Top

Beaming Vegan

A blog on life by vegans.

Ode to a Farmhouse

Hi again friends! I’m back to blogging for good now… I never thought the day would come that I’d get to work full time on making my dreams=reality, and I have Griffin to thank for that. You’re probably confused right now, but have no fear, I’ll get deep on this in a later post.

Right now, I need a smooth transition back into this wonderful world of words, and while I have many political and activism [and so many other BIG IMPORTANT] posts in my queue, I think starting simple and starting slow is the way to go.You’ll notice that these are some raw photos that I clearly never intended to be in a blog post one day! Way easier than capturing and editing new ones right now. 😉

I guess I’m just feeling distant from a place that had a lot to do with who I am right now. Not necessarily distant, but very much in-between. In between arriving to the PNW, and creating a forever home here. I’m in the process of printing thousands of pictures I took at that old home of ours, which I believe will make me feel 100% better, but until then I’d also like to have a little piece of our story at this house on this blog too. I mean after all this is a timeline of my brain you’re reading… and you can’t just have bits and pieces of the story.

Once upon a time 160 acres of Kansas farmland screamed to us through a Facebook post while we were vacationing here in the Pacific Northwest. Living in a little rental in a very tiny town not too far from the advertised farm, we had been seeking exactly what this place had to offer, and much to our benefit it was nearly the same price as what we had been paying for our rental in town. Oh, it was also on the same road Griffin had oil leases on! They were a ways up that road, but still… Having absolutely no chill about feeling it was perfect for us, I brought Griffin in on my idea right there in the middle of vacation and let the owner know I was very interested and would be coming to see it as soon as I returned home. I remember being SO anxious for the rest of the trip imagining the possibility of someone snatching it up before we got home. It was near a town with a nuclear power plant, which employs people from all over the country… Those people tend to cause rent to be very high, and they snatch up the good places before we get a chance to see them.

The owners, old enough to be our grandparents, were extremely flexible and dealt with my pushy behavior so extremely well. Their parents lived in the house before they started renting it. The woman, Diane, was a professional house/building cleaner and was very dissatisfied with the condition of the house. She requested that we not come look at it until it was spotless, but Griffin and I didn’t care about the house in the slightest. We just wanted to tell them we wanted it right then and there over the phone, but obviously needed to peek at it in person first. We’re not that crazy. I insisted that the cleanliness didn’t matter to us and if she wished, I was even willing to help clean it up. She agreed to let us come out one evening while she was cleaning it and we claimed it as our new home before we left that night. Of course, we sat in the driveway with the two of them for a few hours having a friendly chat just as we would our grandparents. Nothing about this place felt wrong.

The aesthetic on move-in day was something I dream of for our future homes. I was probably blinded by the happy-go-lucky lenses over my eyes, but all I could see when we moved in was how I was going to decorate with cute farmhouse accessories, fill the built-in cabinets with our favorite books, cool fresh-baked pies in the window, and spend all my mornings on that glorious front porch. It really wasn’t much [I’ve probably painted some elaborate Joanna Gaines-style farmhouse image in your head… Just go ahead and erase that plz ;)] but it was way more than we imagined. Too big for the two of us and more land than we could ever get enough of. This location also opened the door for so many more job opportunities, and I was all about finding a city job while still getting my laid-back farm lifestyle. Oh, and did I mention it came equipped with cows? 🙂 I love cows.

At first we only wanted it for the privacy, which really never came. We had enough to fill the house… two cars for the garage, one for the car port…a 30 ft. camper that fit its camper car-port like a glove, and all the farmhouse decor I was dreaming of. It was the coziest. It was perfect and superbly flawed all at once.

It’s where I manifested desires to be a canning, cooking, farm-animal-raising kinda gal.

  

In a house that takes the cake for comfort and that warm home feeling we find in one specific place if we’re lucky enough.

   

Surrounded by 160 acres of blissful ponds and cow trails that we just so happened to see as swimming pools and bike trails.

Where we changed our lives for the better, multiple times over and in many ways.

  

Where we welcomed friends and family for sleepovers and bonfires and drinks at the bar in the sun room.

 

Where I decorated for every holiday, inside and outside.

  

Where beloved fur babies I lost by my earthly side mingled and roamed freely.

Where our neighbors/land owners became family.

Where we were struck by lightning for the THIRD time in the unforgiving Midwestern summer storms.

Where we left at the crack of dawn for our first  self-coordinated vacation, as short as it may have been.

Where Bo took himself swimming every time you let him out of your sights on hot days.

Where I jumped into Griffins arms and cried tears of joy after I landed the first job I ever truly loved, after working towards it for a year.

Where we sat on the porch for hours on end. Sharing drinks, sharing stories, watching those storms roll in, serving guests, and drying our laundry [because the dryer never worked].

Where my oil field man bid adieu to the oil field and set sights on fulfilling new dreams.

Where we mapped out and dreamed about every detail of the life we’re starting to live right now.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We soaked in every minute of the life we lived at this place, said goodbye to this comfortable shelter we knew as home and set off on our adventure to the PNW, only not for vacation this time, but for good. Which leads me to where we are now…..

 

 

 

 

 

A New Look At Processed Food

Processed food has been a HUGE learning process for myself and Griffin…. We switched to a vegan diet last summer after discovering our desire to be more aware of what was going into our bodies, where it came from and the ethics behind its creation. Obviously, this doesn’t simply lead us to purchasing everything with a vegan certified label on it, as some of those products are tricky and have a massive ingredient label and are equally unsafe compared to their nonvegan counterparts.

I always hear about the three types of vegans joke… is it a joke? I don’t know because it is super accurate lol but the three types of vegans being the plant-only eater, the junk food vegan (consuming candy, chips, pizza, etc.), and the protien over-consuming body builder type vegan. We started as the junk food vegans (and are still climbing out of the junk food hole we’ve trapped ourselves in) and are now trying to eat mostly raw/unprocessed/whole foods. Every time I am in the grocery store I think of how many steps I use to judge a good label… I’m hoping to cut out the hard part for you and give you a few focal points when examining food labels yourselves. Stick with me even if you aren’t vegan (if I haven’t lost you already!) there’s some good stuff you might not consider when approaching processed foods that fall in line with your values and morals when it comes to consumption.

  1. Read the ingredient label FIRST

I can’t count how many times I was on board with a nutrition label and then realized the ingredients inside were indeed NOT as nutritious as they sounded. I usually like to know what every ingredient is, which is a simple rule that knocks out any shades of grey. Now I’m flipping the package over, going straight to the ingredients, and then after deciding the ingredients are simple enough I’ll scan the nutrition label if I’m worried about it being a waste of an opportunity to get some nutrients/protein.

2. Most of the time I realize I can save hundreds of dollars by either making an item at home myself or opting for a natural whole food snack instead.

Why do we pay so much more for a 2-ingredient nutrition bar than we do for a candy bar at a gas station? Make that nutrition bar yourself by the batch and get a better value. (I feel like ranting on this one, but you get it.)

3. Is it worth the waste?

We can’t even comprehend the amount of waste we are creating with our processed packaged foods. Is it worth it? Can you reuse or recycle the packaging easily (and WILL YOU actually do it)? Can the ingredients be grown in a garden or are they developed in a factory then sent to yet another factory to be transformed into our “food”? The creation process could be (I mean it probably is) a waste of energy and resources and harmful to the planet.

4. If you’re just having a craving, RUN AWAY FROM THE FOOD! 🙂

Does it really taste better than a home cooked or whole food, or are you craving the bad stuff? If you have a good grasp on part of the food industry’s tactics and the way junk foods work in our bodies, you already know this is a trap. You eat these sugary fatty foods and crave more as a result. The only way to escape the trap is to be aware of what is actually happening. Replace these foods with things that will actually benefit your body. Also, as mentioned before, make it at home and save $!

5. Be brand smart.

Purchasing from any given brand is supporting that brand’s values. You may disagree with the handling of cattle by the beef industry and cringe at the sight of slaughterhouse exposure videos, but if you’re still buying beef you’re still supporting these acts. Do a small amount of research and make sure you aren’t unknowingly throwing money at a cause you absolutely disagree with. I’m finally sinking myself into the world of cruelty-free makeup and beauty brands…. I find one I believe to be great in one area only to find out I can’t support their values in anther area. Basically, educate yourself to be able to choose wisely.

Finally, we will never get it 100% right. We will keep making mistakes and learning from them, but this is a great place to start to better our pantry and the planet.