A little bit French is suffering an identity crisis. Over these past months, I’ve changed the sub-head on this blog so many times I’ve lost count. What is this about? Genealogy? Local history? Family farms? Historic preservation? Chickens?

I’ve been thinking this over for a while now, and I have decided that I’ve outgrown A little bit French.

So much in my life has changed since I started this blog last May. I still enjoy sharing my genealogy and local history adventures, but I also need a place dedicated solely to celebrating my progress and admitting my mistakes as I attempt to rebuild this Historic Hoosier Homestead. So, from now on, my farm adventures will move to a new home: www.landlove.wordpress.com. I will continue to blog at A little bit French, but it will strictly be a genealogy blog – what it was meant to be from the beginning. Specifically, it will be about my mother’s family since it is through her Great Grandmother Lillian (Boicourt) Layton that I am a little bit French.

Some of you may have noticed that starting this blog was really just a way for me to cope with a broken heart. For a while, A little bit French gave me a purpose when I felt I no longer had one. The decision to share some of my writing, for the first time in many years, was a big step for me. To everyone who has read, commented, liked, emailed, or subscribed, you cannot know what your gestures of support have meant to me, and how they have helped me to heal. This has been much more than a blog to me. It has been a way to work through my grief and to move on. Thank you for being a part of this difficult journey with me.

And now, onward, to new adventures!

Margaret & Kay Ewing

Lately I’ve been browsing a book called History of Decatur County: It’s People, Industries and Institutions, a 1200-page tome written by Lewis Albert Harding in 1915. Among the township histories, I found a wonderful tidbit about my ancestor:

“Patrick Ewing came from Kentucky in the year 1826, settling on the land adjoining Mr. Douglass. He built a rude log hut, and in the yard there grew a small sprout about the size of a riding whip. He spared it, and it grew to a great tree of four feet in diameter. Under its boughs he reared a family of fifteen children.”

I suspect this family photo shows the "small sprout" spared by Patrick.

The log homestead was torn down and replaced with this three-room house in the early 1900's.

My Great Grandparents updated the house, adding on three bedrooms and a bathroom. This is how it looks today.

Right now there is some discussion about what should be done with the little house that sits on the site of the original Ewing homestead. It has been used as a rental property for many years, and as is typical with rentals, it has been poorly maintained and would require a sizable investment just to make it habitable. The last tenant did a pretty heinous job on it. Fixing it up just enough to make it liveable will bring an easy monthly income, but I am vehemently opposed to the idea because it means there will still be an awkward slum on this otherwise beautiful farm.

There has been some talk of demolishing the house. The first time I walked through it after the last tenant moved out, I was horrified, and actually said the words “Tear it down” as I ran to the door for fresh air. It was an emotional response, though, based on the fact that I couldn’t believe how slovenly a person could be.

But, after I had a few days to calm down, I walked back in there with a bucket of cleaning supplies, a dust mask, and an open mind, and underneath all the dog hair and cigarette ash and carpet soaked with who-knows-what, I found some decent hardwood floors. And under 8 years of dust, grime, and the kind of cobwebs usually reserved for haunted houses, I discovered a little bit of original woodwork.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s no architectural gem. But, as I mentioned (repeatedly) in my last post, I do think it makes more sense to work with what we have than to tear it down and start again.

Ever since I found the story about Patrick Ewing and his little sprout, I’ve seen plenty of potential in the little house. My ancestors started with absolutely nothing, and they carved out a homestead on this piece of land. They weren’t after quick profits; they were building a self-sufficient life here, and they were able to create something with their bare hands that has supported my family for six generations.

That silly-looking house is our little sprout. We can tear it down; we can maintain its sluminess; or we can nurture it and dream it into something better.

My dreamy ideas have been all over the place: an artist’s retreat, a fiber arts workshop, a summer camp for at-risk teens, a home for a local veteran getting started in agriculture through the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. Almost every day, I have some new, overly ambitious brainstorm.

But my favorite idea so far is the simplest and most logical one: to re-purpose the house as a farm store where we can sell the things we grow and make on this land. In the beginning, this would consist of farm-fresh eggs, fruits, veggies, herbs, cut flowers, ornamental plants, and potted succulents, but would hopefully grow to include hand-spun yarn and handcrafted items made of our yarn, and, someday, maybe even apples and cider and maple syrup and homemade soap and ohmygoodness farmstead CHEESE.

We’re not selling baby lamb meat, though, ever, and I don’t care how much money is in that market. My lambs will be my little buddies, and we will not be eating them.

It’s overwhelming at times that this could be my life. A year ago I was spending my days in a series of hospital rooms, hopelessly holding on to an ill-fated relationship with a man too traumatized by life and loss to love. Now I’m living out in the country, reading The Contrary Farmer, teaching myself to build fences and trying to figure out how to transport horse poo from the barn lot over to my garden.

Life is so uncertain. Things can change in a heartbeat. I can’t control my future any more than I can change my past, but I can dare to step optimistically into it. I’m trying to think like Patrick Ewing, who saw in this land an opportunity to grow something beautiful. More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, I’d like to make this place beautiful once again.

The reality of living in the country has not quite set in just yet. I’m still deeply infatuated with the lifestyle, and probably somewhat in denial about what it will be like out here this winter. On Thanksgiving, my dad said something about a generator in case I lose power, and my Grandma mentioned that one winter they did not have water for several weeks. I just nodded and pretended to be really interested in something on tv.

I once lost power for a few days after a wind storm, but in the city it really only amounted to a minor inconvenience, and it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We went to Target and shopped in semi-dark, bought essentials (a bottle of wine and Oreos) and enjoyed the opportunity to see the stars.

Out here, though, in the middle of winter, losing power might prove to be a little more troublesome. But how can I be worried about such things? It’s still warm enough to be comfortable outside without a jacket. It feels nothing like late November. So, instead of stocking my pantry, buying a practical pair of boots, or trading in my little Hyundai for a big old truck, I’ve spent my late fall on more pressing projects. For instance, I drove to Sheep Street three weekends in a row to spin my first two skeins of yarn. I baked my first pumpkin pie. I watched the entire first season of Happy Endings. I read a couple books. I repaired, primed, and painted two rooms and a closet.

BEFORE - Small dormer room used for storage

AFTER - A bright little office. It's a soft green called "Dancing Leaf."

BEFORE - Walls of the bedroom closet after I stripped the wallpaper

AFTER

BEFORE - Bedroom used for storage

AFTER - TV/yoga/reading room

As far as winter goes, I am completely unprepared. But at least I’ll have a tranquil place to practice my yoga when I get snowed in out here.

I don’t want to make anybody jealous or anything, but on Monday night, I spent a couple hours in a combine harvesting corn.

I guess if you grow up on a farm, this is not a big deal, definitely not something worth writing about, but if you didn’t grow up on a farm, and you come home from work one day and a dude offers to let you harvest with him, it’s probably going to be one of your most memorable experiences.

Just to give you an idea of my familiarity with farming equipment, when I was offered this ride, my first question was, “What is a combine?”

This is a combine.

Harvested corn being emptied into a semi for transport.

Even though this land has been in my family for almost 200 years, it has not actually been farmed by my family since the 1950′s. Photos from that era show a lively homestead bustling with cattle, chickens, tractors, and a lone sheep (according to my grandmother, the sheep was a gift from her future father-in-law).

Back in those days, my great grandfather, Louis Ewing, managed a diversified farm that a family could truly live off of. Now, most of the land is rented by a neighboring family, and when I started staying out here this spring, the only thing I could find to eat was a bag of bite-size Milky Ways.

Louis Ewing

Though I am not a farmer myself, I will say this: the homesteader’s lifestyle makes sense to me. I feel like I’ve spent most of my life trying to figure out what it is exactly that I’m supposed to be doing. At the farm, I never have to wonder. For instance, it’s fall, so obviously it’s time to plant garlic bulbs so I can enjoy some amazingly fresh eggplant parmesan and shrimp scampi next year. It’s time to harvest corn and soybeans. It’s time to start leaving a light bulb on for hens so they’ll keep laying through the winter. It’s time for ewes to go into heat. It’s time for my succulents to go into dormancy.

These things make sense to me.

I understand that this way of life would be unbearable to some people. There are those who enjoy living in a city with its noisy entertainment and smog. That’s fine. But there, too, are those of us who just want simplicity, a nice sunset, a porch swing and a good book, and on occasion, an unexpected twilight ride in a combine.

I have not abandoned my blog! I have, however, been living in the country, blissfully Internet-free, for about a month. Unfortunately, the deep heart of late October is upon us, and three straight days of dismal rain, cold, and wind quickly convinced me that the time is nigh to purchase a mobile broadband device.

I have been staying on the family farm, 160 acres of land purchased by my ancestors, Patrick and Lydia Ewing, in 1828. The original log cabin Patrick and Lydia built was torn down long ago. Another house, where my Great Great Grandparents lived, has also been demolished. In 1918, my Great Grandparents, Louie and Irene (Applegate) Ewing, built the bungalow that still stands today. Another small house, built in 1910, is used as a rental property.

I grew up in the suburbs close to Indianapolis, enjoyed my early 20′s in idyllic Bloomington, Indiana, and spent a few unfortunate years in Cincinnati, Ohio. I never expected to live at the farm, and I’m not sure how long this adventure will last. I’m trying not to let myself worry over it. I’ve wasted too much of my life planning meticulously for things that didn’t pan out. But, I am cautiously optimistic that I will be able to complete a few projects while I’m out here.

This fall, I’m doing some work on the second floor of the bungalow. The walls are in bad shape, so they require the time-consuming process of layering skim coats of joint compound before they can be primed and painted. Right now I’m working on a small dormer room that was last painted in the 1950′s.

A more urgent project is the clean-up of the rental house, which was recently vacated by a tenant who left the majority of his belongings behind and apparently did not clean the house once over the eight years he lived there.

Questionable liquids left behind by tenant

Pile of trash left by tenant

I’m also experimenting with growing some new succulents. I’ve had great luck with aloe and jade in the past. I also have a large desert rose that seems healthy, but for some reason I’ve never been able to get it to flower. I recently started some new crassulas, a lace aloe, some echeveria and sempervivium, and several species of haworthia. If I can make these little guys last through a winter in the midwest without a greenhouse, I shall consider myself a succulent master.

This weekend, I’m heading out to Sheep Street for Shepherding 101. I have this vague notion that it would be fun to raise sheep, camelids (alpacas and llamas), and possibly some other fiber animals at the farm if I get to stay for awhile.

So far, life in the country seems to suit me.