cascadiareigns-blog

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My low maintenance, toxin free shower routine. Baking soda and vinegar rinse once a week, hot water the rest of the week. Salt rock replaces convenational deoderant. I also use 100% aloe veranda to style afterwards. Cheap, healthy, and low waste!

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My first and only time harvesting and dehydrating grapes. They are delicious but took a WEEK in the dehydrator. I'm scared to see my electric bill! ha! I think I will stick with store bought organic grapes from now on. #homesteaderwannabe #dehydrated

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Barter Faire/Okanogan Family Fair

I feel like I am just now able to steal enough time to sit and write. So, Barter Faire!! For those who aren’t quite sure what it is: The Okanogan Family Fair is a gathering that was started by some rural hippie farmers in the 70′s as a way to trade homemade and harvested goods at the end of the growing season. It eventually got so big they bought their own land to have it on and it has turned into a family festival (http://www.okanoganfamilyfaire.net/). It has been something that I have heard whispered in my circle of beautiful feral people for about 6 years now. It is on many people in my community’s must attend list along side Subdued Stringband Jamboree, Meltdown, Folklife, Hempfest, Deming Logshow, Rainbow Family Gathering etc. I have always wanted to attend and I have tried on a few occasions but it never ended up happening. But as some of you may have experience the universe has a way of growing the seeds you plant as intentions, only when you stop forcing and let it be. I felt really stuck in life like I wasn’t moving in the direction I wanted too anymore, and that my ideal life/self was not any closer. This last year I had a lot of frustration, anxiety, and depression about this and it was sort of debilitating. One of my best friends came this summer from her homestead in remote AK, and she told me in one of our talks about how I was feeling, “Why don’t you just start living like you want to? Doing the things you can right now to live like you want?”. It seems obvious, I know. But I think I just needed to hear it from someone I loved. I felt something shift in me, and I began creating and haven’t stopped since. I learned to can and bake this summer, have been crocheting, preserving foods left and right. It has felt so good! I never had any intention of attending barter fair this year. I was crafting with the intention of attending the quarterly handmade/homegrown barter event in Bellingham (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1332234776791417/). Which is another barter event I have been wanting to go to for a very long time. People kept asking me if I was planning on going to THE barter fair and I kept saying no. Then it hit me... Why the hell not!? So with a couple weeks notice I got the time off work ( I work weekends) and I crafted and canned and baked my little heart out. We should have left Friday after K got off work, but we left Sat morning. I woke up at 5am to make breakfast sandwiches and pack up Bitchin’ Minni ( our beast of a minivan). K always likes to tell me I over pack, but I AM ON POINT. We used everything I packed and it was comfortable. He went to pick up one of our besties M, while I packed.We went over highway 20 and got to Tonasket, WA in a mere 6.5 hrs ( The gps quoted us 4...!?!?). We didn’t get the address of the actual gathering so we got to Tonasket and asked people at a gas station. They said, “7/8 miles west on 20″. So there we went. K HATES to go anywhere without a set address or directions, and I am of the “let the universe guide us” foo foo. So he immediately started worrying and getting antsy. SInce he was our generous driver I told him to drive as long as he felt comfortable, then turn around to go back to town to find more concrete information. At the point where I was about to strangle him and he said ok Im turning around he turned left to do so and THERE IT WAS. We turned right up the road to the fair. Divine guidance ya’ll ;) We got there and realized it was COLD. I had packed in anticipation of this, and all the snow we saw on the way told us it was coming. But jeez it was cold. We got there and layered the F up. It was already 11am so after exploring a bit we realized we needed to find a family friendly place to camp and K realized he needed to do his run. So he did that and M and I and the kids went to find a good spot and we did. Another divine gift. We found a very large spot right next to “town” and our neighbors told us that a lady had been chasing people away from it all day, but we figured we would set up anyway and talk to her if she came to shoo us. We got enough room to have the van, two tents, our trading table, our fire pit, and chairs. Perfect :) The lady did end up showing just to tell us she had been saving that spot for her friends RV but their friend just canceled when we showed up. She had saved it for us with out even knowing it! This lady and I did multiple trades and it turns out she knew many mutual friends of ours. Our other camp neighbors ended up being folks who live on the same community property as our good friend in Bellingham, and we actually spent Halloween with them. All in all in was a really amazing experience.It was something that I had wanted in my life for a long time. I really believe that incorporating handmade goods and barter into my life can help make a difference. I going to get a little real here so feel free to bow out if you don’t like anti-establishment sentiments or curse words. Why barter? Because fuck the man. Fuck taxes. Fuck consumerism. I want to have less stuff of more quality. I want to trade and say fuck money and fuck capitalism. And when I do give away my money I want to give it to real people, not throw it into the economic abyss and hope some pennies trickle down to my neighbors. I want to drink illegal milk and eat illegal eggs and sell illegal food because fuck the FDA. I want to build community and love people because fuck isolating technology. I want to build a world that I dream up for my kids and their friends, because fuck the oppressive system and culture that keeps us from it. Whew okay I’m done. But really, The Man eats money. Stop giving The Man your money. If you want to make a little bit of a difference you don’t have to light up a J and slap an ANTIFA patch on. I know so many regular joes joining the barter movement because IT FEELS GOOD. Put energy into your craft and put it out there, take the baby steps every day to build your dream life, think about how your actions and your consumption effect others and our environment.

Thanks for letting me share with you,

Cascadia

PS  I keep trying to insert pictures with my words but I can’t figure out how the heck to do it. You can see what pictures I took if you follow me on Facebook. 

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5 seed for the beezy

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Cumin rolls

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Are you sick of craft pictures yet?

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Who's''s your mama?? Italian herb rolls. #domesticAF #barternotbuy #barterfaire #homesteaderwannabe

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Homemade Apple Juice. Step 6 or so. Once your cans and juice are hot, pour juice into jars. Use a town and dry the rim of the jars. put on lids and rings, you don't need them super tight. place in boiling hot bath canner for 10min. remove and let cool upright until they pop. WALA!! Shelf stable organic juice. One batch I added a couple cinnimon sticks, some cloves, nutmeg, and allspicr and simmered for 30min before canning. Cider! Add some cinnamon whiskey and you have a fall drink.One crate of apples turned into 2qts and one pint of juice. When would this be worth all of the work? When you have access to free apples and already have the supple on hand, which you can get for free or cheap. The trade off for doing these things yourself is you free from needing money.

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Homemade Apple Juice. Step 5? I lost count already. Filter the juice. I have used brand new flat diapers because they are tighter knit than cheese cloth, but this time I repurposed an old cotton tshirt and it worked much better. After its filtered, heat it to near boiling. This is the time to turn on the oven to 200 for your jars. ALSO around step 4 you should have started your hot bath canner. #homesteaderwannabe #canning #frugal

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Homecanned Apple Juice. Step 2: wash your cans in hot soapy water. Place in the oven with new lids and rings. Hold off on turning it on. I sterilize in dry heat, and it geta the jars hot in prep for being filled with the hot juice #homesteaderwannabe #frugal #canning

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Home canned apple juice. Step 1: get a shit ton of apples. My last batch I went and picked someone's tree (w permission). This batch I got 30$ from the farmers market for free and bought a case of gala apples for 20$. Get your jars! I have pints and quart's I got for free on my local Buy Nothing group. #homesteaderwannabe #frugal #canning

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tye dye pepper from my indoor plant

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CPR renewal for the win! only two more little steps until I turn in my nursing school application! I'm glad Nikki wad there to keep me company :)

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baby fox #crochet

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Let it fall #lovesbigbrother #fall #6.5months #changingtides

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Homemade cotton washcloths for November's barter. #barternotbuy #crochet #fallcolors

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Good Grief

I love this time of the year very deeply, it makes me feel at home.I love wool socks, and tea, and layered clothes. I love the grey and the rain and the chill.The slowing. There is a lot more to autumn than the cozy things. As I’ve grown older it has come to represent to me what it does for the tree’s and critter’s, which is an end of things, a letting go of things, and a dying. In the last few years I have had some huge to me losses that occurred this time of year and I want to share them with you. First was the tragic loss of our family house and home. No it didn’t burn down or anything but because of poor health, outrageous insurance costs, and a system that forces our elderly into poverty we had to sell it to so my papa could have healthcare. It was a beautiful home that my papa had built for us and I will likely never be able to afford anything like it in my home town which has sold its soul to the tourists. This has hit me so hard because ever since I was a little girl I had dreamed about fixing this place up and raising my family there. Once we sold the house at the end of summer my papa got sicker and sicker that fall and eventually passed. We all knew that he would once he left his home, but he had been sick and in pain for years. My papa was my main man, he and my nana raised me and my sister since we were little. I loved his ornery old ass more than I can even grasp. But it was a fine death. He had hospice care in the last few weeks and I got to stay and be his caregiver and help him on his journey. I found comfort in the situation by surrounding him with flowers and pictures of his family, by lighting incense and bathing him with herb water. I rub his arms and legs with oil. I held his hand. I left my infant overnight so I could sleep over when he was scared. It was so hard but I knew somewhere deep inside that death is not only scary, unknown, intense, and sad. But it is beautiful, sacred, and only sad because of immense love and gratitude. So the following autumn’s, this one included I feel the loss in my bones.Loss of summer, loss of selves, loss of friends, loss of love dynamics. New losses are constantly presenting themselves and it feels like life saves the largest ones for fall. I am grieving today, over new losses and old. Its hard, and immensely sad, and scary. But its good, Its real, and I am so thankful that I had the beautiful things in the first place that warrant mourning. Could you imagine a life where nothing ever ended or changed?