Wild Moon Cottage is a small working homestead in the pristine Ozark Mountains. We have dairy goats, poultry, organic herb and vegetable gardens, a start of a tiny fruit orchard, several black walnut trees, wild berries and fields of wildcrafting goodness. We raise our own milk, our own eggs, much of our own medicine and food. I do laundry by hand, make my own vinegar, candles, soap, bread, cheese ........ For a living I am an artist and herbalist. My goal for myself and our homestead is to be as self sufficient and self sustaining as possible.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

6.8.08 evening

It's been a very nice day here. Breezy and mostly quiet.

Our neighbor came to tell us that someone has been stealing his gasoline from a huge tank he has. He runs a few big tow trucks. He got two big dogs to live with the gas tank. Thankfully he's a very kind man and will treat the dogs well. He's just hired them to be guards.

He thought we should bring everything nearer to the front of the house. He was worried because we leave our lawn mower and tiller and things out. It's so strange to worry about things like that but with the good changes there will always be bad.

We saw that in Springfield and around, people have been stealing many things, gas, copper, car parts, money from banks.

I have a memory of when I was little, my grandparents were taking us home after the summer and we passed a huge construction site on a great field where cattle had always run. I asked my Grandfather what they were doing and he said they were building a mall. At he time I didn't even know what a mall was.

The next year, when we were going back home, Battlefield Mall stood where a rainbow herd of cattle once roamed. It was a haunting thing to me, a sad sign of what was to come.

It wasn't to many years after, that the area where my grandparents farm is, including their farm, was declared within city limits.

Progress, like all corrosive things, eats away at nature and her children till only steel bone and concrete carcasses are left.

In the end tho, for me at least, hope finds a way to take root. It grows up from the Earth herself and sends searching tendrils out to touch everything within reach. Anything that allows it to take hold is soon enveloped in lush green vines, shiny leaves and flowers bursting with fresh, new life.



Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Just daydreaming, as usual :)

1 comment:

Amy E said...

Hi Julie! Thanks for commenting on my blog. I hope you are doing well. I really miss seeing your art, as I don't often get time to go to the Homestead Forum.

Take care of yourself and your family.

Love,

Amy