A Simple Kind of Man

If you don't recognize the title, it is a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. And a wonderful anthem for the homesteader. One homesteader in particular would be my husband.


As a modern day homesteader he is lacking, but only because of time restraints and working outside of the home. No complaints from me there {ok maybe a few, but I get over that easily. ugh, I mean in a couple of days}

My husband is a simple kind of man. No not in the intellect department. There he blows everyone else I have met away. He came from a dirt poor family, literally living in motels and cars growing up, to earning a full scholarship to KU medical School. He has never known the benefit of privilege before. So falling in love with an middle class girl, surprised him and made him feel like the middle class children were spoiled. {Well I did have my own room in the same house for 15 years. I had a tv in said room and didn't share a bed with a sibling}

When his family was able to move from Denver, they came to a little town in Kansas called Rock. There he was beat up and called many names for being a long haired city kid. He got into more fights then he cares to admit to. Country kids can be just as cruel as city kids, the only difference is they rarely do it in front of the grown-ups.

His parents were and still are physical laborers. From them he learned work ethics and that you could never trust that anything would just be handed to you. You had to earn it. Soon there small house turned into a small farm with over 200 chickens and a calf that thought he was a dog. Sleeping on their porch and trotting off after them to the mail box and such. {having that many chickens around still hadn't taught him how to dress one out}

His father and uncle were bikers. The typical 1960's variety. His love of all things straight lined and circle {this would include mathematics} came from this exposure. He was working on them by the time he was 14 years old. It wasn't until later, after we met that he went to school for motorcycle repair, graduating top of his class by the bye.

Unfortunately he did find comfort in illegal drugs. This was when we met. At that time I could have cared less. I had no intentions of being with this man seriously. I was depressed and drunk. It was all good. But then I became pregnant, and things changed. Despite the drug addiction, he attempted to do the right thing. But it wasn't good enough for me and I gave him an ultimatum. It took almost a full year for him to clean up and stay clean, before our relationship could continue. And I was delighted to discover what this man was truly like.

He is more then just a wonderful father and husband. He cares deeply about his family and loyal to a fault with his friends. He is perfect, for me. We married 4 years ago. I should say I was married by proxy. One day he came home and asked that I sign something for insurance. I signed and the next day he came home and informed me that the HR at the motorcycle shop he works at has married us. Every girls dream wedding.

He is a simple kind of man. He wants only the love of his family, his dream job of fixing and building motorcycles, and a home on the range, peaceful and full of physical distraction. The lust of money is not in him, the want of desirables has never been in the forefront, he is happy and content with his world {though he would rather have less politics in the work place, he just wants to be left alone to do what he does best}

These past 11 years with him has shown me so much more then what I learned in the 18 years without him. For that I am grateful, and a mushy girl.

Made in the (Insert Home Country Here)

I remember a time, way back in the day, when commercials on tv clearly stated, Made in the USA. Others said things like look for the Made in the USA label, or Proudly Made in the USA.

More things being recalled with the Made in China sticker, is not the main reason I bring this up. I was doing laundry last night, and I noticed that all our skullcaps have the Made in the USA tag on them. I don't recall going out of my way to buy only these ones. Some of them are 10+ years old.

I can remember going shopping with my mother. What I don't remember is if it was her influence or not that caused me to look at the labels and purchase only Made in the USA. But as years faded, the importance of such purchases went with them. Had it been merely the ideals of youth? Did the commercials influence me that much? I have never done an introspective of it. I did many thing in my youth that were considered tree hugging or loony.

Yet here I am 15 years later facing a dilemma. I want to buy American, I want to buy local. I will admit that not everything made in this country is wonderful, some of it is junk. And there is the problem of not being able to be cheap or frugal because local items cost more.

My husband's tools are made in the USA. They are very expensive, but they have lifetime warranties. If they break they are replaced, free. That makes it worth the price.

It has always frustrated me, even when I was not as concerned with the Made in Labels, when American companies outsourced to China, Taiwan, and Mexico. Probably because my family consists of blue collar workers. But we want cheaper products, we demanded cheaper products, and people wanted more money. This combination was discovered in outsourcing, and now we are stating to pay for it. Made in China no longer means inexpensive products.

Our homestead owns American made Vehicles, unfortunately they are not truly American, as many of the components are manufactured out of the country. Clothing with the label can be in a similar situation, as the fabric may not have come from the US, or the fiber does come from here and then it is pieced together overseas. Made Wholly in the USA is the new label that is needed for those of us that wish to buy only that. We will pay out the @$$ for it, that is also disheartening. But hey, our CEO's need to make that five hundred grand a year.

This soap box was made in Kansas, USA.

I have bad timing

I will have a house full of people on Saturday. Marina {Tales from a Texas Farm Wife} being one of them. And my house is a wreck.

I didn't need to pull up the carpet in the living room.

But the hallway is almost done.

The flooring I picked up at a Farm Auction.

Good news, my truck is running again. Woohoo for men that are Jacks of all trades!

My tomatoes have gone crazy. I will have to give some away so they don't all go bad.

Flooring

There was a sagging spot in the middle of our hallway. We pulled up the carpet and found this.

A large hole. The floor had caved in.

I put my best men on it.

But only one was allowed to use the power tools.

As the flooring was cut, we discovered the cause of all the problems. The furnace was leaking, and ready to fall through. We ended up replacing half the hallway, and securing the furnace.

We put down plywood instead of replacing it with particle board. We also discovered that some one before us had replaced the floor. Why they didn't put down plywood I will never know. The replacement floor was done with everything we already had on hand.

Nothing was bought in town.

Next step is to put down the hard wood flooring that we got at auction.

PSA

Child proof, that is the claim on medication and supplement bottles.

Here we see such a container. This bottle of children's vitamins has a child proof cap.
But what does a child do when he really wants a vitamin and the parent isn't willing to open the bottle for him?

He goes in from the side.

It was a hot and humid day

Saturday started as it normally did. I woke up as the sun was. Started a load of laundry, feed animals and checked my emails. Around 7am it was time to wake my boys up. My husband had to work and I had to go to my mother's. My oldest son had apparently stayed up late watching a movie and wasn't about to budge. All my off key folk signing got was a few squeals and a pillow over his head. I took the other two boys to help me unload a truck bed full of dirt, giving the oldest a few minutes to wake on his own. A few minutes turned into an half hour, and when I walked up to the deck I heard Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power playing at full blast. I smiled, knowing full well that this wasn't my oldest son's doing as he likes southern rock and bluegrass. I walked into the house singing along, to find my husband's big grin and my oldest son on the couch head under the pillow and the blanket covering from head to toe. The entire album played through {ok, that shows my age, CD} and still my oldest was tucked under the blanket. I finally said I need to go, just scoop him up and put him in the truck, he can go in his underwear. I managed to hear a squeal of protest from out from under the pillow. I left him and my husband, I needed to go.

I met up with my mother and her husband around 11am, a little later than I wanted. I finally got there and was able to load up some dirt. My stepfather had rented a backhoe. My mother and I thought it seemed a little feminine for a machine.
Turned out it was light on it's feet, and my stepfather came close to falling more then once. He did tip over once, enough to mar the back of my truck.
He placed a bit of dirt {nice dark, worm invested top soil} into my truck. And what should have been a 20 minute drive turned into 30 minutes because I was floating. Technically I was doing a wheelie. The load in the bed was heavier than the front. My husband informed me of how I should fix this problem without ending up with less dirt, therefore not justify the gas money for the trip. The next round we place more dirt in the front of the bed, in front of the wheel wells. And I was able to bring home even more dirt.

Once home, I got all the men to work.On the 3rd round that morning, I had just missed the phone call from my mother. It wasn't until I got there that I was informed that the machine stopped working, no more dirt. Instead I brought home a roll of carpet for my living room. I headed home and help my husband with something else {tomorrow's topic}. The next morning, Sunday, my mother called and tells me that the machine is working again, and my stepfather is will to work on a Sunday { they are devote Christians and do not work on Sundays} to get me more of that dirt. It is a win win for us, they get a bigger yard because the raised flower garden {the thing was huge} is gone and I get wonderful topsoil. Off I go and managed to get two more loads that day.

My mother rode with me on the second load. We were headed back to her house, when I decided to stop and get something to drink at a gas station. We were leaving, backing out, when there was a load squeal and a thump. My mother asked if we would be ok, I said yes. Suddenly I realized I had no steering. Not good. So I called my husband and told him what was going on. He wasn't very happy to hear from me. I got out of the truck, and popped the hood. A belt had come off. He said he would get the boys to a neighbor and would be there in a while. My mother then called her husband.

My husband showed up first on the motorcycle. A tow rope on the back seat. My mother asked if he really thought that we could pull the truck with a bike? Well, we have done it before. Luckily my stepfather had pulled in at that time. His truck was going to pull mine, my husband would steer my truck and I would wait with the motorcycle. They pulled out and I sat on the bike with a drink, it was a long, hot wait. I got a few compliments on the bike {You don't see to many old school bikes around here, ones with kick starts} and low handed biker waves from the road.

The ride home was wonderfully cooling, but now I have a migraine from the heat.