Forgotten Way Farms

I have a few YouTube Channels I watch fairly regularly and each of them either focuses on simple moments in life or on leading a “slow living” life as they call it. What that means is that they take their time and enjoy life, even choosing to cut out social media or the news, or other outside noise that might steal their simple joys. Most of the time anyhow.

I thought I would share a few of those channels with you today. Ironically, many of them updated either yesterday or today, which is exciting. Many of these only update once or twice a month, which is nice because I can keep up with their videos.

First up is The Cottage Fairy. She focuses on life in her little home in the middle of some state that is gorgeous and looks like a fairy tale. She works at a small bookshop in her town, is an artist, and is recently married (though I don’t think she’s ever shown her husband). She owns rabbits, picks flowers, walks through enchanted forests, and sometimes talks about her time being homeschooled and how it shaped the quiet life she tries to live now. She speaks in a soft, breathy voice (like many of the young, simple life bloggers) and her videos feature soft, calming music in the background. They are perfect for days I need to decompress from life.

Forgotten Way Farms is a channel I’ve mentioned on here before. The channel showcases a small farm in — some state — I can’t remember where. The host, AbbieJo, mainly focuses on filming what she’s been cooking, thrift shop visits, and other “simple living” topics. She’s big on homesteading and stocking your shelves with homemade food that you can go to later when money is tight or food is scarce. Sometimes she shares what books she is reading and they are usually books about farming, gardening, flowers, or cooking in the old days.

This week she shared a video of them renovating her kitchen and pantry area. They purchased a doublewide that they have been slowly renovating over the last year or so.

Just A Few Acres Farm is a cattle and chicken farm located in the Ithaca, N.Y. area which is close to where I used to live. The farmer, Pete, puts out videos about what he’s doing on the farm, farm events he visits (he is an International Tractor farmer and loves to vlog about them), the farmer’s market he visits (which I have visited a couple of times in the past and enjoyed), and other various farming related topics. His videos are pretty laid-back and just interesting to watch. He is very chill and cheerful and just really seems to enjoy what he does. Watching him cheers me up because even when things aren’t going well, he’s still pretty happy about life in general.

Roots and Refuge is a bit about slowing living but is more about homesteading and Jess and her husband Micah aren’t always living slow. They are planning to open a homesteading store, host a podcast, and have a lot going on in their lives, but the main message of their channel is to cultivate your own food and store as much of the food as you can. Their other message is to love God and the earth he gave us.

I have mentioned Darling Desi before on here (like I have mentioned a couple of the others) but will mention her again. I do like her channel even though she sometimes reads books I have no interest in and even though her perky demeanor over some really silly stuff sometimes makes me want to roll my eyes.

You know – like how I want to roll my eyes at myself sometimes because I get excited over some really silly stuff too. Ha! Anyhow, Desi talks all things “cottage core” which are books and aesthetics that – well, cottage core is . . . Hold on. Let me consult Google. Okay. I’m back. Wikipedia says: Cottagecore is an internet aesthetic popularised by adolescents and young adults celebrating an idealized rural life.”

So it is a fake outlook of rural life and I’m all for that. A fake outlook on life is how I survive. Sigh. Sad, but true(ish).

The definition continues: “Originally based on a rural English and European life, it was developed throughout the 2010s and was first named cottagecore on Tumblr in 2018. The aesthetic centres on traditional rural clothing, interior design, and crafts such as drawing, baking, and pottery, and is related to similar aesthetic movements such as grandmacore, farmcore, goblincore, and fairycore.”

Desi takes the viewer on frolics in fields and walks through bookshops, while her husband records her antics. I’d say poor guy, but she has a lot of followers and viewers and I am guessing they make some good money from it.

One thing I remind myself about a couple of these channels is that while they may seem like they have idelic lives, they really are simply showing the highlights of their life not to be fake but because they are providing a place for the viewer to escape to – a bit of a quiet corner of the internet that can serve as a mental refuge.

Are there some YouTube channels that you follow and enjoy? Let me know in the comments!

I have been wanting to put together a list of cozy reads for Spring but then I realized something – I’m not sure if what I see is cozy is what others would see as cozy. Also, they are cozy for me, but do I only read them in spring? I don’t know. Not really. Unlike others who share such book recommendations, I don’t have a book I read each spring. It’s not something I do for whatever reason. I have re-read a couple of these books but not in spring.

Anyhow, I’m going for it anyhow before spring is gone (though it’s so cold out, my area thinks it is winter!) and recommend some books I feel fit spring and some that you could really read any time.

(Note: There are affiliate links in this post that I could monetarily benefit from. That’s not why I wrote the post though. The links were an afterthought.)

First up is A Light in the Window by Jan Karon from The Mitford Series.

Really anything from The Mitford series fits for cozy reading in my opinion. Sure, there are some tough topics in the books, but they are mixed in with enough light humor and sweetness to make it easier to take in.

I enjoy this one because it chronicles the romance of Father Tim, an Episcopalian priest, and his neighbor, Cynthia Coppersmith.

It’s such a sweet romance that leaves you rooting for this older couple who are finding love in their golden years. It is nothing like the romances out there in the world today. It is a sweet, gentle story of friendship that blossoms into love. No kisses or swooning or cheesy physical descriptions of them checking each other out.

“Oh, Timothy, how could you not have loved someone all these years? Loving absolutely seeps from you, like a spring that bubbles up in a meadow.”

“Maybe you can convince me of that, but I doubt it. I find myself self-seeking, hard as stone somewhere inside. Look how I’ve treated you.”

“Yes, but you could never deceive me into thinking you were hard as stone. You’ve always betrayed your tenderness to me, something in your face, your eyes, your voice …”

“Then I have no cover with you?”

“Very little.”

“ ‘Violet only wanted a friend,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘but every time she tried to have one, she did something that chased them away.”
~ A Light in the Window

Throw in a bunch of other quirky and fun characters and I can’t help but to be charmed by the world Jan has created in the pages of this book and the entire series. There are 14 books in all.

The Cat Who God Sent by Jim Kraus is another cozy read for me.

This is the story of a pastor Jake Wilkerson who is disillusioned with his job when he meets a cat named Petey who seems to always be in the way and leading to situations that make Jake think differently about life. The story takes place in a tiny little town about an hour from where I live and close to where my brother lives, which I didn’t know when I first picked up the book. I have a copy of The Dog That Talked to God too by him, but I haven’t read it yet.

Book description:

Jake Wilkerson, a disillusioned young pastor who is an expert at hiding his fears, takes on a new assignment at a small rural church in Coudersport, Pennsylvania–which is a far piece from anywhere and full of curiously odd and eccentric people. His first day on the job, he is adopted by Petey–a cat of unknown origins and breed–but a very sentient cat who believes that he is on a mission from God to redeem Jake and bring him back to the truth.
Jake must confront his doubts early on when he meets Emma Grainger, a single woman and a veterinarian who dismisses all Christians as “those people.” Then, Tassy, a young runaway with a secret, arrives at the door of the church looking for a place of refuge. How does Jake deal with this runaway and his interest in Dr. Grainger? More importantly, can Jake rekindle his faith? Petey does his best to lead all people to the truth, in a most subtle and feline way.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery is a book I associate with spring, I guess because she arrives at Green Gables in spring.

Most people are familiar with this book, even if you haven’t read it. On the off chance someone has no idea what the book is though, it is a book about a young orphan girl who comes to live with an elderly couple in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The couple think they are adopting a boy to help them with their farm, but instead, they are accidentally given a girl who enchants them and enriches their lives.

Anne is a girl who daydreams her way through life. She loves to read, pick flowers, imagine grand situations and think the best of everyone. She has had to use all of those things to help her deal with a difficult childhood where she was in foster care and treated horribly by those who took her in. Those who did take her in mainly did so to have her as someone to either care for their children or do their housework.

I read this book to Little Miss last year, and she really enjoyed it. I’m making my way through the series of books (there are eight) but I gave up on book four, Anne’s House of Dreams, because the cute and humorous moments that were in the original dissipated by book four.

Any of the Cat Who books are cozy reading to me, but I picked The Cat Who Wasn’t There because it was on my shelf and I remember that being one of the better ones. The books are written by Lilian Jackson Braun and there are a few duds in the series, especially toward the end.

These books are the story of Jim Qwilleran, a retired newspaper reporter who moves to a small town called Pickax in Moose County, up toward the Canadian border after he founds out he has inherited a wealthy woman’s entire fortune, even though they weren’t actually related.

Qwill writes a column for the local paper and lives in a barn that has been turned into a house with his two Siamese cats. He frequently finds himself wrapped up in various mysteries that occur in the town. The series starts with Qwill living “Down Below” which refers to the city or anything south of this rural area in the north. I’m guessing this town is based in Minnesota or Michigan, but I don’t know that it’s ever really made clear what state it is in. Qwill used to work in Chicago, I believe. It’s Down Below where he acquires his cats. Koko, the male, is the one who “helps” Qwill solve crimes by conveniently knocking over plants or pawing at books or finding clues, or simply acting weird around a suspect. Yum-Yum is there mainly for comic relief. She’s a sweet kitty who often “steals” items from visitors so she can bat them around for fun later.

She was kidnapped in one of the books and I swear I almost had a heart attack. These are very light reads so I figured she would be fine but I just couldn’t stop reading until Qwill had her safely in his arms again.

Back to this particular book, which is about Qwill traveling to Scotland with other regular characters from the book. During that trip one of the people who comes with them as a guide (not a regular) is murdered and the crew returns to Pickax sad and in need of finding out who killed her. Koko wasn’t on the trip but even he gets in on the sleuthing when Qwill returns home.

There is also a little bit of romance in the books between Qwill and the town librarian, Polly Duncan, but like A Light in the Window, it is not a romance about kisses and physical description. It’s more like a friendship romance.

For a list of all of the 29 books in the series see this site:

https://quotes.pub/the-cat-who-books-in-order

I have been reading through the All Creatures Great and Small books by James Herriot over the last few years and they are cozy reads for me.

There are eight books in the main series, but Herriot, whose real name was actually Alfred Wight, also put out collections of short stories, and then other books were compiled with the original stories and photos so online there looks to be 19 different books by Herriot. I only own one in paperback. I own six of the eight main books about his beginning years as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in ebook form.

I like how each chapter is a little story all its own. I read a chapter here and there when I do read the books and it is like escaping into a little cocoon of comfort. Right now, I am reading The Lord God Made Them All.

I cannot tell you which each book is about because they all sort of blend together in a collection of stories about his life and job. The one I am reading now takes place after he was in the war. He’s now married with his first son and is no longer living in the same house as Siegfried Farnon, whose real name was Donald Sinclair. I don’t like the writing style in this book as much as the others because he seems to be slipping between past and present tense at times, even in mid-sentence, but the stories are still entertaining.

For spiritual books I enjoy in Spring, there is Gracelaced, a devotional book by Ruth Chou Simons. The art and words inside the book are beautiful. I only picked this up last year but I can tell it is going to be a favorite of mine in the spring when the flowers are blooming but also all seasons when I need to look at some beautiful paintings of flowers.

A children’s book I enjoy reading with Little Miss in spring is Share, Big Bear, Share by Maureen Wright, who is a local author to us.

The book is about Big Bear’s need to share his stash of blueberries with his friends and I guess blueberries often grow in the summer, not the spring, but for some reason the book feels spring-like to me.

I’m sure there are other books I enjoy in spring but haven’t thought about for this post. They’ll just have to wait for next year.

Since I got this idea after my friend Erin and a YouTuber we watch posted their favorite cozy spring reads, I thought I’d link to their suggestions as well.

Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs

Darling Desi