The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Day 1 of the rest of my life

Drawing draftsDay one of my freelancing life --- I would be quite happy if every day was exactly like yesterday.

While the bone from Daddy's Thanksgiving ham simmered into a pot of bean soup, I drew a cartoon of a medical researcher marrying an academic for my first (second?) cousin once removed's medical research journal.  Then I took a break to split some wood, help Mark bring my broken car to the mechanic, and chat over email with the co-author of a natural history book I'll be working on for the next little while.  All while fat flakes of snow settled over the farm.

The late Helen and Scott Nearing, famous back to the landers, divided their days into thirds --- one part for "bread" labor, one part for the arts, and one part for social and civic interactions.  I know that my outlook on life is much better when I similarly divide up my time, though the happiest division for me (since my bread labor more often involves sitting in front of the computer) is one part bread labor, one part arts, one part physical work, and one part feeding our souls through home cooking.  I had lost sight of this happy medium over the last year, and I'm glad to have refound it.

(I admit I'm also thrilled that I managed to pull together some passable drawings of people, which I profess to being unable to draw.  I think I dreamed about that medical researcher last night after tossing so many drafts across the Atlantic Ocean to be perused.)



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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