Why This Blog About My Little Corner?

(This is a long one!)
More snow and rain again this week. I'm aching to get out and get started with my yard work.
I have been working on fixing up my home for the last five or so years. Each winter, I can hardly wait for summer to come so we can get working on the house. We will be working on the house again this summer, but I have also decided that it is time to get started fixing up my yard the way I want it.

I have always loved animals and gardens. I was the child that brought home stray cats. My father was a
physical therapist by profession, but a hobby carpenter and farmer with his free time. He was always building, and growing, and raising something.

When I was a child we had hutches of rabbits, lots of chickens, ducks, and a good sized garden. I loved them all. One day, when I was 7 years old, I was mad and I decided to run away from home. I packed up a few possessions and tied them in a red handkerchief and tied it to the end of a stick which I then threw over my shoulder and started down the street. (This was the picture of running away from home that I had always seen in the old black and white TV shows and in kids' books.) My dad called to me as I was headed down the street. "Wendy, we're just ready to plant the corn. Why don't you come help plant the corn before you go?" He knew I wouldn't be able to resist and, of course, I forgot all about running away.

When I was a child, my family had an acre of land. My father grew an orchard that had peaches, plumbs, apples, almonds, pecans, walnuts, and even a mulberry tree that was wild. He also had some grape vines and a pomegranate. Some of the animals we raised were pigs, meat cows (one at a time), chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Not to mention cats and dogs.

When I was about 11, my parents took me to a home where there were goats and we picked out a boy and a girl kid. My parents gave them to me to raise. I bottle-fed the goats and took good care of them. We had them for a couple of years. I loved them dearly. I would play with them and sit with them to read books or just look at the clouds--me, my dog, and my goats. After the girl goat had a baby, I was supposed to milk her. However, she didn't want to be milked. I was only 13. I had never seen a goat milked. I had no idea how to do it. (There was no internet back then.) And since we weren't getting milk from the goats and they were eating all the trees, bushes, garden plants, trying to come in the house whenever they could, scratched the hood of the car with their hooves, and smelling up the air, my parents decided they didn't want the goats anymore and informed me they had to go. I was too attached to them to let anyone eat them, so we let them go out in the wild. That was the end of those goats in my life, but not the end of my love of goats.


I was raised back when people put up fruit and tomatoes in mason jars as a way of life. I spent many summers working with my mother all day long doing apricot jam, or bottled peaches or home made bread or tomato sauce. Even as an adult, I would go to my parents' home each summer and pick fruit from their trees. I would cut and pit the fruit. I would put the fruit on waxed paper on cookie sheets and place it out in the sun with a thin sheet over it. My children grew up eating that dried fruit for treats.

When I got married, one of the significant reasons why I chose the husband I did was because he wanted a life of living on a homestead type piece of land with an orchard, garden, animals, and lots of children. I wanted to put down roots and grow things. Each place we lived I would try to grow a little garden. I will be the first to admit that my gardens did not turn out too great, but it was a need inside of me to plant them anyway.
For ten years now I have had my own old home with one and a half acres of land. It is not ideal, but I am trying to fix it up to what I want it to be.
Ten years ago I built a goat shed and pen. It is a really nice shed and pen. I got two goats and tried milking them. For many reasons the milking did not work out (again), but they have had a wonderful home and I have enjoyed the goats all these years. I also tried chickens and it did not work out well either. I also planted an orchard and, because of irrigation problems, I lost quite a few trees the last two years. I have never pretended to be a gifted farmer, only that it is a need inside of me that I must fulfill. The old farming-family lifestyle does not fit with our modern life, and I do have to fit into our modern life. I have a job during the day which I must strive to keep, and I have many other responsibilities in our little community. I am only a hobby farmer, but it is very important to me and becomes more important as the years go on.
I (we) have been working on fixing up my house for the past five or so years (I will tell you more about that later.) We will continue working on the home this summer, but I have decided that this is the summer I have to start all over again on my land and get it fixed up and functioning like I had intended from the first. The only difference is that this time I am doing it for me. Before, I was doing it with my children in mind, to let them grow up the way I grew up. I thought it would be good for my children to grow up around animals, doing chores, and growing gardens, etc... It wasn't all that successful, and now my children are growing and leaving home. In a few more years I will be here by myself. So fixing up my little homestead is for me this time. I am getting old. I need to get out of the house more! I need to get more sunshine and physical activity! I need to eat more natural foods (that I grow by myself and know what is in them!) I need to practice the skills of provident living and being self sufficient. I need to fulfill the inner need to be a hobby farmer! I need to be closer to the earth, which always brings me closer to God. The three most sacred times of my life are when I am 1- in the temple 2- reading scriptures 3- weeding a garden all by myself as the sun rises and the birds are singing. So that is why I have started this blog, to motivate and document my progress. Though I hope someone out there finds it of some little interest, it is mostly for me. I want to see what I can do, what my little place can become through my own efforts, how much of the old simpler self-sufficient lifestyle I can incorporate into my life. So here's wishing myself good luck --and anyone else out there in life trying to do the same thing.

More Snow, Hunt for Baby Goat

More snow again this week! I don't like to deal
with the problems that snow causes, but it is good to have. I would rather have the snow in the winter than drought in the summer. (I keep telling myself this to make me feel better about the snow.)

I did not have work on Monday, since it was President's Day. I had intended to spend the day cleaning house, but I got wrapped up in looking for a goat. Yes, a goat. I have one. I will introduce her to you soon. She needs a companion and it is kidding season. I have been looking for someone
from whom I could get a new kid, but I want a Nubian that will grow up to be a good milking goat. So a friend and I spent the morning going to people with goats. (The number of people with goats around here has dropped dramatically in the last ten years and I am having troubles finding what I want.) I have arranged to buy an Alpine, if a girl is born, but I still want a Nubian. I did not find one. I have continued to look, call, and ask around all week long, but I have not found one. There is another family that I could get a goat from, but the goats are already born--two weeks old--and I was hoping for one born later is the season so I would have a shorter time to worry about bottle feeding her while I was at work all day long. (Also, they are beginning to push the age limit for dehorning, and I won't have a goat with horns.)

Yesterday I cut a bunch of tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, and long onions, and put them into my food dehydrator. (In the picture you can see dried tomatoes, onions, and celery.) We also tried eating some all-natural, dried peaches I bought a couple weeks ago. They were good, but not fantastic.

I have also included a picture of some summer squash I cooked for dinner tonight. Most of my cooked vegetables are cooked in one of two ways. Either I steam them or I do what I like to call "steam-fry" them. These are steam-fried. I put them into a frying pan with the lid on, usually with salt and a little butter, and them I slowly cook them until they are cooked all the way through. This way they simmer in their own juices and are never dry or really hot to "fry" in the pan.

I also learned a new word this week. I bought fifty pounds of "desiccated" coconut. The word desiccated was new to me. I had to look it up.

See My Little Corner of the World

Since this blog is about my own little corner of the world, I guess I should show you what it looks like. Here are pictures of my home and property after the storm two weeks ago that dumped a foot of snow on us. We don't get that much snow at a time very often, but it was needed. We need snow each winter to melt and fill up the resevoir and raise the water table so we all have irrigation and drinking water. Sometimes the water drops lower and lower year after year until we worry about having enough. Some years people, especially farmers, fast and pray for moisture. So we were glad to get this snow. I'm not a snow lover. It is a terrible inconvenience for me and the mud it makes as it melts messes up my life. But snow does make everything look clean and beautiful for a day or two. After this snow, I could see how my attitude about life and home are changing a little through my efforts. I have been making conscious effort to get more activity into my life. My boys used to get out and do the shoveling. This time I was happy to get out and shovel because I kept thinking that it was giving me physical activity and getting me out of the house and into doing good for my home and yard.









Eventually the snow melted, everything turned to mud (including the floors of my house as it was tracked in) and everything went back to looking brown and normal again. I was very glad that I had bought irrigation boots last summer so I could get around in both the snow and the mud.

Meet My Children.

My children, even though they are mostly grown-up and on their own, are and always will be a very important part of my life. I thought maybe you would like to meet them.

This is my son James and his wife Melissa.



This is my daughter Anna and her husband Dave and one of their two little girls. (I need a more up to date picture.)






This is my daughter Della. ( I need a picture of her and Jake.)






This is my son Joseph.








This is my son Samuel.





This is my daughter Esther.











This is my daughter Clara.

Hi! I'm WendySue.

Hi! I'm WendySue. I have been many things and played many roles during my lifetime. This blog is to share the part of me that is trying to fix-up and create my own little corner of the world. I can't control or change the world, but I have my own little corner of it that I can do pretty much whatever I want (within the confines of budget, time, and energy.) Much of my life has been and still is dictated by circumstances and other people. However, my own little home and land is like a work of art where I can create and express myself. Sometimes the objective of art is the product, sometimes it is the process or creative journey. I value the privilege of making my own choices and doing what my own heart, mind, and intuitive feelings tell me I should try doing, even if it seems foolish or unusual to others. I have been free to do as I please with this home, land, and life for about 10 years so far. I have done much with it. Not all of it has been sucessful or wise, but all of it has been part of the journey. Now, I begin sharing my little corner of the world with you.