You can't have it all.

Chop, clap! Chop, clap! I hear when I walk to the chicken coop to collect eggs. In the barn I see Sander putting the pieces of wood on the chopping block and with a hard blow, he splits them into pieces with the axe. Chop, clap! Chop, clap! Block by block is chopped into small pieces for the stove.

Yesterday we ate all the bread so now it is high time to bake new again. I walk to the house with a basket full of split firewood. Mmm, what do these smell nice. It is spruce wood and they smell wonderfully of resin and a little of Christmas. When I put a few pieces on the fire, it crackles and splatters nicely.

In the large earthenware bowl, I mix the flour with the salt and the yeast. With the kettle, I pour warm water on it and start kneading. While I am working on this, my thoughts drift away to how I could explain our philosophy of life.

Independence is one of our keywords. In other words, control everything yourself.
Why don't we have running water, a washing machine, a dishwasher, a chainsaw etc. etc.? Of course it is wonderful that these time-saving things were invented. But everything comes at a certain price. With the arrival of electricity and facilities, the bills will also come. It is a vicious circle. To be able to pay the bills you need more money, more money means more work, more work means less time to do something yourself, less time to do it yourself is buying more, buying more is more money. You can't come out of it. We turned it around. With fewer bills, we have lower costs, we need less money and we have more time to do it ourselves. Where others get their sense of security from a permanent contract and wages, we get that from making it ourself and low costs.

This gives us a lot of freedom to organize our own time and do what we love and find satisfaction in, but this way of life is not for everyone. It also has another side. Anyone who likes to travel, go out, shop, gets tangled with our way of life. Life is all about prioritizing, and the only one who can make the choices in your life is you.

I like to sing during my household chores and one of my favourite songs is the Dolly Parton song "coat of many colours" and especially the following piece:
They didn´t understand it, I tried to make them see
That one is only poor, only if they choose to be
it´s true we had no money, but I was as rich as I could be ......

The dough is now completely soft and smoothly kneaded. I make a nice ball of the dough and with a damp tea towel over it, I let it rise. With a book, I settle on a chair and move to another time and world.

Early spring

 Today was such a lovely spring day. You can feel the energy flowing through your body. That you just keep busy and don't go inside. That you forget that you also have to eat, and keep thinking, just finish this job, it's still so nice outside....

Twilight is now slowly setting in. The last rays of the sun turn the treetops golden yellow. In the distance 3 deer are grazing on the field. Every evening they emerge from the forest edge on their way to the lake. The birds sing their evening song, the sound of children playing further up the road, the neighbor going out for a while with his hunting dogs.

We are making good progress in clearing the storm tree. With the axe, Sander first chopped off all the branches this week, so that today only the trunk was left. Because this is such a big trunk, it is easier to cut it with a "crosscut saw" or two-person pull saw. This is a sweaty job and requires good cooperation. Each stands on one side of the trunk, alternately, then one, then the other, pulling the saw toward him.

It takes a few strokes to get into the rhythm, but then it goes like the lightning. The sawdust flies in all directions. Deeper and deeper eats the saw its way down. Until it comes to an abrupt stop. The tension in the wood is too great and is jamming the saw blade. With one last tug, the saw comes loose. In this way we saw the whole trunk, until it will not go futher. Then it is time to turn the trunk half a turn with the felling lever and then saw all the blocks from the other side.

One by one fall the blocks to the ground and soon the sawing is done for today. Enough other chores for the rest of the day though.....

After the Storm

 After yesterday's wind it was wonderfully quiet this morning. High time to assess the damage from the storm. When I open the back door I see that it has started to rain again. Raindrops fall on the porch and turn the wood dark in color. I step back into the house to get my hat. The path squeaks when I walk over it.

As I look around, I see that in the meadow of the neighbors a tree has broken, but otherwise we got out of it quit well. Arriving at the end of the path lays the big tree that we had already noticed yesterday. Somehow we are glad that this tree has blown down. He had been bad, rotten for years, and whenever the wind blows you could see him balancing back and forth. We never had our ponies there when it was windy. We were far too afraid that one day it might fall, if one of our ponies was standing under it. It is very shady there in the summer. But now, that fear is over and he lies flat and fortunately has not caused any damage except for the fence.

The drizzly weather continues. Every now and then the sun seems to break through, but before I can put on my shoes, the rain is pouring down again. At noon we decide to brave the hard weather to go out with the dog. A farmer's meadow a little further up has also become very wet. The sheep wire just barely rises above the water. The water even runs over the road and has carved a whole track where it flows to the other side. We return refreshed and wet after the walk. The coats go straight to the stove and a little later the windows are fogged by the moisture.

When I look through the window a moment later, the snowflakes are whirling by. We got back just in time.

Stormy weather

 My skirt puffs up completely in the wind and the rain hits my face. The storm, named Laura, rages across the landscape. One of the trees along our path has snapped. In his fall he took another tree and the fence with him. The barn door is almost ripped out of my hands but I hold it and boom!, I close it behind me and put the hook on it. Pfff, out of the wind. The ponies doze in their stables and the cats have not gone out today either.

With the basket in my hands I climb up the steep ladder to the hayloft. I put the sweet scented hay in the basket to feed the ponies. It's been worth it, to make all the hay. We are already March and we still have almost half of the hay left. Long coarse stalks of grass, interspersed with all kinds of herbs and even some favorite of the ponies, thistles. Auts, my hands don't like those thistles! Carefully I remove the thorn from my finger, that something so small can feel so annoying! With the basket filled to the brim, I go down the ladder again. As soon as the ponies see me coming, they already stand on their feeding spot. . I lower myself onto a beam and listen to the ponies begin to nibble on their hay. Soon there are also 2 cats on our lap and we all enjoy the peace in the barn. With the next gust of wind, the windows ring in their frames and at the same time the light goes out. Yet another power outage this winter! I better get back inside soon before the weather gets even worse! Now! Before the next windpush! I quickly open the door and slip out. Sander has also waited until this moment and also rushes over with a basket of firewood. Fighting the wind, we make our way to the house.

The rest of the day we will stay inside. At the sewing machine, I lower myself into a chair and continue with the project I was working on. The sewing machine ticks away. Row after row, I sew the cords between the fabric. Life here takes its mundane way, no power outage can affect us. It's almost time to prepare dinner. From the stock I get some potatoes, carrots and onions. The last jar of pickles goes along and a jar of stewed pears. That will be great feast tonight!