The title of the post says it all and yet it does not.. the past two years have been crazy hard on the farm and I have never felt like things have been less on top of. There is a great need for a spring clean up, a sort though and a declutter.
Now if you were to listen to the fads, that would include possable ways of
A) sit with it and feel if it brings you joy
B) Pack it up and if you do not use it in a month get rid of it by gifting, selling or donating
c) Go thought everything and get rid of all the extra’s example, pick your favorite 4 pairs of pants and get rid of the other 10 in the closet.
Now the issue with all of those is clearly these peaple have never run a homestead or a farm.. Lets break down a few of these issues
A) says sit with it and feel if it brings you joy, haha.. I have lot of things on this farm that use weekly, monthly and seasonly and I promise you they do not bring me joy but they are needed and they work hard.
Strange things I do have that bring me joy.. 5 gallon buckets, amazingly thick leather work gloves, my leather cowboy hat with the mess screen on the top, I swear when you learn to love a good bucket on the farm lol..
What brings you joy that is a common everyday item.. o.. your favorite coffee mug? that’s a good one.. I think we all have our favorite mug right?
I could sit with my worming gun for the sheep and it is never going to bring me joy, but its needed that’s for sure. (the ewe above says yup.. its useful but not loved by either of us)
B) Pack it up and if you have not used it in a month, let it go.. haha.. again.. clearly this is advice for someone in a apartment or house.. not a homestead or a farm.. if you got rid of everything in those boxes after a month, you would be spending money hand over fist for the rest of the year replacing a huge amount of it as the seasonal things need to be done. There are many things that only come out at certain times of the year..
I mean my lambing kit only comes out during lambing time.. its in use for maybe 3 weeks of the year pretty much but can you imagine replacing it yearly.
C) Once again I guess this works in a normal way but lets look at cloths, they start out as either a) go to town cloths or b) straight up farm gear. Now most :sunday best” can last you years with good care and while you might freshen it up with different jewelery or sweater or boots etc.. you are not normally replacing sunday best that often.. I mean, we paid big bucks for my hubby’s good suit (around a thousand) but its also last with care 16 years, we might change the shirt for a big event but most of the time, its just a matter of updating the tie if needed.
But sadly average cloths these days do not hold up, I still can buy some things from some company’s that last years but the flood of cheap clothing often means they only look good for a limited amount of time.. so they can move fairly quickly from go to town to farm wear.
Speaking of hard wearing, I have finally after 14 years worn out my knight in white flannel cotton summer gowns and that is one thing I do plan on ordering in a few more for my extreme hot summer garden working times. I adore their sleeveless gown, wears and washed like a dream.
My two big heavy winter gowns are still going strong, one is now 18 years old and one is 12 or 13 years.. I am giving thought to picking up one or two pj at some point
So that swings me back to my own plan to declutter.. the goal is to go thought the house, yard, farm, barns and sheds with a goal of 365 items to be, donated, gifted, reused, Sold or recycled and only lastly throw out this year.
I am only going to update now and again though the year.. We will see how I do. I am expecting the first say 50 to 100 small items to be fairly easy to track and find.. I mean I know I have a rusted solid tool that I have in a bucket that I have sworn that I am going to soak and see if I can fix but in truth, I most likely will never be able to fix it properly.
Just to keep it a little different, just as i will snag a photo or two of what is going out, I intend to snap a photo or two of things that I found that is going to be kept or reused, these will be items that I “expect” I will have forgotten I got at a farm sale, at the second hand store or bought? at a sale price, going hmm.. 70 plus percent off.. this could be something we need..
I hate paying full price for something and will often buy deap sale discounts while hedging then have to go pay full price.. so we will see what treasure or trash I find and report back on.
Just another Day on the Farm 
Those gowns look beautiful! And they are certainly worth the price if they take 14 years to wear out. No fast fashion going on there, that’s for sure. And I like that they’re homemade (for you, in Canada).
I swear everyone in my family owns at least one or two of their nightgowns and they last for so long.. they do get softer and thinner as they age but they wear so well its crazy.. I have had to put a patch or two on the older summer gowns over the years but that was me catching them on the barb wire fence.. it takea skill set to learn to wear them but they are empress cut and so they just float around you.. and they help keep the sun off which can be a godo thing. I also like that they do not have a shop per say but instead they allow their staff to work from home and yes Canadian made is a huge bonus for sure.
I love this post! Decluttering/minimalizing is my favorite thing to do lol. We go back to school/work tomorrow after a month at home….my goal for today is to get the Christmas stuff put away and everything back to normal so we can start our annual purge. I do the “joy” thing…..but not from the perspective of if it makes me happy, but is this item useful and does it serve its intended purpose? Usually that clears it up for me. It’s a silly thing but when I’m decluttering, I have to constantly remind myself that A) stuff doesnt have feelings and B) my “babies” arent babies anymore. Anywho, have a happy Sunday ❤
And PS….love the nightgowns.
I thought of you when I wrote this post I mean you are my best among my friends that really do that declutter and do it well.. I like that very much.. is it useful, does it serve its purpose.. much better then does it bring me joy! Stuff does not have feelings.. ouch.. I for sure put my own human feelings on stuff at times.. like heaven help anyone that touches the one pink depression glass that I was gift by my grandmother the last time I saw her alive.. I mean someday if someone goes though my house, they will just think pink depression glass.. but for me.. I begged to get to use that glass to do my little christmas toasts in as a child and when I really REALLY miss grandma, I lift it in her memory.. .. Thanks I love them as well..
Getting rid of my grandma’s/great grandma’s stuff was the hardest thing….but they brought me no joy, nobody was using them and they were sitting on top of a cabinet collecting dust and I was only keeping them out of guilt….so I donated them to an auction for a charity I knew they’d support. NOW those items have fulfilled their purposes of bringing lots of people joy. But I still have her cookbooks…..THOSE make me happy.
That’s a great meet in the middle for sure, I do not have a lot of my grandparents things.. I have more of my step dads mothers “good stuff” then I do on my own grandparents.. but I have one thing that begins great joy to me and that is the family painted saw of the orginal farmily homestead in washington USA, its amazing! I will do a post on it, some day.. such a speical gift ..
The nightwear looks very durable, warm, and cozy. Bonus points for buying “Made in Canada!”
We just moved for the second time in two years so I’m pretty much as decluttered as can be, well except for my stash of fabric, which is full of useful stuff I am going to use up – I swear :). That first sudden move from our property though, I think I gave away, donated, or threw out about 3 times more stuff than I ended up moving. You need a lot of stuff to keep a property going.
That’s great that you are in such a good spot now in terms of “stuff” and yes yoo really do need alot of stuff and many things are only used at this time or that.. O those nightgowns are so warm but those summer dresses are so cool in the heat.. I adore them as my working farm dress for the garden and such.. My mom founds them many years ago and we all got a night gown for our christmas present and we got our family photo taken in them.. such a fun christmas that was..
Yes! 5 gallon pails – with wire handles.
I try to declutter year round as I go, very small house – not much storage. Technically I live in a kitchen/pantry 😁there’s not much space not devoted to things required for food prep and storage or processing …. you get the picture.
It’s difficult to donate things here right now – even the hospice store has asked people to stop donating. They’ve simply run out of space. I think with so many people on lockdown over the year, a lot of them got to cleaning out their ‘stuff’.
We are the same, most of the second hand shops have all their drop off area’s closed with signs, the biggest movers right now is the local share groups and the face book local buy and sell places but the prices on some things are as high as normal stores.. its certainly not like shopping in the second hand shops that’s for sure. good for you on keep on top of it.. I can’t say the same here.. I nornally do at least twice a year and then a big one every second year but the past two years with first me and then covid lockdown and then hubby having health issues or injuries and then long term recoery periods, the focus has been on making sure the critters, the basics and food production is kept up.. so it will be a good thing to get that tackled.
For sure the animals always come first. I’m operating very closed gate right now – I had to explain to a friend the other day that if either myself or my hubby gets sick – there isn’t anybody to step in and milk the cows or feed the rest of the livestock. People who don’t farm have trouble comprehending that. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but my property my rules.
O I hear you on that one and yes I have gotten that same look and had that same talk.. its very hard for someone who maybe has a cat or a dog to explain.. no its not easy to find someone.. no its not the same thing to get a farm sitter.. I am lucky that i do have some friends that I could ask for help for short term and I am very excited about having some of my closer farm friends teenagers getting to the age that we migth be able to start taking weekends off at certain times and maybe even the odd farm holiday as I know the kids are ccrazy hard workers and that mom and dad are mear minutues away on call for if help is needed..
Hey I treasure my plastic pails with the wire handles. They came *free* with (benign) pool chemicals; ). They’re not as big as yours, been using them for hauling water for years(decades? lol)
The pails last for years but as handles give or heaven help it the bottoms crack out they get moved from being the “good pail” to the useful for this or that pails, to when you can hold this in that building pail..
Oh yeah. Definitely the progression around here too! lol
Trying to recall. What’s that old expression… Oh yeah:
“Use it up, Wear it out,
Make it do, or Do without!”
Shouldn’t really be much culling going on, should there?; )
Still believe in what I was taught as a youngster: If you buy the best you can afford, take good care of it and it should last you a lifetime… While it’s harder to do in these days of the DollarStore, I still believe that. Anything worth having is worth paying for (but even better if you can get it on sale, lol)
For me there is lots of culling to do.. a good amount of the things I plan on moving will be donated and ideally find a second life in someones home. I have a good amount of my own belongings that was put away when my mom moved in and i am going though the two sets and figuring out what I want to keep and what I want to donate or sell.. I need to sort out two full households worth of stuff and bring it back down to one household.
Totally understandable; )
Good luck with that V. xo
Thanks 🙂
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