I’m a farmer’s wife, mom, grandma, sister, daughter, aunt, friend and nurse. My family lives on a farm where we raise registered angus cattle, chickens and children (and now grandchildren too!). We grow a garden, pick berries, forage for herbs, gather eggs and do a lot of canning!
I’ve always had an old fashioned way about me. The way I think, the way I dress, the way I talk and the way I live. Growing up in the country tends to have that effect on a person. My family had chickens, a cow, rabbits and occasionally some turkeys. There was always a garden to tend to in the summer and bean fields to weed.
We lived by the old saying “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”. If our boots had holes in them, we slipped bread bags over our socks to keep our feet dry. My mom made most of our clothes, when we wore them out she mended them, when our pants were too short, she added bias tape to bottom to lengthen them!
Keeping in that tradition, here on the farm we try our best to make do with the resources we have around us just like “the old days”. Some folks call our way of life homesteading, others compare it to off-grid living or prepping. I lovingly refer to our daily routine as “Little House Living”.
My mom, my aunts and Grandma Bea taught me so much about “Little House Living”. I can still picture these ladies feeding wet clothes through a wringer washer in the yard. And fond memories of watching Grandma Bea stir apple butter in a copper pot over an open fire. Working in the garden, canning the latest harvest, picking blackberries along the railroad tracks, hunting mushrooms….little did they know the wealth of information they were passing along to another generation.
There’s seems to be a growing number of people leaning toward this way of life. Are you one of those people? Maybe your grandparents taught you the ways of homesteading years ago and you’re just needing to sharpen your skills a bit or maybe this way of life is something completely new to you.
I consider myself very blessed to have had the opportunity to learn valuable skills from my Mom, Grandma and aunts. My hope is to be able to pass along some of these treasured lessons to other folks who yearn to “live like little house”.
You are invited to join us on this journey as we “EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES OF A SIMPLER LIFE”!
Debbie Hadler Statler
Owner/Creator
GRANDMA BEA’s NATURAL PRODUCTS
