A book review and how I am relating it to the homestead

I just finished reading Mrs Miles’s Diary.  One I love reading diaries and see how people live. This was the real diary about life during the beginning of WWII.  She writes of food rations, fuel shortages, people being evacuated and how they lived during this time. It was interesting to see that a wonderful Christmas gift would be a package of tea, suet (I knew what suet was but I had to look up how it was made. It is mutton or beef fat that rendered down and can be used in frying or pastries. I asked my mom if they used it. She said they used lard.) and 2 eggs. She talks of still finding time to have tea with friends and those that faired the best during this hardship with those helping others such as the women who knitted/crocheted (even now it is view as something to deal with anxiety) or made blankets for the war effort. There were victory gardens since food was such a shortage. She tells of her son who was injured in the war and being a time of no computers or cell phones, waiting for news of how he was doing. You gain appreciation for the resilience of the British (and others) during those long years.

It helps too being on the homestead and appreciated all the hard work we do here.   

I prep (in a way) to make sure I can ride out a winter storm or make it through a time when my well is on the fritz or if our finances get low.  Before I move out here almost seven years ago, I only knew how to raise chickens, bees and I could quilt. 

Reading the book gave me cause to celebrate the skills I  have gained... raising animals, canning, beekeeping, dehydrating, sewing, crocheting, spinning, quilting, gardening and Dude's extreme skills of carpentry (he can build or remodel anything), raising animals, farming(he grew up on a farm) and knew found knowledge of dealing with a well and all our water problems. I like that we are getting to a place of self-reliance. 

You never know what will happen now-a-days, especially with the weather.  It has been fierce in some places.  I am finding value with the unknown future to look more at the past.

Another little gem I read today. 

peace