Happy Anniversary Beloved...

19 years ago today The Gentle Giant married HomemakerAng... Here is to another 50 years!

my last post might have had you thinking we weren't fans of Christmas here...

we aren't a bunch of Scrooges... we have just toned our lives down on the consumerism part
of Christmas...

and want to remember the true reason...

it's all about Jesus!

His birth!

and we at Maple Valley off-grid Farm

want to declare that to the world!

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Did I ever show you?

My vintage bark cloth maple sugaring curtains!!! I will start a tradition of using them for winter only! They are one of my best flea market finds and I only paid a few dollars for them!
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Our off-grid microwave

On the top shelf of our Pioneer Princess wood cook stove warming thanksgiving leftovers ;)
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Some different off-grid lighting options

Our Leacock white fuel lamp really lights up the dining room! We feel "rich" when we pull this out. We usually just use oil lamps :)
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how true... update with a song and don't forget we have "been there done that"

+++ UPDATE: Sorry to spoil the Thanksgiving happiness all around... That is not my perogative... Our daughter said this song must go with the post and I was surprised she thought of the idea! No worries, no scroges here, just not "buyin into it" and yes the punn was intended. We have already been down this road but am happy to report it is becoming a distant memory. SO here is to giving and being more of a conscientious consumer this year... And to making some wonderful or repurposed handmade gifts... I just stated last week on FB, "Continuing our pledge to be a conscientious consumer this year... Homemade, handmade or gently "repurposed" from the farm..."

This photos is soooo appropriate, is it not?

I bet the "holidays" would be less stressful if we could lay all of our spending traditions down. What do you think?

Its a jerky and canning venison kinda night

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An exciting giveaway coming up!

Keep checking back for all the great details!
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So this is where it all began... 1974

My mother and father and I age 3ish... Caption of the Gardening Grows on You Magazine says, "Gene T. Examines his backyard tomatoes (not shown). For a first time effort, the garden yielded a good crop of vegetables. Gene's wife Ann shows some of her canned beans and corn. Their daughter Angela can't seem to keep her eyes off the relishes".

This was taken in our kitchen many years ago. Although I do not remember that day I do remember many of my mother's canned goods on shelves in our basement. I loved the spiced green and red apples best!
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The Children's Great Grand Father, Pete was a butcher...

I think he would be proud...
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It's a caramel apple kinda day!

And keep those wonderful and interesting comments coming below! Thanks for "weighing in"!
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a call for your comments...

“I don’t talk much politics here”. We have our views but choose to keep them quiet here. But one thing I will say is this… No one, yes, NO one held us at gun point and handcuffed and said, “GO OUT and spend over your heads, buy a house you cannot afford and while you are at it a few really nice cars on payments”. No one forced us to buy what we truly did not need. Not the Democrats, not the Republicans and not the Conservatives. We have done this to ourselves, we have over spent. I am not preaching at you, we are very guilty as well. We have been downsizing ourselves (obviously) a few years with the beginning in the winter of 2007-2008. We have learned many hard and tough lessons as well… We obviously do not have it figured out yet. We have goals to continue our simplification and you will see them being accomplished as we write about them. Sometimes the failures too. So with that being said I ask you this:

The question here is for all of you to weigh in on. I think this could be a valuable adult discussion between all of us.

What are you and your family personally doing during the “recession” turning to_________ to be better prepared for what could be coming? What changes have you made or are making? Do you think we have seen the worst of it yet? Do you think "it" is over?

PLEASE share with us? Come out of the dark per se and have this be your first time to comment here. We are truly interested. I wonder what all of you are doing around the globe and how you are feeling “it”…

Until we all are willing to take responsibility for our spending actions, until we are willing to produce a solution to emerge from this and work together, I fear it can only get worse. We need to be responsible and own up to our part in it…

Please share…

The Great Him in action singing well, a great hymn!

age 3 and 1 month

We are pickin' up pace with burnin' wood as the temps are droppin'...

Age 3 and 1 month in action
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A gently used clothing/linen/black tie shoe/board game drive

Hello blog friends,

No worries, this drive is not money out of your pocket but donating your cast-offs and used items!! We will help you clean out your clutter and you can bless a needy family in the process.

We are hoping you may be interested in donating to Maple Valley Farms (*although not tax exempt*) your laundered and gently used clothing in all shapes and sizes and black tie shoes. We are also looking for laundered blankets/sheets/towels and used board games (with all pieces please). The best part: We will pick it all up!

"Where is my stuff going?"

Maple Valley Farms will then be delivering the clothing to needy families in the Kent, Montcalm and Mecosta County areas.

Most of the linens will go to Amish families in a 3 church district range. All black tie shoes will go to the Amish. The board games will go to an Amish school in Mecosta County that has grades 1-8 and a special needs school.

Please email me at Angela@maplevalleyfarms.net with your name, address and phone number for me to schedule a pick up for your donations. I will be picking up after November 30, 2010 - December 15, 2010 but I need you to email me so I can schedule your pick up. We can only pick up boxed/bagged up goods labelled "MV Farms donations". This way you wouldn't have to be available for the pick up (although we would love to thank you in person :) during this busy time of year! You can simply set out your donation in a designated area for a specific date/time pick up.

***Please feel free to forward this email to your own group of friends and then you could possibly be a "drop spot" for our pick up time/date to be better organized, efficient and energy saving/pollution on gas etc.***

Thank you for your consideration and time!

In the spirit of farming, family and Faith,

Angela Kuncaitis and Family
Maple Valley Farms
616-566-8481
www.maplevalleyfarms.net
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our antique manure spreader

Completing its job on our garden! With some help form our 12 year-old son and Jim and Marge of course!

question #3 answered

“How do you and your daughters find it easy to work in skirts and wear them all the time”?
We haven’t always worn skirts. But, in 1996 I started wearing skirts and dresses a lot after the birth of our 2nd daughter. I was always drawn to feminine and more dressy attire. I went to Christian school most of my life and blue jeans weren’t in the dress code so for a good part of my life I “dressed” up. After the birth of our 2nd daughter I would wear a lot of Laura Ashley dresses and have the girls do the same. I no longer pay much matter to wearing skirts and dresses now.

It is a natural choice for us. We do wear leggings for walking at times. The funny part (as seen in a photo below) is we might wear pants around a mosquito filled bonfire, but a skirt to hay in! HA!) It is all what you get used to. Just like it might make one uncomfortable to slip on a skirt as they are not used to it we find it the same for donning pants on jeans.

We are not against pants per se but we feel more feminine when dressed feminine. People really treat you different (in a good way, like a lady) when you wear skirts/dresses.

“Some people ask how do you stay warm in the winter”? We wear wool tights, leggings or a simple pair of wool socks can really warm you up. Again, it is all getting used to something.

If you want to try a challenge, try wearing dresses for 1 week and you will note some interesting facts. I did this years back and it just stuck. People treat you different when you wear dresses.

Note: This in no way means you need to dress dowdy or in the traditional blue jean jumper/white tennis shoe look. God created us to be a temple for Him and there is nothing wrong with being beautiful. There is no glory in being dowdier than one another… And, we are ladies so why not wear skirts any way? :)

another question answered... off-grid beauty treatments...

Some very sweet blogger asked,

"How do you and your girls keep looking so great without all the modern conveniences and expensive skin care"? "I am afraid I will not be able to let go of my expensive department store skin care and my skin is to addicted to the products to look good on its own now"?

That was so kind of you and I am not sure on the look great part however I do know that we are healthier than we have ever been due to being outside so much more with fresh air, eating good and all that jazz. I believe when you experience all of the weather elements without makeup your skin becomes its own beautiful the way it was intended to be. Not stuck in air-con (although it is so nice to have) with makeup on all day.

Note: "Hollywood beautiful skin" and "natural beautiful skin" are two different genres though and we need to throw out the Hollywood mentality if this is going to work for you. I really feel I understand this as the irony of this all is that I used to sell cosmetics at Marshall Fields at the Department store counter :)!!! And look at us now... I too used all that wonderful stuff and grew to love it although horribly expensive... I have done a lot of natural research for skin care etc. and have obviously not exhausted the research yet.

I have a fairly simple system now and I find it best not to wear make-up unless going "out on the town" and for special occasions. I do this for 2 reasons... 1. Is it is much better for your skin and eye lashes and 2. It saves a ton of money to only wear the good and sometimes expensive makeup for special occasions.

My daily skin care regimen consists of washing my face with Burt's Bees Orange Essence Facial Cleanser and follow with a toning on a 100% cotton pad of Dickinson's Witch Hazel.

***I then always follow with a huge slather of this product for day and night time and it is AMAZING... I would never experience all the weather I do as this protects the skin to a point as well. See the date on the post so it doesn't seem as I am coincidentally trying to sell you something :) We actually sell this in our Mercantile. It has Comfrey (for wrinkles) honey and Marshmallow root and more. It is great for wrinkles around the eyes.***

I use Arm and Hammer Baking Soda for an exfoliant now... cheap!!!!

This might surprise you also but I do go out in the sun quite a bit and I feel it is actually healthy to be in the sun without sunscreen more than one would seem fit (although if I do use sunscreen I apply organic coconut oil plain) and good for us. I like to sweat outside in the summer without makeup too. There are many different opinions on this school of thought but I try with everything in my life to go back to the basics whether what it is I eat or feed my family, what I use chemically or how I live and that is seriously, "What did Jesus do in His time"? It makes quite a few things become real simple. And on the other not so simple times I use this when I "go to town..." :)

Now, do a test for a week... Go without makeup and get outside and eat good and see what happens... You may go through a skin detox first but don't stop tryin! It only gets better...

Late purple cabbage harvest 2010

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Some of the garden is still going...

This is the fruit of our labors of July 17, 2010-planting broccoli from seed ready for harvest November 11, 2010!
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1 question answered and a blog about farm implements...

We use a lot of the old antique farm implements you might see as “cast offs” on farmer’s fields, etc. We use them a lot… Horse drawn equipment is getting harder to come by it seems. It is for the most part not being made new any longer. We have been fortuanate to pick up some old-equipment at Amish auctions at a fair price. Some of the equipment is the actual “cast offs” you do see in those fields and then we repair them.

One thing about our lifestyle that has afforded us to live as we do (besides our huge and GRACIOUS Lord having our back) is not having the high fangled farm equipment. Farming with horses takes care of the “equipment overhead” and living without electricity/propane/gas etc. takes care of the “utility overhead” and living for the Lord takes care of everything else. Note to readers: We never said this is easy financially or easy at all. However, our Lord has always provided our needs and we continue to look to Him for guidance and we will always continue to give him the glory for allowing us to live as we do…

This brings us to a question that was asked by a blog reader recently: “How much do you need to live to get by as opposed to having to have it”? Well, that number you want us to say here wouldn’t help because your number and our number are not the same. Without making the answer sound too easy because it truly is not easy but for the sake of a long post on the subject I will state this: Get rid of all extras that you can. We are still working on this.

For example, I would for sure say get rid of ALL car payments, ack!!! It might mean going to 1 car, without a radio and without air con (yuhp that’s us). And in an ideal setting you wouldn’t have a mortgage. We still have a mortgage but it is a goal to get rid of it and a goal to always be reducing it. But just today ironically, the Gentle Giant and I were discussing if we did not have a mortgage our biggest expense still is INSURANCES! Life, Health, Home and Auto! So without a mortgage we would still have insurance costs. And that’s where I would agree with the Amish 150% to not have insurance but we live in an English world and for now that seems to be how it is… I have tons to say on this but I won’t be these posting these remarks on line.

Get rid of all you can that is extra make what you can, and for lack of better words and someone said it much better than I could have ever thought, “Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without”. One more note of advice that could stink: Don’t pay anyone to tell you how to save money!!! THE BEST WAY TO SAVE MONEY is not to pay someone a monthly fee or for their radio program but to STOP SPENDING IT. And for the record, we would be the last ones to give any sound financial advice to anyone. We are doing the best we can do with the Lord’s help and leading. We have made many mistakes…

another visitor write up on a family weekend here...

You can check out all about their visit here

I love seeing different people's take on the farm the Lord has truly blessed us with... Come again soon! You are a precious family and you weren't suppossed to do the dishes!!!

xo

The Matt's

Schooling...

As the weather cools we spend many more hours snuggling in and digging deeper... Not into the soil as in summer but into our studies and into books... Today's topic: The French Revolution with all ages...

Each year I enjoy winter more and more but I already miss the fresh food from the gardens!

What are you up to these days?
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