Alpaca Yarns Branches Out – Voluntary Simplicity and Country Living

My alpaca and knitting blog is evolving in ways I couldn’t have predicted when I started. First it was going to be about our search for an alpaca ranch, setting it up and getting it going. When we couldn’t find land we wanted and I fell in love with knitting again, I decided to make this a knitting blog and I’ve had quite a following of wonderful knitters and I appreciate all my readers very much. I’m still knitted daily but I think to create a really good knitting blog, I’d need to constantly come up with new knitting patterns and info to benefit those who visit here.

My Alpaca Yarns blog is still going to be about knitting but since we finally purchased the land we want to retire on, I will at last have the chance to get back to country living and doing things for myself. When we lived in Southern Oregon, I had a garden, I raised herbs, used my dehydrator often and did many things for myself. Since we’ve moved to the city, there is little room for a garden but there are many ways I can embrace country living right here and refresh my skills for the time when we move to our land.

Years ago, I worked in a country garden store where we sold plants and gardening supplies, feed for animals and many fascinating items. I bought a book back then that I’ve used hundreds of times over the years, called The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. This all-inclusive book teaches you how to raise any kind of country animal from chickens to bees, how to garden and preserve foods, how to live simply, manage your money and so much more. I’d highly recommend this book for all around info on country living. I got this book out recently to refresh myself on the “how tos” of doing things for myself.

This spring, for the first time since we moved here, I planted several tomatoes in pots. My one loan rosemary plant got some company and now I have dill, oregano, basil, mint and thyme and before dinner I can go out and snip some fresh herbs to add to the chicken or veggies. I even found two viney spinach plants which I can keep growing until fall, just snipping off large leaves and using them.

Besides the idea of voluntary simplicity, My husband and I have also started drinking green smoothies daily. I splurged and bought a Vitamix, (if you’re interested in a Vitamix, get free shipping here) which could chop rocks if need be, and each day we begin with a raw fruit and veggie smoothie containing greens we’d probably never ordinarily eat, such as kale, Swiss chard and mustard greens. I made my own raspberry viniagrette in the Vitmamix so we have a fresh, chemical free salad dressing to dress up our dinner salad each night. We also enjoy fresh strawberry sorbet at night instead of ice cream!

Another investment I made was a terrific little recipe book called Raw Energy: 124 Raw Food Recipes for Energy Bars, Smoothies, and Other Snacks to Supercharge Your Body. If you have kids and want healthy snacks they’ll love, this is the book for you! There are all sorts of power snack balls, smoothie recipes, info on how to “bake” with a dehydrator and more.

So, as you can see, Alpaca Yarns is now going to be about more than knitting and alpacas but I hope readers will enjoy and benefit from the country living tips and be inspired to take up voluntary simplicity in their own homes.

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