This is a random collection of a post. We are engrossed in the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They are written about her life on the American frontier, and are filled with adventure and hardship. We read together every night. Her American life was very different from mine. I've been thinking a lot lately about liking where and when I live. About being engaged in my surroundings and reaching out to those around me.
Another thing I've been thinking about is hording. (This may seem unrelated, but wait, there is a connection.). There is a bit of hording in my family as there is somewhere in the families of almost all my friends. A friend and I had a discussion about this and she thought it came from having a scarcity mentality in a world of overabundance. I thought she put that well. It is relatively easy to get stuff now. Judging from the wildfire-like spread of self-storage units near us, our possessions have grown faster than the sizes of our homes.
There is a passage in Little House where Ma puts the one decoration (a porcelain doll) on the mantle. Or when they have to leave the home Pa just labored to build, and the garden they just finished planting to head off for a new land just dreaming about the taste of the vegetables and imagining the rabbits having a feast on them. Or selling the cow they couldn't take, and knowing that meant no milk or butter. (Especially hard for me to imagine). That was a time of scarcity.
But what is scarce for us now?; If we have this biological need to stockpile, what is in short demand now? In Little House they have tons of passages exploring the plants and animals of the earth, sitting out under wide starry skies, listening to their father play the fiddle and sing. Those things are probably rare now. Not that I'm going to take up the fiddle, but it's given me something to think about.
Also a few pics from Easter.
2 comments:
We should begin that series. What a different world we live in; my biggest problem is getting through all the vegetables before they go bad! You have a beautiful family!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Little House books. I read them over and over when i was little, until my books fell apart (literally). I've read most of them to our girls...but I should start them again. Right now we're having a shortage of milk in Kenya (i think the milk company does it on purpose). So we're drinking powdered milk and I can't find butter anywhere! very frustrating. i went to 3 stores yesterday looking... But that's life here sometimes. we had the same issue with sugar last year and people were hoarding sugar like no one's business. I had to have my mom bring me some from the US! Say hi to Hampstead Ward for us!
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