The City Mouse in the Country

 Rome, the saying goes, was not built in a day.   Home improvement will take longer than the rise and fall of Rome and despite recent emotional issues, simply can not wait.  Plans were put in place months ago, and for a variety of reasons, could not be completed until now.  Our home was built by its original owner and although there is much to be celebrated about it; it was never really updated since its construction in the 1970’s.  We replaced the roof shortly after moving in as well as the outdated wood stove used to heat the home with a much more efficient wood pellet stove. Fast forward a few years and now we are in the process of replacing the older windows and doors with new and more efficient ones, and the stress of having those replaced as well as work in our kitchen and bath going on at the same time has caused me...to become "unsettled." I would never call myself a fastidious person, but I do have my schedule and my own ways of doing things.  I like things to

      I want to talk about making money on a small homestead.   Yes, it can be done.   Now that being said what the hell do I know about about homesteading or making money?     Actually not much about the first, but quite a bit about the second.   My whole life I've been in banking or financial sales of one sort or another.   Making money really isn't that hard, it's just that what is available is either misunderstood (life insurance for example) or somehow hidden away (ask your banker for rates on a No Penalty CD it's like a savings account but with a higher interest rate).      Sometimes it takes research, sometime it takes time to learn a new skill or just someone to point you in the right direction.     So I thought I would throw out a few ideas that I see mentioned time and time again on various Facebook and Reddit pages dedicated to "homesteading."  How do I make money?       What is actually being said is "I have a beginning and I have a end.  It

   Hey everyone!  Did you know that this page now has a companion Facebook page?    It will have articles, memes and such that interest me that relate to this page but don't really apply.  Be sure to check it o ut!        To be honest I expected errors, I expected mistakes, missteps and even the occasional "oops."   This is new to me, and I'm doing things like I've never done before .       This time however I let myself get carried a way a bit and made an error that could have been costly indeed.             Our wood pellet stove needs cleaned out at least once a week.  You can push it a few more days but the ash does build up.   This time we didn't have the air intake for the fire set right and the pellets built up, all the way to the hopper gate.  This concerns me because we have a friend that had the fire in their auger which ended up destroying their stove.   A rarity to be sure, but if their is one thing I've learned in my life...is that the millio

Over the past month we have moved from one part of our lives and into another part.  Nearly everything is where it should be, the work on the house is scheduled and Sue is starting to concentrate on getting her business back up and running.  Our lives are getting back to "Normal" or what ever constitutes that right now.   We are falling into a routine. I like my job with NYL and the fact that they were willing to let me keep it, even though I moved over 1000 miles away from my home office.   Our new house was slowly coming together and growing on me, although I still had some reservations. For example, while the local volunteer fire department was only about five miles away, the nearest hospital was further than that and had a reputation for barely being able to deliver puppies much less any serious issues that either of us my have.   Going to the store was going to be less and less a weekly or biweekly trip like it was before and more of a monthly one time option simply

       I am, first and foremost, a hedonist.  That just means that I want to do what brings me the most pleasure - both physically and mentally - without causing myself pain.  Hedonism gets a bad rap in the modern world because most people think it's all about bodily pleasures without regard to someone's else's feelings.        The truth is that Hedonism is all about moderation.  You can enjoy the "chocolate icing", like Hedonism Bot does, a few times but after awhile it no longer has the same effect.        The ancient Greek thinker Epicurus gave rise to the Hedonism that I follow.  He believed, to quote the Wikipedia entry about him,.that: " For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to help people attain a happy, tranquil life characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain). He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that the

A few days ago, Autumn struck Western Pennsylvania.  The red maples exploded into the blazes of color that they are known for, other trees started to slowly change and the first leaves started to fall. A few days ago, the woods were alive with the sounds of migrating birds, and I wish I had taken out my phone to record the sounds, I found myself thinking of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds.   Although I never had that sense of foreboding or dread, I just wished that I could have seen them and recorded the moment. It was also a morning where I awoke to fog and the sound of small arms fire, which to be completely honest, I mistook as fireworks.  I'm not sure if they were hunting squirrel, which is in season now, or just shooting to practice, but it was a little odd for me.   Susan just chuckled and told me to wait for deer season in November. I am enjoying some parts of country life, other parts...not so much.  Yesterday morning Susan told me that I didn't seem happy living