Lent Day 25: Homestead Rescue

 

My family and I like to watch a TV programme called 'Homestead Rescue' where the hard core Rainey family (homesteaders from Alaska) rescue homesteads. I'm sure you could have probably worked that out by yourself. 

Having watched a fair number of episodes it looks like that if you want to qualify to be in the show your homestead needs to look like a low key squatter camp. A number of your rooves must be plastic. You must have a critter problem. Your vegetable garden must be a couple of old poles stuck into the ground with one dying cabbage in the middle. And you must be in constant war against mother nature - floods, fires, drought, possibly some inbreeding somewhere in your past. 

I'm generalizing here but most of the homesteaders look like they need a good bath and a solid meal. Their kids are mainly feral but charming and a lot of them have given up careers as musicians, lawyers and postmen to live the way of their ancestors. It hasn't worked and their generator keeps running out of fuel and hence a tv show has been born. 

This morning I did a bit of homesteading. I weeded the garden while Eva jumped on the trampoline. I honestly felt like mother nature herself pulling out 'critters' that have been annoying my view for a good six months. 

Ten minutes of weeding led to an hour of pulling black jacks off my whimsical mother nature dress. But it was satisfying.

Something else satisfying this morning was the knowledge that we have absolutely no social commitments this weekend. No birthday parties, no school events, I don't even need to answer emails because I'm on holiday. 

And I got a nostalgic flashback to one of my favourite times - lockdown. If it hadn't been for the plague that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and the subsequent economic devastation for millions, and we are judging a lockdown purely on what it did for a lot of families I would say that lockdown was the best. I still miss it. I still would do it again, but without the dying part. Just the part where I get to stay at home and not see people. 

Which brings me back to homesteaders. They might be on to something. Generally they live five hours from the nearest flushing toilet and they seem to see very few people. I suspect it's because family and friends don't like sleeping in a decomposing yurt. 

My ancestors were homesteaders. The picture I'm using for this blog is of our first family home at Rorkes Drift. Even when you drive there today it's pretty doer en gaan. I can't imagine even the Raineys would have traveled out there in 1876 to help with their critters. 

Their days must have been pretty slow moving. But there's something to be said for slow moving. When things slow down you notice the weeds, and the fact that the first word your daughter ever writes is 'vomit' and you remember to defrost the pork belly for Sunday lunch. 

In the back of my mind I like to keep homesteading as an option. Second best would be another lockdown. Third best would be we cancel all children's parties.