How to decrystallize honey the right way: do this, not that!
If you’ve ever bought honey in bulk, you know that it gets very thick and crystallized after a while. Usually this takes several months, but honey can thicken up extra quickly in the wintertime (or if your house is chilly). Honey still tastes just fine in this state, but it can be difficult to measure–and it sure doesn’t drizzle nicely over a hot biscuit!
The question is, how do you get your honey from this thick, crystallized, nearly solid mass into the runny, pourable liquid it once was?
The process is pretty straightforward, but there are one or two things you should know to avoid:
First, do not try to heat honey by any method when it is stored in a plastic container. The plastic will soften and leach chemicals into your honey!
Do not microwave honey, especially raw honey. Microwaves heat food unevenly, and parts of the honey are likely to get too hot and scorch in the microwave, which destroys nutrients and flavor.
Do not boil honey. Again, this destroys nutrients, especially in raw honey. Antioxidants and enzymes in honey are destroyed at temperatures higher than 110 degrees F.
Keeping these in mind, let’s look at the best ways to reliquefy honey.
The Best Way to Decrystallize Honey
According to Asheville Bee Charmer, the correct way to decrystallize raw honey is by low, constant, indirect heat. They suggest heating a pot of water to 95-110 degrees F, setting a glass jar of crystallized honey in a large bowl, and pouring the hot water into the bowl, to a depth higher than the level of the honey but lower than the top of the honey jar. Let the honey jar sit in the warm water for as long as it takes to reliquefy, stirring occasionally. This might take about an hour.
The Quick Way to Decrystallize Honey
Another acceptable way to reliquefy your honey is to bring a small pot of water to a simmer, remove it from the heat, and set your honey jar directly into the pot. The water in the pot will be higher than 110 degrees at first, but the honey itself is unlikely to reach that temperature before the water cools. Stirring occasionally helps the honey to melt evenly, and decreases the risk of any particular part of the honey getting too hot.
The Easiest Way to Decrystallize Honey
If you’re trying to cook supper and don’t have time (or space on your stovetop) to heat a pot of water, there is another way to get your honey runny. Simply set your honey jar (not a plastic jar, remember!) near a hot burner. The burner provides enough indirect heat to reliquefy honey.
If you decide to use this method, BE CAREFUL! Do NOT set a jar of honey directly onto a hot stove! You could shatter the jar and cause a fire. Remember, you want indirect heat to warm your honey. Also, since you are not controlling the temperature of the hot air around the honey jar, it is important to stir your honey frequently–and use a hot pad or oven mitt to pick up the jar. It might get hot quicker than you think it will!
A Few More Tips
You might be wondering if there is a way to prevent honey from crystallizing in the first place. The answer: not really, unless you buy it in small quantities and use it up within a few months. All honey will eventually crystallize, but you will find that some types stay runny for longer periods. This is because honey is composed of glucose, fructose, enzymes, antioxidants, and pollen: and the concentration of each varies based on where the honey comes from and the type of flowers used.
Still, you can keep your honey nice and runny for a longer period if you store it in a warm place. It shouldn’t be kept hot, but if you tend to store honey in a cool cellar, it will crystallize faster. If you buy honey in bulk, try keeping a small jar of honey in a cabinet or shelf near your oven, and the rest in a pantry or cellar.
Finally, you don’t want to heat honey over and over again, as this depletes flavor and possibly nutrients. Rather than trying to reliquefy your twelve-pound bucket of honey all at once, it’s better to scoop some into a pint or quart jar, and heat that instead. Not only will you save time heating a smaller amount of honey, but there is less risk of the honey crystallizing again before you use it all up!
There you have it: three methods to decrystallize your honey. I hope you find them helpful! Remember to never, ever heat honey in plastic! Always transfer it to a glass or heat-proof ceramic jar before heating. Even leaving a plastic jar of honey too close to the stove can result in damaged, melted plastic (as happened to my poor jar of honey in the photo). It might sound like a long process to melt your honey with warm water or indirect heat, but this is the best and safest way to restore honey to its original form without destroying enzymes and antioxidants.
Got leftover oatmeal? Not for long! This recipe transforms your boring leftovers into a satisfying and savory snack in about an hour!
Question: How do you use up leftover oatmeal?
Answer: You could just reheat it with milk, but it’s really not the same. Or you could make it into muffins, but I am not a fan of the texture. You could even serve it cold to children of strange taste (like one of my sons) who prefer it that way.
Or you could make these easy crackers, and no one will even guess they’re eating leftover oatmeal!
A Cracker’s Tale
I grew up eating oatmeal crackers that my mother made, but I have to admit, I never really appreciated them. They looked and tasted like oatmeal, and I just didn’t care for oatmeal that much. I guess I like more flavors in a cracker.
Since then, I have experimented with different cracker and crispbread recipes, since they are convenient for packing along on adventures, yet I don’t want the preservatives or the price tag of store-bought crackers.
Some recipes just didn’t work out well or my family didn’t like them; others took too much effort for a small batch that disappeared in minutes.
I was hoping for a cracker that would be hearty and filling, so my kids wouldn’t finish off the batch by the end of lunchtime. I wanted more flavor than plain oatmeal crackers, and I wanted to get some healthy seeds into my family’s diet. Most of all, I was looking for a recipe that was quick and easy and didn’t dirty too many dishes!
This recipe is the best result we have had from all the cracker trials!
These crackers are oatmeal-based, with added whole wheat flour to make them more of a “normal” cracker texture. I add a little honey, salt, and herbs for flavor, and lots of seeds to add interest and crunch! Even my 18 month-old loves these crackers!
They are hearty–more like waybread than Wheat Thins–so the entire batch isn’t likely to disappear in ten minutes. (You may have to warn children with big eyes and small stomachs to eat just a few, or they might get a tummy ache!)
A Note for the Faint of Stomach
However, people who are sensitive to raw or lightly cooked oats should be able to digest these just fine, since the oatmeal is cooked thoroughly before even being made into crackers. If you are very sensitive, try soaking your raw oats overnight before cooking them.
Crispy, crunchy, salty, satisfying; these crackers have it all!
Method
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the oatmeal, flour, salt, honey, and melted butter if desired. I include butter for flavor, but you can certainly leave it out for a dairy-free option.
Types of Oatmeal
I used rolled oats cooked in water for my crackers, but you can certainly use quick oats or even instant oats in a pinch. That being said, your leftover oatmeal might well be firmer or looser than mine. If the dough seems too stiff to stir, add a tablespoon or two of water. If it seems too thin, add a little more flour. This recipe does not need exact measurements!
Stir in the pepitas, sesame seeds, flax seeds, and poppy seeds. Of course, you can substitute your favorites as well! Some people like to sprinkle the seeds on top of the crackers before baking, but I like to mix them in so they won’t fall off later in the cracker jar!
Generously butter a large rimmed baking sheet. Mine is 15 x 10 inches. You could use parchment paper instead of butter if you prefer. After peeling parchment paper off the bottoms of too many crackers, I have decided to use butter instead!
Plop the cracker dough on the baking sheet. Roll the dough to the edges of the pan, pressing it into the corners with your hands if necessary. Try to get an even thickness throughout, so the crackers cook evenly. If the dough is too sticky to roll, simply sprinkle a bit of extra flour on the dough before rolling.
Sprinkle about half a teaspoon of sea salt or herb salt over the crackers, if you like. To make your own herb salt, just crush a pinch of dried herbs and mix them with half a teaspoon of sea salt. Rosemary is particularly nice in these crackers, but feel free to use your imagination!
Bake the crackers for 15 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and use a sharp knife or pizza cutter to score the dough into squares or rectangles or whatever shape you wish. I cut mine into 2″ squares.
Scoring the dough part way through baking ensures a smooth cut.
Return the crackers to the oven and bake for another 40-50 minutes, until the edges are beginning to brown and the crackers are crisp. They will crisp up a little more as they cool, but do not remove them from the oven if they are still soft. You can always turn off your oven and leave the pan in for 5-10 minutes longer if you aren’t sure whether or not they are quite done.
Cool the crackers completely, then store in an airtight container at room temperature. These crackers will keep for at least a week… if they last that long. They also freeze well!
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Mix together the oatmeal, flour, salt, honey, and melted butter in a large mixing bowl. Add the seeds and stir well to combine.
Generously butter a large rimmed baking sheet. Roll the dough out on the sheet, or spread it out with your hands. Sprinkle a little additional flour on the dough if it is too sticky to roll.
Sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon herb salt or sea salt over crackers, if desired.
Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and score with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. Return to the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes, until lightly browned and crisp.
Notes
To make your own herb salt, finely crush a pinch of dried herbs. Mix in 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt. You can use whichever herbs you like best. Rosemary is particularly nice in these crackers!
Is your life not exactly what you envisioned when you began this homemaking endeavor? Did you begin with enthusiasm, only to lose your zest after a time? Have you fallen into some bad habits which hinder your efforts rather than helping them?
Maybe it’s time to review your habits of homemaking, and form some new good habits to replace those which really aren’t useful. Think of it as a ‘spring cleaning’ for your homemaking routine!
The perfect time for a reset
This time of year always gets to me. Early spring, when the weather is fickle, can be frustrating. Perhaps it reminds me of my own nature: one moment sunny and smiling, but the next grumpy and overcast because of some small mishap that I allowed to cloud my day. Whatever the cause, I feel restless and unsatisfied with myself this time of year. I can see all too clearly the bad habits that have crept in during the long winter, and I wish I could just jerk myself up and out of them.
But, of course, new habits are not formed in a day, and old ones are hard to break, so I usually just continue in my habitual ruts.
I also find myself comparing my own situation in life to others, and finding my own lot rather less exciting or inspiring or lovely than I would wish.
Now we all know that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, but it might be worthwhile to remember the ideals we once had, and compare those to our current lives. Not to make ourselves miserable, but to give us fresh inspiration to begin again and work toward our goals. Of course, we might find that some of our old ideals no longer apply to our current lives; and that’s fine. If you find that is the case for you, it is the perfect time to take stock of where you are in life and where you hope to be. Even if your old goals still apply, perhaps you will decide to add a few new ones based on changes in yourself or your life.
Remembering why you began
Each of us must choose her own goals, but here are two examples:
Perhaps you began homemaking as a starry-eyed newlywed, excited to learn all the domestic arts, all at once! By and by, frustrated by many failed attempts at new skills and the extra demands of a baby or two, you find yourself going the rounds of your daily life with half-hearted efforts and mediocre results. You are no longer on fire with passion for motherhood or homemaking, and you don’t like the life you are leading or the person you are becoming.
Or maybe your life was your career for many years, and transitioning to a homemaker’s role wasn’t all sunbeams and roses. Perhaps you have caught yourself wishing for your old job, where people actually listened to you and took you seriously. You probably had some pretty idea of what a homemaker’s life would be like, but now you feel disillusioned and somewhat cheated.
If you can identify with any of these illustrations, I encourage you to find some quiet time and think seriously about what you want in life, what is best for you and your family, and how to get there.
Discerning what needs to change
When you experience a feeling of restlessness or frustration, it is natural to desire to change something in order to relieve that stress and feel happy again. But what exactly needs to change? The answer will vary for each of us; there is no one-size-fits-all solution here.
How do we discern what we need to change? In order to move from a vague feeling of frustration to a diagnosis of the particular problem and an action plan to improve it, we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.
This should go without saying, but when you do ask these questions, be completely honest in your answers. This isn’t a test, and it isn’t about what looks good to others. It’s about finding which areas in your life need improvement, and honesty is essential, even if it is painful to think about your own failings.
Here are some discernment questions to get you started:
Am I at peace in life? If not, is the unrest in my relationship with God, with myself, or with other people?
Spiritual
The problem might be spiritual if you think you have no time to pray, or if you merely go through the motions of your habitual prayers and devotions, or if you find yourself wondering whether any of this “religious stuff” really matters anyway. If this description fits you, consider blocking out half an hour every day to read Scripture, pray, or just dwell in the present moment with a spirit of gratitude. Quality time is the key to developing any relationship, and this is no exception.
Personal
Are you at peace with yourself? You might not be if you are frustrated by bad habits cropping up such as sleeping in, wasting time on media (social or not), leaving the house messy, feeling sorry for yourself, or half-hearted efforts at doing your duty. These types of faults are what may be called character flaws: laziness, lack of attention, and selfishness or self-centeredness can crop up under many different guises. Fixing them usually requires cultivating the opposite virtue: diligence, attention, and charity or love would be the opposite virtues for the examples above.
Relational
Finally, the problem might lie in your relationships with others if you find yourself gossiping, arguing or yelling at family members frequently, or comparing yourself to others and wishing for what someone else has. All of these habits may be mended by making a firm effort to see every person we meet as an amazing and unrepeatable creation, worthy of our respect and love. C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his most famous essays:
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals we joke with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously–no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner–no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.
The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis
This passage is worth thinking over slowly, as it exposes as fallacies several ideas that our society takes for granted. These days, tolerance is touted as the greatest virtue, while human dignity is trampled underfoot. Lewis turns the picture right side up and shows us the relation between persons and civilizations from an eternal perspective. Have we also slipped into habits of thinking and acting as if they were true?
The will and habit
The remedy for any of these faults lies in your will. However, it is not enough to decide that you will never act this way again. Once a habit is formed, whether it is a bad one or good, it leaves a track in the brain. Just as it is easier to follow a path through a field or wood than to cut cross-country, so it is easier for your brain to run in the tracks laid down by habit.
Don’t be surprised if very soon after you make a decision to stop a bad habit, you slip into it again without thinking. This is the nature of habit, of course. It is like an “autopilot” setting on your brain which lets you carry out many actions, and even thoughts and feelings, without thinking.
Obviously this can be very helpful in the case of good habits, but it makes bad habits that much harder to break. For in order to break a bad habit, you will have to be very watchful. You will have to think about what you are doing more than you normally do, so that you can stop yourself from slipping into the bad habit unintentionally.
How can this be done? One way is to think of a good habit to replace the contrary bad habit you are trying to erase. Next, think of the situations where you are likely to slip into the bad habit. Then make a plan for what to do in those situations instead of the thing you normally do, which you are now trying to avoid.
An Illustration
Consider the example of a mother who is trying to stop wasting so much time on her phone. She knows that after a stressful day, when the kids are finally asleep, she often pulls out her phone to relax, and before she knows it, an hour or two has slipped by.
To prevent this from happening in the future, she needs to make a plan for when this situation presents itself. She sets out a book and some bath salts next to the chair where she usually relaxes with her phone so that when she collapses into the chair, tired out at the end of the day, she will see these items and remember to go take a bath and read instead of mindlessly scrolling her feed.
Formation of Habits
Numerous studies have established that habits take about two weeks of constant repetition to form, and months to solidify. Habits which are practiced for years without interruption become very hard to break indeed.
After the first few weeks, you will notice that much less effort of mind is required to follow the habit, although you do still have to be vigilant that you do not slip back into the previous habit, which will not be fully erased yet. This is one of the most dangerous points in the formation of a new habit, according to Charlotte Mason. She writes that the critical moment comes when a newly-formed habit has been practiced successfully perhaps twenty times in succession. She uses the example of a boy learning to shut the door after himself:
Some day Johnny is so taken up with some new delight that the habit, not yet fully formed, loses its hold, and he is half-way downstairs before he thinks of the door. Then he does think of it, with a little prick of conscience, strong enough, not to send him back, but to make him pause a moment to see if his mother will call him back. She has noticed the omission, and is saying to herself, ‘Oh, poor little fellow, he has been very good about it this long time; I’ll let him off this once.’ He, outside, fails to hear his mother’s call, says to himself–fatal sentence!–‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ and trots off.
Next time he leaves the door open, but it is not a ‘forget.’ His mother calls him back, in a rather feeble way. His quick ear catches the weakness of her tone, and, without coming back, he cries, ‘Oh, mother, I’m in such a hurry,’ and she says no more, but lets him off. Again he rushes in, leaving the door wide open. ‘Johnny!’–in a warning voice. ‘I’m going out again in just a minute, mother,’ and after ten minutes’ rummaging he does go out, and forgets to shut the door. The mother’s mis-timed easiness has lost for her every foot of the ground she has gained.
Home Education, Charlotte Mason
In this example, the mother was acting as the little boy’s conscience, in order to help his weak child’s will form a good habit. The same kind of dialogue takes place inside our own minds when we are tempted to abandon a young habit. “Oh, just this once won’t hurt.” “I’ve been so good lately, I deserve a break.” “I’m in too much of a hurry today.”
Will it really be a big deal to break your habit once? Perhaps not if it is fully formed; but in the first stages, such a lapse can render all your previous effort bootless.
Steps to form a habit
Whether you need to change something in your relationship with God, yourself, or other people, habits can help you turn your thoughts and change your actions. Here is how to start:
Examine your life and determine which actions or thought patterns you would like to change.
Write them down on one side of a piece of paper.
Opposite each bad habit, write down a good habit which will replace it. If you have a long list, choose just one or two habits to work on at first.
Make a plan by thinking of the situations which trigger the bad habits. Plan how you can intervene in those situations to prevent the bad habit from taking over.
Give yourself a time frame. Pick a date about two weeks away and make a note on your calendar to review your progress in forming a new habit.
Consider asking a friend to be your accountability partner, and check up on your progress. This is especially helpful if you are trying to correct a fault like gossiping, which is more of a problem in a group setting.
Try to be perfectly consistent in practicing your new habit. Do not consciously allow yourself to return to the bad habit, even in times of stress. If it should happen accidentally, though, don’t berate yourself unduly. Just resolve firmly to begin again. It may help to keep a record for the first few weeks of how many times you have succeeded in keeping the new habit, and how many times you reverted to the old habit.
I will end with Charlotte Mason’s encouragement to mothers who are overwhelmed by the number of habits they think they need to cultivate in their children. She reminds them to focus on one habit at a time, and remember that “the formation of habit itself becomes habit;” that is, once you have trained yourself or your child in a new habit, the process of forming a habit gets easier. It is easier to form the second habit than the first, simply because you have more practice in forming habits. Even if we find a long list of areas we need to improve, let’s flex our habit-forming muscles and dive in!
In 21st century Western cultures, life for the average citizen is more convenient than at any previous point in history. There are exceptions for the very wealthy and powerful, but your average Joe and Mary have never before had so many options to choose from, or so many conveniences at their fingertips.
Transportation is faster and more accessible than ever. Buying an airline ticket is in many cases less expensive than driving long distances, these days. Supermarkets are overflowing with new and exciting food products: pumpkin spice-flavored buttery spread, anyone? You can shop for just about anything online from the comfort of your recliner, with a laptop or your smart phone. And don’t forget digital workspaces which let you attend meetings and upload reports from home–or Hawaii.
But do we ever stop to ask ourselves what the cost is of all this convenience? Of course there is the dollar amount: the percentage of our paychecks that we spend on dishwashers, robotic vacuum cleaners, and takeout boxes. But there are other costs as well, and they need to be counted.
The Health Costs of Convenience
What is the cost to our health of sitting at a desk in a cubicle all day, staring at a screen and typing away, but barely moving the rest of our bodies? What do prepackaged and prepared food products, or fast food from restaurants, do to our bodies?
Numerous recent studies have shown alarming trends in rising cases of early-onset cancers, particularly those related to diet. Processed food products, food dyes, pesticides, and artificial hormones have been linked to cancers, allergies, developmental disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and autoimmune syndromes.
Perhaps you have heard about these food-related health problems, but dismissed them as no big deal. After all, if you have been eating Cheerios for the last 35 years, how bad can they be? And aren’t most of these problems supposed to be genetic anyway?
As it happens, hereditary genetics accounts for a surprisingly small percentage of the abovementioned disorders: 5-10% of chronic conditions, on average. Epigenetic changes can account for a much higher percentage. What are these? Epigenetic changes describe the ways your genes are expressed. This is something that happens during your day-to-day life, because of choices you make: what you put into your body as food and medicine, what you do with your body in terms of exercise and activity, how you deal with stress, etc. In other words, epigenetic changes are directly related to your diet and lifestyle.
Our children have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, for the first time since 1915-1918 (when millions died during WWI and the Spanish Flu pandemic). Life expectancy in the United States dropped in 2015, 2016, and 2017. It increased slightly in 2018, but the average life expectancy has consistently stayed below the 2014 peak.
Our children are increasingly being diagnosed with chronic medical conditions. According to the CDC:
1 in 5 children are obese
1 in 8 children have asthma
1 in 13 children have a food allergy
1 in 6 children have a mental health disorder
1 in 44 children have autism
Type 2 Diabetes is rampant in U.S. adults, as is obesity. More young people are becoming obese, too: according to the CDC, in 2020 approximately 20% of children ages 2-19 were obese. The average American cannot even complete one chin-up, according to one study. Americans are fat and out of shape, and getting sicker by the day.
A Convenient Day in the 21st Century
Here is an example of a typical day for many people: Jessica wakes to the sound of an alarm on her phone. She showers and dresses while her electric coffee machine hisses and steams, then grabs a bagel for breakfast or zaps a frozen pastry in the microwave on her way out the door.
She lives only five miles from her workplace, but the morning commute takes her 40 minutes in rush hour traffic. Jessica arrives at her office building, frazzled and frustrated, and purchases another cup of coffee in the lobby before ascending the elevator to her cubicle on the fourth floor.
For the next eight and a half hours, she sits at her desk in front of a computer, typing and making phone calls. At lunch time, she descends the elevator to the lobby, buys a sugary yogurt parfait and some juice from the coffee shop, and returns to her desk to eat while scanning emails on her cell phone. After the workday is over, Jessica returns to her car to sit in traffic for another 40 minutes.
When she arrives back at home, she is too tired to cook supper, so she microwaves a frozen meal replacement instead and opens a bag of chips. Jessica eats alone, in front of the television or while looking at her phone. She spends the evening changing channels, shopping online, and texting her friends before retiring to bed late.
It might be easy to pinpoint the parts of Jessica’s day which are physically taking their toll on her digestion, physical fitness, and overall health. But perhaps even more importantly than these, what is the psychological cost of such an existence?
Can Jessica be really happy living like this? She is among many people every day, yet simultaneously isolated. She chats with “friends” on social media or over text messaging, but does not talk to anyone in person who is very important to her. Her meals are solitary and rushed; it doesn’t seem to matter what she eats or when.
The combined stresses of city traffic, pressures at work, and loneliness, along with a poor diet and physical inactivity, are pushing Jessica closer to anxiety, depression, and a host of other physical and psychological problems.
If you asked Jessica, she might say she is happy: after all, she has a good job and a stable paycheck. She has money to spend on clothes and entertainment. She has fun on the weekends with her friends. She even gets two weeks of paid vacation every year.
But in gaining all this, what has she lost?
A dearth of happiness
Polls show that young adults today are not satisfied with their jobs (31% of adults 18-34 years old in 2022, according to Zippia), or their personal relationships, or their bodies (Barnett et al, 2020). They do not approve of the government, or law enforcement (Pew Research, 2020), or traditional morals (Barna, 2018). They take offence very easily, and verbally excoriate anyone they disagree with on social media. Depression and suicide rates are at an all-time high among young people (Suicide Prevention Resource Center). They are not happy.
On a different note, I have been reading Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, to my children recently. Comparing the Wilders’ life in the New York countryside to the example of Jessica above, or even my own life, shows some pretty marked differences.
Before Modern Conveniences
The Wilders were farmers. They lived 5 miles from the nearest town, and the children walked a mile and a half to school. They had chores to do in the morning and evening, too: and not just making their beds and tidying their rooms. The girls helped with the housework while Almanzo and his brother milked the cows, fed horses, and mucked stalls.
Their father took care of all the animals: horses, cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens. He raised colts and calves, and kept the house and barns in good repair. He carved the yokes for his oxen and made whips and harnesses. He even made his own shingles.
Almanzo’s mother did the cooking and baking, kept the house clean, and made the family’s clothing. She carded wool from their sheep, spun it, dyed it, and wove it into cloth on her loom before sewing it into sturdy and handsome garments.
My favorite part of the book is the description of the food from Almanzo’s perspective. “It takes a lot of food to feed a growing boy,” his mother remarks; and indeed it does! They all eat lots of good, wholesome food: oatmeal, pancakes and sausages make a good breakfast, and the children’s lunch pail might hold bread and butter and sausage, doughnuts and apples, and an apple turnover apiece.
For dinner one wintery night, Almanzo enjoyed fried ham, baked beans, boiled potatoes with gravy, bread and butter, mashed turnips, stewed pumpkin, plum preserves, strawberry jam, grape jelly, spiced watermelon rind pickles, and pumpkin pie.
Mrs. Wilder did a lot of cooking, baking, canning and preserving to keep her family well fed. A peek inside her pantry showed that “The shelves on both sides were loaded with good things to eat. Big yellow cheeses were stacked there, and large brown cakes of maple sugar, and there were crusty loaves of fresh-baked bread, and four large cakes, and one whole shelf full of pies” (p. 24). She was not an idle housewife!
A Happy Life of Hard Work
The Wilder family’s days were full of hard work, but it was good and worthwhile work, and they still had time for leisure on dark evenings before the fire, after the chores were done. They popped popcorn and roasted apples, read books, carved or knitted or worked on some other handicraft. Bedtime was 9:00, and they rose before 5 in the morning.
There is no question that they worked harder than I do. They didn’t have electricity for lights or refrigerators. They couldn’t bake bread or fry an egg without making a fire in their wood cookstove. Saturday night baths involved heating water on the stove, pouring it into a big tub, and washing with homemade soap, before donning nightclothes and pulling the covers up in a bed that was mighty cold in the winter.
And that doesn’t even begin to approach the more recent conveniences of cars, supermarkets, personal espresso machines, smart phones, and Amazon Prime. But I don’t think the Wilders would have had much use for those.
Does too much convenience make people unhappy?
We don’t have any scientific studies to confirm or deny this hypothesis. But the rising dissatisfaction and depression among young people today indicates that something is certainly amiss in our society. I’m sure the problem has more than one cause: broken families, short-term relationships instead of a marriage commitment, and lack of an accepted moral code may all play a part. But it would be a mistake to ignore the surfeit of conveniences when investigating this dilemma.
I think it’s a common assumption that more conveniences = increased quality of life = greater happiness.
I disagree with that reasoning. I think that too many conveniences take the zest out of life. They take what was once a challenging yet rewarding task and either eliminate it completely or mechanize it to the point of boring automation.
Are Modern Conveniences Worth the Cost?
I don’t think the cost of convenience is always worth the result. I would much rather roll up my sleeves and wash a sink full of dishes by hand than load and unload a dishwasher every day. I would rather hang cloth diapers on a clothesline than fill up a garbage bin with disposable plastic diapers every week. I enjoy lighting fires in the woodstove to heat our cabin during the winter. (Okay, maybe it’s more like eight months out of the year.)
There are some inconveniences I don’t particularly look forward to, but I can still see their value. We have lived in a dry cabin, a wet cabin, a camper, and a 115-year-old house over the past 6 years or so. They have all had their inconveniences.
At the moment, we are living in a “damp” cabin. This means it has a gray water drain from the kitchen sink, which runs outside the cabin. We also have a small indoor water holding tank, a small water heater, and a shower. The water tank can hold 35 gallons of water, which my husband hauls in 5-gallon jugs a few times per week. We also have an outhouse. That is an inconvenience. However, that inconvenience is what allows us to afford to live in a cabin in the woods, rather than an old apartment in the wrong section of town. For us, it is definitely worth it.
Hard Work is Worthwhile
As my husband and I have discussed the merits of living various places over the years, I always come back to the thought that I feel most alive in Alaska. That may sound silly, but this is how I see it:
It takes more effort to live here than it does in, say, Pennsylvania (where he’s from). When the winter temperatures drop to -40, -50, -60 degrees Fahrenheit at times, you must be prepared for it. Your car probably won’t want to start in such temperatures, unless you have installed an oil pan heater, engine block heater, and battery trickle charger that can be plugged into an electrical outlet (with a special cold-weather extension cord).
Even if your car starts, there might be too much snow to get to work–or the grocery store. We have always lived outside of town, and it takes a good 2 or 3 days after a snowstorm before the plow trucks make their way past our cabin. I keep my pantry well stocked, especially in the winter. Snow tires are also a good idea.
Venturing outdoors during the Alaskan winter requires some forethought as well. Hats, mittens, warm coats and boots, snow pants and long underwear are essentials every time you step outside for half the year.
Now, I don’t pretend to say that Alaska is better than Pennsylvania, or any other place in the world. Nor do I choose inconveniences just to prove I can take them. But the more effort something requires, the more of yourself you invest in a task, the more worthwhile it feels to complete. Perhaps living through an Alaskan winter feels more worthwhile because it takes more effort.
Missing out on the Adventure
I know that there are plenty of people who would say that living in Alaska is entirely too inconvenient, because of the things I mentioned. It’s not for everyone, certainly. There is nothing wrong with preferring a less harsh climate!
But I do not wish to eradicate all the inconveniences from my life. A life where you don’t have to work hard for anything sounds impossibly dull and depressing to me. There is value in hard work, and value in overcoming challenges.
Furthermore, once you see the value in something, you don’t even see it as an inconvenience any more. G.K. Chesterton once said that “an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered”, and I entirely agree.
What would have happened if Frodo Baggins had said to Gandalf, “I’m sorry, old chap, but this trip you want me to take just sounds too inconvenient. I’d much rather stay here in my cozy hobbit-hole and smoke my pipe in comfort”?
He would have missed out on an adventure, and more than that: he would have missed his chance to save the world. What do we lose when we dismiss an opportunity as inconvenient? All too often, I think we miss out on adventures and experiences that will make us wiser, nobler, and better men and women.
Growing in Gratitude
Living in an Alaskan cabin is an adventure, and I gladly accept the rougher parts most days. Limited water and plumbing makes me more grateful for water itself, and especially for hot showers, short though they must be!
That brings me to another point: when children are given everything they ask for, they feel entitled to those things. I wish to raise my children to be grateful for the blessings they are given, not entitled to a list of rights. I want to keep a spirit of gratitude in my own heart as well.
How do you practice gratitude? Living without something for a while helps a lot. When our first child was born, we were living in a dry cabin. We hauled our water in 5-gallon jugs and kept one jug next to the sink for cooking and washing. I heated water on the stove to wash the dishes after meals. During the summer, I washed the laundry by hand in a big tub, and dried it on a clothesline outside. We dragged a tub designed as a water trough into the living room for bathing, and hung a camping shower bag from the loft above it. None of that was convenient by modern standards, but it did teach us to be grateful for water!
You don’t have to live primitively in order to practice gratitude, though, effective as it may be. Here are a few more ideas:
How to be more grateful
Sort through your clothes, shoes, books, toys, kitchen gadgets, sports gear, and the like. Keep only what you really need and donate the rest. Having too much stuff tends to stifle gratitude.
Wear items of clothing more days before you wash them to decrease your water and energy use for laundry. Consider hanging clothes to dry instead of always running the dryer.
Don’t buy your children toys whenever they see something they want. Keep gifts for birthdays and Christmas.
Cook a meal from scratch and share it: with a neighbor, coworker, or an elderly gentleman from church. The point isn’t entertaining; it’s gratitude for the fruits of the earth and for fellowship.
Fast for a day. This is wonderfully clarifying for the mind and heart. (Not for pregnant or nursing mothers.)
Abstain from meat, sweets, social media, or the Internet for a weekend. Or longer.
Don’t use your car for a day. Walk, ride a bike, or just stay home.
Is this starting to sound like a list of things Catholics give up for Lent? There’s a reason for that. The three main disciplines of Lent–prayer, fasting, and almsgiving–are oriented toward the goal of detaching the soul from worldly things and raising the mind and heart to God. This also happens to be an excellent method for growing in gratitude.
Making Life Worth Living
By examining the costs of convenience, I do not suggest that all modern conveniences are bad or unhealthy. Far from it. I could not write this article without electricity, the Internet, or a computer. But I do think each one of us should examine our use of these conveniences and try to determine if we could benefit from stepping back from some of them for a time.
If you are beginning to feel that your life is boring or pointless, or if you get anxious or depressed about trifles, those are good indications that letting go of a few modern conveniences might be beneficial.
Even if you are generally satisfied with your life, giving up some conveniences for a short period will help you to be more grateful for things you might otherwise take for granted. And you just might begin to see life as more of an adventure than a daily grind.
For my part, I would rather embrace some inconveniences which are optional these days, so that I have more space in my life for things that matter to me: time with my family, the satisfaction of working with my hands and creating something new from materials in my home. Crawling into bed physically tired out from a long day of work is a feeling I wouldn’t trade for all the convenience in the world. It makes me feel that life is worthwhile.
Hi, I’m Kimberly! I’m an Alaskan wife and mother who loves simple, old-fashioned living. If you’re looking for country-style recipes from scratch or simple homemaking ideas, pour yourself a cup of tea and join me!
Hi, I’m Kimberly! I’m an Alaskan wife and mother who loves simple, old-fashioned living. If you’re looking for country-style recipes from scratch or simple homemaking ideas, pour yourself a cup of tea and join me!