The way it used to be

Patriot Gal
May 18, 2017
2 min read

When I was little girl I used to love sitting in my Grandma's dining room listing to her talk about "The way it used to be," or the good ol' days. It was very interesting to contemplate a time when you didn't have to run to the store to buy the evenings dinner. We used to talk for hours about how she grew up on the farm. She used to raise chickens and sell eggs to help support her young growing family. She even used to butcher chickens for that evenings dinner.

My grandmother would also tell me a story about my mom when she was little went like this: Young mother frustrated by her chickens not laying, so she walks down the dirt road to her mothers house to get her advice. "Mom I just don't understand why my hens aren't laying."

Mother replies " What do you mean they aren't laying? Your daughter has been bringing me a bowl full of eggs in trade for apples off my tree. "

My husbands grandparents had similar practices they use to butcher pigs on their dining room table.

Being "prepared" was a way of life! One definition of prepared is: made at an earlier time for later use, or made ready in advance. It's sad that our culture has lost sight of that. Most households only have less than a weeks worth of food. In big cities some don't have any food in their fridge because they eat out all the time. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy the convenience of grabbing a quick meal or going out to a nice dinner but I cant afford to do it all the time. A hundred dollars doesn't buy what it use to at the grocery store. Not to mention that every thing has gmo's, pesticides and you don't know where it comes from. I'm also not saying that our grandparents had an easy life but they made due with what they had and were thankful for it. Did you know that the government used to encourage everyone to grow their own fruits and vegetables? They were called victory gardens or war gardens. The results of the Victory Gardens were HUGE. According to The US Department Of Agriculture more than 20 million victory gardens were planted.

After WWII ended the government stopped promoting the victory garden and people stopped planting them. Agriculture wasn't able to keep up with production demands for grocery stores, so there were some food shortages.

Mr. Patriot and I have made the decision to "get back to basics," and raise our family the way that our grandparents lived. We teach our kids through hard work and determination that they can be self reliant. We are in the process of starting our farm the traditional way (no gmos, and no pesticides.) We look forward to sharing our journey with you!