SIMPLE TIMES

BY SUZY McCRAY

Simply Growing Older on Your Farm or Homestead

My mama used to tell me that I just couldn’t understand. Even though she was in her mid-80s, in her mind she still thought and felt just like she did when she was in her twenties. While her body might often fail her, she still went about as many activities as she could on our little farm.

Wearing her old-fashioned-looking bonnet and long cotton sleeved shirt even on the hottest days, she dragged seemingly miles of electrical cord behind her as she weedeated all around her property, having given in to the electrical model when her strength would no longer allow her to crank the gasoline-powered weed whacker.

When we bought the original farmhouse from her when my daddy died, there were at least seven coats of paint on the kitchen cabinets because when she wanted to remodel, she wielded that paint brush wherever needed. After Daddy died and then her second husband was in the nursing home, she still nailed up curtain rods, planted flowers, and did all her maintenance and cleaning.

So, there was no question where I got my independent spirit before and after I was widowed at age 60. I attempted anything that needed doing on this little homestead. I built animal sheds, used a borrowed electric chain saw to prepare at least half of my firewood for my wood burning heater, stretched fencing, tended multiple critters and enjoyed every minute of it!

Now I am BLESSED to have my multitalented husband Mack with me on this little homestead and everyone comments on how this farm doesn’t look anything like it did! But we will both turn 68 this year and realistically we realize there MAY come a time when we have to slow down, even if it’s just a little!

As most of you regular readers of this column know, I tried to live as simple a life as possible. I love the older simpler ways. I heated only with wood, had no air conditioning, and no clothes dryer, for close to 40 years…I loved sewing on my old treadle sewing machine….

Now I sit here looking out my back window on things that are making our lives easier while still living simply, even though I’m enjoying the heat from a nearby propane heater and now have the OPTION of drying our clothes in a dryer IF the weather continues raining like it has all week.

I’m looking out at a new red metal 40 x 40 feet barn that has replaced my multitude of small animal sheds. Now all animals are in one place so feeding can be done fairly comfortably and easily, with goats on one side in their special lean-to area of the barn, chickens on the opposite side with a 20 x 20 heavy-screened tincovered area in addition to their ability to be turned into the pasture. Smaller critters, a feed room, and a workshop are in the center of the barn. Water is run to every area so there’s NO DRAGGING HEAVY HOSE PIPES from place to place!

We finally finished the fencing around the larger pasture area.

I was proud of the fencing that I had been able to do BUT I was never able to finish fencing the larger pasture so all the animals could enjoy it. Now that entire area is fenced with heavy duty horse fencing (of course bought from our local Co-op last spring!!!) so I no longer have to worry about our animals getting out or predators getting in! Corner posts are wood heavy-duty crossties and all other posts are metal tee posts which should last our lifetime!

Talk about making life easier! We had pared down our number of chickens to about 60 BUT things are working out so well I have 45 baby chicks who will arrive next week!

Mack loves to garden so last year I started all sorts of plants in the new larger greenhouse he built for me out of all recycled materials (also now with its own sink and running water to make things easier) and our garden was HUGE! But it’s in a better area now so it is easier to work in as it is handier to the house.

As longtime Backwoods Home magazine column writer Jackie Clay-Atkinson notes as she gets older, she and her husband “work smarter not harder!”

Betty Taylor explains her philosophy at www.homestead.org. She thought of many ways to continue living and working on her homestead after her husband died.

One example was how she worked her beehives. She had to compensate for “less muscle mass” so she positioned her beehives so she could back her pickup directly up to each hive and then work the hives from the lowered tailgate of her truck!

When people ask her how she completes all the work she replies simply “slowly and imperfectly but with relish!”

Betty also notes that homesteading later in life is a challenge at times but “people are either intrigued by the way I live or they think I’ve lost my mind.”

The Mother Earth News Magazine asked readers in their February/March 2017 issue (available on their website) how they were adapting as they grew older on their homesteads.

Many mentioned raised beds as ways to continue gardening as weeding and bending became more difficult; heavily mulching existing more traditional gardens so weeding and watering could be kept to a minimum; canning more in pint and half pint jars instead of in quarts as in their younger days when they were putting up food for big families; growing in containers on back porches and decks, and even raising their chicken coops up taller so they would be easier to tend, gather eggs and clean.

A reader named James Giambrone Jr. from Brandon, Oregon, suggested to simply “laugh or at least giggle a lot!”

As I sit writing this article, Mack is working on finishing the addition to our small farm general store, increasing it to twice its size! With more space we won’t be working harder but working easier as there will be more room to spread out what we already had crammed into the tinier space! There will also be more room to sit and visit with friends and family which is one of the best benefits of growing older on the homestead!

You can simply type in “growing older on the homestead” into your computer or phone’s search engine and you’ll find lots of interesting tips and articles about making your older years easier AND more fun on your farm or homestead or even in your flower garden on your lot in town!

But my advice is to just not give up on your dreams even though you’re growing older. Back in my newspaper days I did an article on a man confined to a wheelchair who had a huge garden in beds raised about four feet high all in his suburban backyard! He grew enough food for he and his wife and his grown children’s families - all completed from that manual wheelchair!

I haven’t dyed my hair since about the year 2000 so my hair is pretty white and I’m proud to be at this point in my life.

I love to read the Psalms David wrote and especially those when he was older like this one, “So even to old age and gray hairs, O God do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come!” (Psalm 71:18)

(Suzy and her husband Mack strive to live a simple life on a small homestead in Blount County. She can be reached through their Facebook page or at suzy.mccray@yahoo.com)