cooking the fat to be watchful.  It can catch fire if you cook it too hot.  We did not have this experience fortuantely. 

We cooked the fat down until there were cracklings.  We were careful not to cook the cracklings too long and burn them.  We used a potato masher to work the cracklings over as we cooked.  When we were satisfied that we cooked the fat long enough we strained the oil.  One website suggested placing a coffee filter over a canning jar.  They suggested a paper towel would work equally well.  This did not work for me.  The filter cloged up and the fat would not drain.  For good measure I left the fat to drain overnight.  I returned to solidfied fat on top of the coffee filter.  It became apparent that the coffee filter and paper towel idea was not working so I did what my plain friend recommended.  She filters her lard and tallow with a mesh wire sieve.  It worked fine.

I placed the first batch of tallow in canning jars to cool overnight.  In the morning, I gave the jars a wiff and groaned.  It smelled like hamburger grease.  My new mission was to figure out how to get rid of the smell.  Also, I needed to know how to store the tallow. 

I poured through my soap making books and found nothing but bias against working with tallow.  Some soap makers felt it wasn’t worth the mess and hastle to render tallow.  They recommended buying pure tallow from a soap oil company.  The news was frustrating and not useful.  I intended to make use of the tallow one way or another.  Finally, I found a book in my collection that was helpful.  It is called “The Art of Soap Making:  A Contemporary Primer” by Merilyn Mohr.   The author describes how to take disgusting rancid fat and make it pure and fresh.  Jackpot! 

I took a quart of the tallow that I let cool and placed it in the roaster.  I added about a gallon and a half of water and two tablespoons of salt.  I let this cook.  I would start this before we started school and strain it during our lunch break. 

I filtered the entire contents of the roaster in a large stainless steel bowl.  I would let it cool and then place the bowl in the freezer.  After several hours i had a nice white disc of tallow floating on the water.  I let it get hard enough that I could scrape an impurities off the bottom.  I broke the disc up  a little and placed it in freezer bags. 

It took a week to wash three gallons of tallow, doing a little at a time every day.  I did not use all the fat from the animal.  I still have some in the freezer.  It was easier than I expected.  Smellier than I had hoped …  at first.  However, washing the tallow with water and salt made the smell disappear.  For fun, I washed some of the tallow with baking soda.  The result was much whiter tallow.  (A second time with baking soda didn’t turn out as well; the tallow was more crumbly and unusable, I think because I used too much baking soda.) 

Ms.  Mohr, in her book, suggests you can reclaim most fat and get the smell out by sweeting it with vinegar or lemon juice.  “Two tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar disolved in one-half cup water and boiled with one cup fat will improve its character for soapmaking.”

A few days later, my husband and I made Castile soap out of tallow (70% tallow, 30% olive oil).  My husband had never made soap before, but he did fabulous.  It is so rewarding to work together and with joy on our homesteading endeavors.

I let it cure for a few weeks and then grated the bars.  I took the shavings added water and made five gallons of laundry soap.  I also made two gallons of dish soap. 

                            Amazing how we started out with this:                                

  And with some effort got this:

The bottom picture is dish soap I made out of the Castile.  I took the soap right out of the pot heated up and began washing dishes.  It stayed sudsy the whole time.  Once it cooled and was poured into bottles it no longer produced suds.  Suds or no suds, I am pleased with our efforts.  I am happy to save money and stop supporting Proctor and Gamble. 

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

March 17^th. It is not an average day to most individuals. Most people concern themselves about the color green. Are they wearing it? If not, they better be ready to be pinched. I don’t concern myself with this dilemma. I am a holiday cinic and St. Patrick’s Day is no different. Most of our holidays are based on peculiar and suspect rituals. Some start out based on good Christian values. But, soon are morphed into idiocy. What the fools don’t distort, then consumerism will finish off through senseless commercialization. Truth be known, I am cynical of most holidays. Don’t even get me started on Martin Luther’s King Jr. Day. Ah, then there is Labor Day. It wouldn’t be a bad day to celebrate IF American’s worked the rest of the 364 days of the year. Another sad truth: Most of us do not know how to work.

Like I said, I am cynical, to cynical for my own good. While most of you were thinking of St. Patrick’s Day and whether you were wearing green, I was thinking of St. Patrick’s Day in a different way. Yes, I was thinking of green. Not the green I was going to wear, but the green the earth wears. I stood looking out at our mud soaked homestead. My warm house and the bright sunshine created a delusion that spring had indeed arrived. I pressed my forehead against the glass window. The chill of the glass revealed my eyes were deceived. Winter still staked its claim on the day. In fact, I concluded Mother Nature was as oblivious to St. Patrick’s Day as I was. She could care less that I had a plan, a deadline. She sent cold wet weather yet again.

One self-proclaimed old geezer used to pester me about this time every year when I lived in Kansas. He would ask me annually for fifteen years running if I planted my taters yet. My response was always, “No.” He would rebuff me saying, “How do you expect to have potatoes , if you don’t get them in the ground by St. Patrick’s Day. Those potatoes gotta be blooming by Memorial Day.”

The years came and went. I was haunted by this question. When it was first posed to me, I was in the throes of modern American living. I was a career woman and I bought potatoes at the store. I didn’t have time to dig in the dirt. A few more years passed. I then wished I could dig in the dirt but doing so meant leaving small children to entertain themselves. It wasn’t worth the consequences. More time passed and I was consumed with activities related to our busy farmstead dairy operation. Each year, I felt remorse because I fell short of getting potatoes planted by the old geezer’s deadline.

St. Patrick’s Day is three short months after New Year’s Day. Every year I set resolutions insisting that I was going to establish a new and improved garden. I would prevail over every obstacle placed in my way and get a garden established with potatoes in the ground by March 17th. You know how the story goes. My resolutions became a vague and distant memory by January 2^nd of every year. By the time March rolled around, life got in the way of the garden goals.

I never could figure out how the old geezer planted potatoes faithfully around St. Patrick’s Day. I was unduly perplexed one year. The winter was prolonged and heavy snow covered the ground for weeks. I was sure he would not ask about the potatoes that year because he couldn’t have chiseled through layers of ice and snow to plant his own potatoes. Never the less, the question came. I stole away to the old geezer’s house to verify his assertion that his taters were in the ground. Sure enough, they were not only in the ground but foliage poked through the dirt.

This year I didn’t even try to set New Year’s resolutions. I knew better. I learned long ago it was a precursor for guilt and remorse. Consequently, I did not write out plans for our garden. I hoped my relocation to Missouri would end my associations with the St. Patrick’s Day guilt. Not a chance. Last year and avid gardener told me she planted her potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day here in Missouri too. I didn’t garden last year. Renting a home prevented me from gardening. Secretly, on cold winter days I dreamed of planting potatoes by St. Patrick’s Day. It was an unspoken desire. The New Year started with many presenting barriers. Our recent move placed us on a farm that has been used for pasture for many years. There was no garden plot upon our arrival. Activities related to setting up our modular prevented us from tilling the ground in the fall months. The winter was uncommonly wet and there have been few dry days. On St. Patrick’s Day, I stood at the den window and surveyed the landscape. Wet. It was all soaking wet. It will be week’s before we can walk on the garden spot let alone till it. The old geezer is no longer in my life. But, if he were, the answer would be the same. And, I am just sure his potatoes would be planted. How he managed to plant potatoes with the unpredictable weather remains a mystery.

Yes, I have some things in common with St. Patrick’s Day groupies. I think of green. I think of the green leafs of potato plants pressing up through the dirt. This year I thought of yellow.

 A bit of reading and research suggests no digging is necessary for planting potatoes. One could simply use straw as a medium to plant potatoes. Once the potatoes leaves appear cover them with more straw. So, it is muddy here on our farmstead. But, I might get potatoes in the ground soon after all.
Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid.

2) Transplant the seedlings into a bigger pot allowing more room for growth.

We are anxious for our seeds to germinate. For now, we are making plans and dreaming of canning lots of tomatoes. We are also praying for fruitfulness in our endeavors (This is the key to successful farming. Successful farming doesn‘t always mean success. It means surviving calamity with grace, poise and contentment. Only a heavy reliance on God will assure peace in the face of drought and disease).

The rain also kept us from installing a laundry line. I am anxious to get back to hanging clothes out. My plain friends hang clothes out all winter. They inspire me to be more courageous when it comes to cutting the electric bill. The good news is after installing our geothermal heat pump our electric bill decreased substantially. However, we long for the day when our off-the-grid home to be completed. In the meantime, we plan to take advantage of the spring and return to manually washing clothes and hanging the laundry out to dry. Since our temporary home is a new site, we have run into road blocks with some of our simple living. There is no good place to wash clothes manually outside without lots of mud. Further, there is no laundry line. We aim to solve this problem once there is a bit of dry weather.

We were unable to work on building our chicken tractor this weekend due to the wet weather. The children were ready to build it rain or no rain. They are anxious to return to farming.

Despite the foiled plans, I did accomplish important tasks on the homestead. Though it may not seem monumental, I cut the guy’s hair. A trip to the barber shop would cost our family 50.00 minimum for the men. Scheduling five people for haircuts would also be difficult. It is a joy to spend one on one time with the boys while cutting their hair. Overall, I am getting more courageous as I cut. Each time, I get a slightly different result. Some haircuts are better than others. But, I am delighted to cut their hair. My husband put up his “winter coat”. He shaved his beard. We are all anxious for spring. You can learn to cut hair by checking out a DVD at the local library. It requires grace and mercy as the skills are learned. A family grounded in Christian love is bound to be sanctified with home hair cutting.

My husband and I converted some tallow into Castile soap. It was fun to teach him how to make soap. It is a joy to work with someone who is so content and happy. I look forward to working side by side with him on other farmstead projects as well. I usually make soap out of cocoa nut oil, olive oil, and palm oil. I super fat it with castor for a nice lather. Honestly, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of making soap out of tallow. I love my luxury bars. Luxury costs. It costs in terms of raw materials. It costs in terms of shipping. Learning to work with tallow will cut costs and simplify. While I am not ready to use tallow based soaps for a body bar, I am willing to use tallow to make laundry soap and dish soap.

We used the following recipe to make our Castile soap:

Tallow-37.7 ounces

Olive-16 ounces

Lye-7.5 ounces

Water-17.25 ounces

The soap smelled like tallow until it completed the gel phase. I rendered the tallow twice, yet it still smelled like cooking grease. It wasn’t rancid but clearly it wasn’t the smell I was accustomed to. I may need to perfect my rendering process to see if I can eliminate the smell. After I cut the bars and there was no smell. Apparently, after once the soap saponifies the smell dissipates. We were pleased. The soap is now curing.

Time did not permit me to write an outline of the transformation of our home school. I will attempt to write an article on the Principle Approach next weekend Lord willing. I recently found a website dedicated to this approach. You can find more information here.

Until next time…

I remain….

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

Moriah, 10, purposes to be a homemaker. Her life long dream is to be a wife and mother some day. She intends to glorify God in this capacity. When I was Moriah’s age, I did not share her aspirations. In fact, I was nearly 30 before I enjoyed cooking and cleaning. Even today it takes effort to perform these duties. I enjoy it more than I used to but home making doesn’t come naturally for me. My daughters have surpassed me in embracing biblical womanhood in many ways. Not only do they crave being in the kitchen, espouse views of having large families and working in the home, but they also hold tightly to a particular image of a keeper of the home. Let me explain.

Moriah’s arrival in my life was one of complete joy. I had her shortly after I ended my career. As I held her in my arms, I wept thanking God for opening my eyes. This precious baby girl would never have to enter daycare. She would never enter government schools.

God impressed upon my heart the foolishness of my career. As a social worker, I was intent on saving families from common social ills while I neglected my own. I spent ten hours a day, at least, away from my own family. After a five year long struggle with infertility, it seemed idiotic to place the baby I desperately prayed for in the hands of someone else for the majority of the day. Should I have continued that path, I would have missed many of this baby’s firsts and remained oblivious to the influences counter to Christian culture. Immediately, I took action to end my career to spend the rest of my children’s childhood actively involved with EVERY aspect of their lives. Moriah’s birth came shortly after I ended my career.

Moriah flourished under biblical home education developing her own convictions more advanced then my own. She embraced biblical femininity and modesty long before I would. I still remember the day she woke up and stubbornly defied me. I laid out a pair of pants for her to wear just like any other day. Moriah loved dresses since she was old enough to make a decision. That day, she pulled out a dress and with a ferocious boldness began a stand off with me. She wanted to wear dresses and that was it. Perplexed with the disobedience, I felt stuck. Ultimately, over time I gave in and allowed her to convert her wardrobe to dresses only. Moriah was not satisfied.

She wanted all the girls in the house to share her preference. A few years later, her baby sister entered the scene. She quietly influenced her sister to wear dresses. Though it was not a hard conversion. Somehow by osmosis Charity ended up identifying with her sister’s preference to wear modest clothing. All is well that ends well, right? Wrong. Those two little girls began a full court press to encourage me to wear dresses. This was not an easy task for them. After all I was raised heavily immersed in American culture and even became a feminist for a while. Simply, I liked jeans. Dresses were for special occasions like church. The girls persisted in asking me why I wouldn’t wear a dress. They suggested I just try it for a while. My response was always the same, a firm “No.” I held onto my position until my girls met my husband-to-be. He delighted in the girls attire stating that they were “little ladies”. Many conversations took place after that between the girls and my future husband. I gave way to pressure and decided to do a trial run of wearing dresses. I was pleasantly surprised with my freedom of movement and ease of navigating through clothing decisions. That is, I felt more liberated and more comfortable in a dress plus it took less time to get dressed and coordinate my wardrobe. Often I would pull a dress over my head and be off and running for the day.

Moriah shows dresses do not stop her from catching fish!!

My conversion to dresses did not come easy. Occasionally, I still wore pants. The girls and the boys in the family would complain when I wore pants. “But, Mom you look so beautiful in dresses”. I have been wearing mostly dresses for a year now. I enjoy especially ankle length dresses. My daughters gloat that they have converted their Momma.

Charity fishes in modest apparel

I have only occasionally struggled with wearing a dress in certain social settings. But, generally, I don’t feel odd. I have been impressed with the compliments I receive from strangers about my clothing. Generally, I choose dresses I like that aren’t too plain of frumpy, nor are they attention getters. It is peculiar. If I wear pants, I feel very bound and constrained.
As I have converted to modest dress, I do not impose my preference on others. I did not come by wearing dresses easily. Frankly, I was accustomed to wearing jeans and liked it. I never dreamed I would enjoy wearing dresses or feel more comfortable in them. Largely, my daughters are responsible for my conversion. Even then, I am not sure why my daughters were so convicted. We did not have any friends who primarily wore dresses. My instruction to them was not to wear skin tight jeans, low cut shirts, but I did not require them to wear dresses in order to be modest. The girls identified dresses with beauty, femininity, and freedom. And, they come to this conclusion at tender ages. After a year of wearing dresses, I affirm their conclusions.

While I would never jump on a bandwagon and insist others wear dresses in order to be biblical, I would encourage others to try it. You never know, you just might like it. I was pleasantly surprised. For those who would like to read further on modest dress, click here.

I am thankful for my daughters whose persistence challenged me to stretch my thinking in this area. They are inspiring to me. Moriah is now asserting her position in the kitchen. Moriah enjoys and often begs to make meals. Her accomplishments include making pancakes from scratch, scrambled eggs and sausage breakfast, baking cakes and decorating them, home made noodles and homemade pizza. She completes these tasks with minimal involvement on my part.

I praise God for my beloved daughters who enjoy being keepers of the home. As they take their place in the kitchen and train for their future, they are easing my burden and increasing the joy of our family with their enthusiasm.

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

Hello Christina!

What a wonderful and inspiring blog you have. You speak to my heart on many levels. We are currently an urban family, longing for simplicity and self sustaining ways. I am hoping to convince my husband of a permanent move to rural Wyoming by this spring. We are working on the details!

My question for you is regarding the washer that you had made for you. Is it possible to get your friends contact information (or for you to pass on mine) about information regarding how he built the washer? I’d ask for him to make one, but I’m not sure how we would ever get it here (we are in Colorado).

Many Blessings to you and your family,

Kristy (homeschooling mom w/ 3 boys and hopefully-soon-to-be rural homesteader!)

Kristy:

I apologize for not responding sooner. Further, I need to apologize to several of my readers. They have written in and asked similar questions about where they can buy a James Washer like mine. I have failed to respond or follow through with information. There is a local plain man who makes the washer. He would be delighted to make the washer for others. However, he purchased the rights to make the washer for a certain geographic location. Other plain people make these washers too. They have worked out an agreement to cover a certain area so as not to compete with each other.

My friend who makes them is named Enos. He does not have a telephone. He only takes orders through the mail. If you would like a James Washer, you can send me your contact information and I will give that to Enos. He will contact you with ordering details as well as shipping details. If you happen to be out of his area, then he can give you the name of the other plain people who make the washer near you.

I am unable to publish Enos’ name and address here as they are private people and prefer to avoid publicity through the internet. So, use my contact sheet and send me your address and I will pass that on to Enos.

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

So you may wonder, what “The Messies Manual” has done for me. What great insights did I glean from this book? Brace yourself, dear readers. For I am prepared to tell you….
It has done nothing for me. Me, in all of my messy glory, misplaced the book. I have searched high and low and I cannot find it. Purchasing the book was a noble effort. When I find it, in my mess, I am sure it will be beneficial. That is, if I can find time to read it and the fifty other books I intended to read yesterday. I am logging off now to search more for this manual and sift through piles. The ritual is to sort through one pile to create a new and improved pile. How do you deal with clutter? Write in and share your tips.

P.S.  No Fly Lady suggestions please.  Remember, I am a milkmaid. I kill flies.  Just kidding.  I have heard of her, but never embraced the method.  Perhaps, I should try again.

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid

Today, was haircut day. The three boys and my sweetheart look pretty spiffy. Cutting hair at home saves a large family time and money. I learned to cut hair with the aid of a video I checked out from the local library. Course, there was lots of trial and error. The guys have always been good sports.

The advantage of becoming your own family’s barber stretches beyond saving time and money. For example, home hair cutting makes for great blog material. For instance, today we had a minor run in with the nose hair trimmer. Those cheap things from Wal-mart do not cut the nose hairs, they pluck. The reaction I got from my guy indicates plucking nose hairs or stray (in the wrong place at the wrong time) mustache hairs is more painful then plucking eyebrows. I know it is hard to imagine how the mustache hair got near the nose. But, believe me those things sometimes curl up like fly away hair. Combine a fly away hair with distraction and you are sure to hear a grown man shriek. My sweetheart let me finish the job despite the pain I inflicted up on him. Ah… true love!!

So, if you are considering the purchase of a deluxe nose trimmer, I suggest you save your money. It made a whole lot of noise. That is the gadget made ample noise, but so did the subject when he shrieked. Stick with scissors and lots of careful attention.

Udderly His,

The Kansas Milkmaid