January 2025| Practical Self Reliance

Catching the spark and feeding it

Earlier this week, I asked y’all what you were hoping to learn in this new year and what fun projects you had on the docket. Your responses were amazing, and there are so many truly amazing things y’all have planned to learn, make, grow, and do in the coming year.

It’s really helped me plan content that matches your interests for the coming year. Sourdough and fermentation of all kinds (cheesemaking, kefir, ginger bug, etc.) were the most popular, along with salting/curing meats and all manner of permaculture and orchard-related topics. I’ve heard you, and you’ll see more of that this coming year.

(If you missed it, that post is here.)

My baby girl’s first lathe turned wood. Just a scrap of firewood, turned smooth and round.

On our homestead in 2025, we’re always finding new projects, and this year will be no different for the adults, but I can see the winds shifting for my littles.

Everyone has their interests, of course. When the littles were younger, the adults would start on a project, and the little ones would watch with rapt attention. Now that my kids are a bit bigger, the interests that have filled my time and my husband's for the past decade are old hat, and just part of the background of life.

I’m pretty sure they have no idea that most people don’t grow their own food, harvest wild plants wherever they go, make their own cheese, and that not every little one runs out each morning to collect the goose eggs.

Those things are normal to them; they are not chores, but they are not hobbies either.

Just life.

At almost 8 and 10, they’re their own people, and who they are is less constrained to a small orbit around my person as I work through the day.

Now, it’s Mama following them around, absorbing some of the wonder in their eyes as they sight a new project or make a new discovery.

It’s the little things they see now that blow their minds and catch their attention, and when we see that spark as parents, we’re doing our best to feed the fire.

A handmade wood bowls at the Farmer’s Market caught my daughter’s eye, and my husband was quick to see it. “You can make those, you know…”

“Really?!?!?”

“Of course! It’s just a log, and then you turn it on a special tool to carve it, the same tool you use to make fancy wood railings.”

“Wait, you can make those too!?!?!”

And now she’s out with her dad, turning wood each evening, and sorting through the firewood pile for just the perfect practice piece. Bowls are a ways off. Lots of practice to get there, but the fire’s lit.

My son was no different when he stepped his bare feet on a soft wool rug, and took a moment to relish in the feeling. “It’s so soft and warm. When I have a room someday, can I have a rug like this?”

Seeing the spark, I said, “You can make one, you know. Then it can be just as you’d like, with your favorite colors and a picture of something that you really love.”

The spark caught, and oddly, living as we do, it didn’t occur to him that you could just buy a bottle of rit dye at the store and color any old fabric and weave it together to make a simple rag rug in an afternoon. End of story.

I could tell him there’s an easier way, of course, but just as important as catching the spark and feeding it, is watching it grow on its own and without smothering it out.

Of course, to him, color must come from nature; where else?

He spent the summer looking at flowers and plants, finding just the right colors for his rug. And petting fleeces at the farmer’s market, for just the right wool.

And here we are this winter, spinning yarn, reading about botanical dying, and getting set up to hook a superhero rug.

Time and time again, there’s that spark, that opportunity to seize on a new passion.

This summer, we walked by a linen processing booth at the fair, right across from a truck selling fried Oreos. Those Oreos have always been there, and they’re so last year, but the sheaves of linen glistening gold in the sun were new, and what on earth could they be doing with all those fun tools!?!?

Seeing her interest, the Green Mountain Linen ladies invited her in, and she spent nearly an hour breaking, scutching, and heckling flax. Ferris wheels and roller coasters are nearby, but who cares? There’s linen to play with!

The spark was so strong that I didn’t have to catch it; she came out of their stand already talking about how we’re going to grow flax next year so she can make her own shirt.

She was ecstatic when she heard they were hosting a beginning linen spinning class later.

So last month, we sat in good company, spinning linen by the fire with many generations of talented women, many of whom looked fondly at my baby girl and said that they found that same spark for the craft at about her age.

Our first batch of hand-spun linen (left) and a ball of fine linen thread (not our work) and processed flax fiber ready for spinning into linen.

Enough times of Mama saying, “You can make it yourself, you know.” And, so it seems, they know without my saying a word. Of course, we can make it!

Yes, it takes time, but everything worth doing does. Buying it means buying someone else’s time, pure and simple.

When you’re young, there is time a plenty, but not much money. There’s time to skip stones on the lake, watch shapes in clouds, and find what drives you.

And I think that’s perhaps one of the best parts about tending littles, getting to see that spark take light for the first time.

So my plan this year is to catch sparks, and see what takes light.

Until next time,

Ashley at Practical Self Reliance