All of the recent ancestry research paired with the reading of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books has really helped me to identify with my ancestors. Some people may scoff and jeer at a woman of my age reading a "kid's" book, but I feel that it gives us a great insight into the way life used to be.
It shows us a way of living that most people don't choose to live anymore because it was too hard to make our own stuff. I suppose that it is easier to go to the store and buy a jar of apple sauce and to throw all of our gargage into the landfill instead of being creative with it's uses.
I can't help but think though how we can improve our soil with our garbage instead of putting it into a plastic bag. Those bones that most people like to toss in the garbage could be put to good use too once we boil the meat off. Wouldn't it make much cheaper bone meal for us if we were to use it instead of toss it? That meat that was boiled off the bone could be used in a soup too, a double bonus for a family that is struggling in our current economic crisis. The spoiled fruits and vegetable that would be thrown into the same plastic bag can be added to compost to add additional nutrients to our soil so that money wouldn't be completely wasted at least....
It's amazing how wasteful our society has become. Our older generations don't show us these frugal ways of living because so many of us prefer the easy way of living. Most of our parents aren't even aware of the ways our grandparents and great grandparents lived. It's too bad really.
Looking back over time I also can't help but wonder why the sudden onsurge of cancer, diabetes, and disease. These problems didn't used to exist at all. Why? I'd have to say that it's because of the additives, chemicals, and unnatural ways of eating that is all the craze in our country. I haven't done any scientific experiments to back up my claims, but if we just use our common sense I just can't help but thinking that my hunch is correct.
If we go back to the ways our grandparents and great grandparents used to live, our society wouldn't be such big consumers of goods and services either. Is that the reason for our struggling economy? It may be. Many people seem to be rediscovering the once lost wonders of our ancestors. Is that a bad thing? I can't help but think that it may not be so bad for us to live within our means rather than beyond them. It may be bad for our retirement accounts in the short term, but if we only spend what we have and figure out ways to save money on common every day items it will ultimately lead to a richer more fulfilling life.
I can't help but think that our pioneering ancestors had the right idea on how to live. Thank you for providing such a great example for us lazy Americans who live in such a prosperous nation that it may not even occur to them that it's possible to make our own soap.
I think I am going to try to follow that example more closely and I hope that my readers will too.
Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Cindy
9 comments:
Good for you, Cinj!!! We're proud of our tiny bit of garbage here, too---almost everything goes to the chickens, the earthworms, the compost bins, or to help us stay warm. Not much left for the garbagemen! And I think reading books like the Little house series is inspiring at any age. Who knows, we might learn something!
We do live in a time where convenience has made us very wasteful & lazy. I love that series of books, very inspirational.
Cinj,
An excellent series of books, I love good literature and there are many classic books written for young folks! One of my favorites is Madeleine L'Engles' A Wrinkle In Time! Her themes are ageless. Love and acceptance are just two of them. I imagine you've read her series!
We are a terribly wasteful nation! My hope is that we aren't too late to save our environment!
Gail
I agree Cinj. I also think that people miss out on a lot of inspiration and beauty when they don't read classic children's books. I have a whole collection that I continue to read and now share with my children. Many of those stories are far better than the dearth of trash written for an adult audience today!
Ben- I know! I just realized I could make my own popcorn balls. I don't know why the thought never occured to me before.
Raquel- Thanks for stopping by. I hope that we can change the path we're going down before we ruin the planet for future generations.
Gail- Actually surprisingly I haven't. I know they're good books, I've heard nothing but good things about them. Now that I just finished reading the Laura Ingalls books I'll have to find some other classics that I have never read.
It's never too late for us to do our part, it would be far worse if no one ever changed their habits. We just need to change one person at a time, right?
Amy- I don't usually read the books written for adults nowadays for that very reason. Just basically non fiction or Star Wars books. Most of that smut is far too graphic for me to have an interest in. What ever happened to inuendo and using our imaginations? Same goes for the movies.
We are wasteful. It is a shame really.
We are a spoilt and wasteful society compared to most. In Germany, recycling was not and option but mandatory so not much went to waste. After 6 years of us recycling, we moved back here and not much recycling going on. :(
When I was a child growing up in NYC, which I hated, my father gave me Little House in the Big Woods. Each time I finished one in the series, he'd order the next, and when it came in, we'd walk together to Taylor's Books at 116th and Broadway to pick it up. I still have them all and love them well. They're good at any age. I read them aloud to my sons when they were young, and I refer to them in my mind all the time. This week, probably because I was housecleaning for a party, I've been remembering Laura trying to do the spring housecleaning with Carrie and Grace when Ma and Pa took Mary to college, and the day everything went wrong: the freshly filled straw ticks get rained on, Grace spills the blacking polish all over the floor, and the tiny house that had always seemed clean becomes impossibly dirty. The lessons about management are invaluable--and so funny!
--Kate
P.S.--Hope you've got "The First Four Years" as well as the original eight volumes.
Tina- That's for sure.
Skeeter- It's too bad that we don't recycle as we should in this country.
Kate- I bought that book at the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Walnut Grove when we went there this summer. I should really read them in order sometime. I might buy the ones that are missing from my set someday.
I remember that episode very well. Also Farmer Boy with the cleaning and Almanzo getting the blacking on the sitting room's wallpaper.
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