Secular Homesteading: I Thought We Were Talking About Goat Cheese

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-mcgaha/secular-homesteading-i-goat-cheese_b_5618756.html

Jennifer McGaha
Appalachian writer, teacher, mountain biker, fan of craft beer and goat cheese

Posted: 07/25/2014 11:42 am EDT Updated: 07/25/2014 11:59 am EDT



Recently, my husband and I moved to an old homestead in the woods and began raising a few vegetables, some bees, a couple dozen chickens, a handful of dairy goats. Since neither of us was raised on a farm, we naturally turned to the Internet for information about how to do it correctly. One of the best blogs I found was written by a woman who was down-to-earth and full of self-effacing humor. She was a passionate advocate for healthy, sustainable living, and she had amazing recipes -- homemade mozzarella cheese, crockpot granola, peanut butter pie.

This woman also grew her own vegetables, made her own udder cream, diffused her own essential oils, and in the course of a few days one spring, helped a handful of goats give birth within a matter of days, all with her own infant strapped to her body. While I didn't necessarily want to go all-out and start making my own crackers or using cloth diapers to strain my cheese, how could I failed to be awed and inspired by this boundless, selfless sort of energy, by the encouraging way she assured me that I, too, could make my own fly spray and become debt free?

But here's the thing. On the "About" page, she threw this in: "I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I know where I will be spending eternity. Do you?" and suddenly I was confused because I thought we were talking about goat cheese, and despite her photo which just screamed clean cut, when she mentioned granola, I had naturally assumed she was a bit of a hippie type. I mean, where I lived, tree-hugging liberals are actually sometimes called Granolas. In any case, I certainly didn't think we were talking about Jesus, but that's the thing about evangelical Christians. They can go from homemade laundry detergent to Jesus with no warning whatsoever, and the rest of us are caught totally off guard.

And so I began looking at other sites and discussion forums, and I realized this was not an isolated incident. In fact, though not every website or forum espoused certain religious views, at least if one can believe that Internet searches are a reliable way of gauging such information, there seems to be some connection, which may be perfectly obvious to everyone else but which completely eludes me, between homesteading -- and even more specifically, goat rearing -- and fundamentalist Christianity.

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[Igel]

1. When I lived in Oregon I was in a kind of fundamentalist church.

The fundies and the counterculture set were distinguishable only by their hair, sometimes, and their smell (often). As a housewarming gifts I got a Deaf Smith cookbook and a yoghurt maker.

Whole wheat, carob, honey with organic unpasteurized goat milk. Even for passover the minister's wife insisted on making the unleavened bread with organic barley that she ground herself, and the wine had to be organic and sulfite free. The minister would sniff dismissively at any desert that the kids would actually deign to eat. It was the only meal where I saw more deserts hit the trash than green veggies. (Note to cafeteria staff: If a kid is hungry enough, he'll eat healthy food. Make the desserts really, really suck.)

I still aim for whole wheat, non-processed foods, insist on having a kitchen garden even if it takes up half of my postage-stamp sized subdivision backyard. I make my own kefir and soap. The fig preserves from our early-producing fig tree are processing as I type, and the "ornamental plants" that the HOA accepts will have ripe jujubes in about a week. We won't discuss the goumi hedge or the satsumas--at first they thought the orange balls on the satsuma were sort of cool decorations, then they realized they were mandarin oranges! And when the ornamental "Lady finger" banana tree bears actual bananas it'll be interesting to see what they say.

The thinking was that if humans are to have dominion over the earth, they are to be stewards. They are to leave it in at least as good a shape for their kids and even great-greatgrand kids as they inherited it themselves. This is at odds with the Gaia-crowd, to be sure, where the earth is the goal instead of respect for the earth being obedience to God, but the actions taken are the same even if the rationale for the actions is different.

There was also a loony contingent among the fundies, too. Chiropractic. Aromatherapy. Foot reflexology. This funny diet where you couldn't eat meat and starch together because they digested at different rates and would go toxic in yoru gut--and fruit was a whole 'nother matter. Trying to figure out which foods were acid and alkaline. Argh.

[cbayer]

2. Great post and I think many, many of us of a certain age know exactly what you are talking about.

For all the freedom we celebrated, there sure were a lot of rules. You got Deaf Smith. I got Diet for a Small Planet.

But, like you, I came away with some great life lessons and habits..