The Spring Garden

For now, I'm not going to explain why I haven't written in this space or what we've been up to this last seven months because it I just want to write and write about now. I'll save explanations for another time.

We are now living with my parents in Palo Alto, California. Despite no snow and mild temperatures all through the winter, the plants still do us the favor of abiding by seasons and there is now a renewed liveliness in the garden as flowers bloom and reach for the sun and the bees, artichokes are already being cut from their stalks, raspberry canes grow and buds form, and we release ladybugs to conquer the aphids and set out praying mantis egg cases to eventually hatch and capture the ants and grasshoppers taking over the lettuce beds. Finding the occasional grub makes us all long for the farm life we've temporarily left behind as we miss our flock of chickens. Despite the pang of country life, we're making the best of the garden we have and it feels good.

Tomatos are in, raspberries are budding, artichokes and lettuces are producing, the radishes are petering out, the green plums are getting bigger, the citrus trees are done, and the blueberry bushes were choked out by the borage plants. It's time to put plant pumpkin, squash, and cucumbers and build an arch for the raspberries to climb. The roses and wildflowers need fertilizer. The painted lady chrysalides need another week before they emerge and dry themselves then venture out into the garden. Rufous hummingbirds are searching out the fuchsias and salvia.

Keats and Frida spend most of their days naked playing with water, finding bugs, riding tricycles, watering plants, digging in the dirt, and practicing using the toilet. Arguments feel less common outside. Realistically, they fight just as much, but their attention is easier to both distract and grab. In general, they are easier to talk to and much more attentive, but they still have tantrums, fight, and misbehave. Honestly, so do I. Being outside and keeping busy does wonders for each of us in our own ways. And for now, the spring garden is protecting each of us from wanting what we don't have and helping me to realize the perfection of Now.

Learning to dance with the limp.

Loss has caught up with me. That deep, resounding knowledge that something or someone is gone has embedded itself within me and I cannot shake it. All my life I have connected too freely. I have fallen in love too easily. As time went by, these connections fell or ripped away. In the years since marrying and having children I have experienced a haven of love and comfort, but unfortunately, that haven couldn't last. As a person suffering from depression and anxiety, I should have known the peace would not last. 

There are walking ghosts in my life. The presences of those I've loved and lost haunt me now and I cannot shake them. I am gutted and I feel I have lost my ability to connect with myself and overcome as I once did. To quote a lost friend, writing was how I survived. It was how I dealt with everything that happened in my life. I wrote down everything. In order to understand my own thoughts, I had to write them out and study them, go back and edit, keep writing, keep editing, until my mind made sense. I used to write five to seven hours a day. For years, I barely write anything at all. It's as if a section of me has been cut off and my mind has not yet reconciled its loss. So now, all loss deepens. I see faces I shouldn't see. I see them in the cars driving next to me, I see them around the corner or in line at a shop, and then I see them far away: in reality, far away from me where I couldn't possibly see them except for in my mind. That sudden realization that what my eyes merely hope to see is not really there sends a rush through me. I shiver and I feel alone. 

I listened to a program this morning on writing and I cried throughout. It shouldn't have had this effect but it did. I realized that a part of me was missing. The part that made everything else make sense. The part that connected my past and loss with what is now and real. I've been neglecting the very part of myself that can lift up the rest claiming I don't have the time or the talent or the strength. I don't know how much I'll succeed in bringing back the part of myself I was most in love with but I must try. If for no other reason than to turn these ghosts into joyful and grateful memories. To usher my past into the past and wave every now and then instead of dragging it along, holding tight. To those I've lost: I miss you but please, please let me be.

"They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up.
And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg
that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold,
but you learn to dance with the limp."
- Anne Lamott

Back in the Moment

It's been a while, perhaps too long or perhaps just long enough to jump back into this space. We still have no internet at home, just as much from laziness as anything else. But today I have a moment sitting by the chicken coop, listening to clucks and sparrows chirping, using my neighbors' connection, feeling the breeze, and swatting away mosquitoes every three seconds. I have missed this space and wondered what the next subject would be but for now I just want to reacquaint and be back.

After months of fearing the news I'm finally happy to hear it. At least, that one bit I've been waiting for too long. Now it is here and more can be done and I am happy. Just in time to celebrate the 4th of July with a little more pride than I had before. Congratulations to all those who have been waiting and hoping right along with me. It's exciting news.

I can't even think of what has been going on with me for the last few months. It has been hard and confusing, but beautiful as well and I am so grateful to my husband, family, and friends who have shared in making the confusion I've felt less confusing or just helping me to forget it for a moment. I know I'm being cryptic. I'll share another time when it's more clear to myself.

Right now I'm going to join my family on a walk around the farm and fall in love with this place all over again on this, thankfully, sunny day.

Love to you all and be back again soon. Promise.

Learning and Researching: Farming Books that Inspire Me

I come from a family that loves research. In any given argument, I can guarantee you the dictionary was near always pulled out at some point. With a linguist for a father, a Scrabble champion for a mother, and five older siblings all ready to correct me at every opportunity, I picked up the Know-What-You're-Talking-About mantra. I plan forever in advance, read all that I can from different sources, and make list after list of what is needed and what I like. Yes, Pinterest is just about my favorite invention ever. Every once in a while when Birch and I are out shopping for needed supplies for whatever project, he'll say something like, "Are you sure we need that specifically?" It takes all my energy not to slap him upside the head with all the books, time, and effort I've used over the last several months planning for the project we're finally executing. I don't, though. Usually I just shoot a look of death and sigh that passive-aggressive sigh most men have come to fear and loathe.

So, it should come as no surprise that while Birch and I scheme and plan to exit our current life and enter into a dreamworld (to us) of buying farmland, raising heritage breed farm animals, building a sustainable house, and becoming self-sufficient, we are both soaking in just about everything related we can get our hands on. We talk to friends we've made here (farmers and ranchers) and vendors at the farmer's markets, read blogs written by farmers across the country, read magazines and articles dedicated to farming, and follow farm-related news. But most of all, we read books. As you can imagine, some are more helpful than others and some are more inspiring than others.

We borrow books from our local library then buy the ones we know we'll read again and again. Here is our list:

• Mini-Farming: Self-Sufficiency on a 1/4 acre by Brett L. Markham
• The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan
• The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals by Gail Damerow
• Barnyard in Your Backyard by Gail Damerow
• Small-Scale Livestock Farming by Carol Ekarius
• Making Your Small Farm Profitable by Ron Macher
• Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm by Sarah Beth Aubrey
• You Can Farm by Joel Salatin
• Storey's Guide (to anything)
• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
• Small-Plot, High-Yield Gardening by Sal Gilbertie and Larry Sheehan
• The Small-Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery
• Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game by John J. Mettler
• Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth
• Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
• The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere and Emilee Gettle
• Plowing with Pigs and Other Creative, Low-Budget Homesteading Solutions by Oscar H. Will & Karen K. Will

There are SO many books out there begging to be soaked in and churned out into practice. We're still making our way through them and more continue to be written! It is so exciting to experience this life through others and I am so grateful that so many people are returning to the farming life, even those converting their yards into a place rich in animals and vegetation. I look at this shift not as a trend or "the hip thing to do" but a movement. Sure, there are people not as serious about the philosophy behind the change, but I believe that as more and more people start growing their own food, more appreciation and concern will surface and our world will be a better place for it.

Birch and I struggle with our current place in this movement: willing and dedicated, but honestly, scared. Right now, Birch has job security, a regular paycheck, and amazing health insurance. He also has debt that we must pay. Changing our lives will mean the end of all those things. It will be a sacrifice. However, it is a sacrifice we are willing to make. We are confident that the satisfaction of our new life as farm owners and workers will greatly outweigh the comfort we feel now. It will be a difficult change which is why we strive to go in knowing as much as we can.

We can't, however, research forever. At some point, we'll have to act. Find land, move, and start the rest of our lives. So now we wait for that When. It's coming but not yet and we'll need to learn a bit more patience and take advantage of our advantages while we can.

What do you aspire to be? How do you help yourself to become the person you long to be?

Spring Into Action

We're currently obsessed with the Aston/Long books. They are informative and beautiful and Keats loves learning all the different names.

We are, as of now, calmly ignoring the fact that we have been ill. I declare us healthy and ready to face the world like the incalculable blooms and leaves popping forth everywhere I look. The animals on the farm are giving birth, the sky has turned a purplish shade of grey, and the green on the pussy willow bushes pops like never before.

It is so refreshing to see the farm start again. It brings a gravity to the seasons that I don't feel when I'm away. The lambs coming just on time, the kids nearby coming after, the leaves on the willow trees pushing out past their buds, and the wild mint showing itself at last. The fields of the surrounding farms are freshly tilled and ready for seeding. Keats points out all of the different machines with impressive accuracy and knows what they're each doing and why. 

I've put in the fresh spring plantings in my parents' front garden and sowed seeds for summer. Next up is the back vegetable garden. We've got to put something new in the usual tomato planter and put the tomatoes in a different one to refresh the soil. Seeing as the tomatoes have always been in the same planter for as long as I can remember, this couldn't happen sooner. My parents have been good sports in letting me head up their garden this last year. It's good experience for me and with the flooding issues we've had at home, it's been the perfect gardening outlet while we get our own yard sorted. I spent most of my childhood weekends with my dad digging in the dirt so this continuation years later is fitting.

Birch has planted some radishes and other random seeds in random spots around the house "just to get something in the ground." Can you tell we have different project styles? I have to give it to him, he gets it done. I really am grateful for that. I overthink just about everything and Birch reminds me, gently, that sometimes it's just better to have completed a project than to have done it to our ideal standard. That is a hard lesson for me.

I've admitted to myself that I am a perfectionist. I have a pretty heavy fear of failure and so I obsess over a project so much that sometimes I never finish it purely because it's not coming together exactly as I envisioned. I never once submitted a philosophy paper in college for this very reason. Looking back I can see how ridiculous that is. I was terrified by the critique, but come on! It was a PHILOSOPHY paper. That critique was the point! In fact, even earlier in school I had this issue. I think my parents assume I just never did my homework. I never told them I just refused to submit it. The work that was genuinely difficult for me, I was too scared to ask for help. It didn't even occur to me that I might have a learning disability until college. Then, when I explained how I felt and thought about learning math and learning languages, my special education teacher of a husband just nodded and said, "Yeah, that's a learning disability." Oh, great. The point is: I could have had help when I was younger, but I was too afraid of failure. I was too afraid of not being smart! The truth is, struggling doesn't mean you are not smart. It doesn't mean you're worthless. It shouldn't be embarrassing. I could have asked for help, I could have been placed in a special education math class, I could have asked for intensive tutoring. There were things all of the adults in my life could have done differently, sure, but when it comes down to it, it was my failure to accept failure that led to my academic downfall. I just let myself get horrific grades and accepted the storm at home when that report card dropped in the mailbox. That attitude has permeated other parts of my life as well.

I didn't understand it then, but I do now. It's okay to not understand things, to have to work hard, to not be inherently gifted at what you're doing. The success you accomplish on completion is far more powerful than the success of a natural talent. I hope I can work through this enough to teach my children that trying is better than succeeding, enjoyment is better than easy, and most of what we really pine for in life takes hard work, focus, practice, and passion.

So while I plan out flood-proof planters for our vegetables and veggie/herb planters for the chickens and ducks to munch, Birch is busy checking his seedlings in the yard and pulling weeds when he finds them. Together we make a fairly effective team. We'll figure it out. We have time.   

For now, I want to enjoy spring and practice my new life as a non-perfectionist. I'm not even going to look up the appropriate word for that.

Sorting and Wearing

Clothes breed, don't they? I swear I've gone through my clothes every time we've moved. Each time I've saved certain pieces attaching some sort of sentimental feeling to them or just hoping I'd fit in them again. Yeah... So now we're in this house and Birch and I are feeling the spirit of renewal and purge. New Year resolutions abound and I am not the only offender when it comes to clothes hoarding. I cannot tell you how many shirts Birch has with holes and/or unspeakable stains. I mean, he's had most of them since middle school. MIDDLE SCHOOL. I'll remind you, he's 32. Yeah. So while I reassemble Birch's wardrobe with appropriate wear, I'm shredding unthinkably ridiculous shirts and things for a rag rug and cutting up squares of the nicer prints for a quilt. The rest... well, I don't really know what to do with the rest. The whole point of these clothes is that they are not fit to be worn so I don't want to drop them at Goodwill or anything.

My personal resolution for myself is that any new clothes I purchase must fit these requisites:

• It fits me NOW.
• It makes me feel BEAUTIFUL and FIT.
• It goes with clothes I already OWN.
• It is HIGH QUALITY and will last over a years' worth of wear without warping or fading.

Very simply, I haven't made it a priority in my life to primp everyday, but I've begun to feel like I'm letting go a bit hence the rules above. No more clothes that fit poorly, no more that shrink or warp with one washing, and no more struggling to find something to wear out. I don't want to just be buying things all the time. I want each purchase to be calculated, budgeted, and thought out.

There is also the issue that my life is somewhat erratic when it comes to clothing needs. This is true of us all, right? So our closets have to accommodate different needs and occasions. Mine vary thusly:

• Clothes able to be covered in chicken nastiness.
• Clothes for date nights and parties.
• Comfort clothes for sick days.

My most recent purchases since this resolution have been mostly from Anthropologie, but I'm looking to Etsy and its many sellers creating handmade items from organic, fair trade cotton, etc. Leggings, especially. I swear I've died and gone to heaven looking through the various shops for leggings. I swoon just thinking about it.

Fox print leggings by Supayana; image courtesy of seller

Spirit Bear Print leggings in black by prettypennydesigns, image courtesy of seller

The Bees Knees leggings by blackbirdtees; image courtesy of seller

As you can see, I have an affectionate love affair with Color and Pattern. They are jealous of each other at times, but when the three of us get together all at once it's just steamy and fantastic.

The last step of sorting is storing! I have a few ideas floating around and a Pinterest board I'm slightly ashamed to call my own. With literally nothing to show for all the planning in my head, Spring isn't going to pass by without this project cementing itself on the checked-off list. That is paramount.

Love to you all. What are your favorite pieces of clothing? What do you have your eye on?

Falling Behind

It was inevitable. I'm officially behind on all of my resolutions. Wahhh.

Our little family has been playing tag-you're it with fevers, colds, the full-on flu, teething, and zero sleep for about a month. I was keeping it together for a while there, but I have been struck down by the Yuck and so I sit on the couch, wrapped in a down comforter, in front of the heater while Birch (taking a sick day off) takes the recovering but fussy children out and about the farm before it rains again. I made a horrible breakfast mistake involving cheese and Crystal hot sauce and now my belly is rolling around laughing on the floor. I'm telling you, the things it has said to me this morning would astonish you.

I started decorating March's mantle last night but it just doesn't feel right. It needs more potted plants, I think. Maybe twinkle lights to add a bit of brightness to all the gloomy, rainy days ahead. And a garland. Definitely. Also, I have a lot of rabbit-related decor.

As you might imagine, Date Night has been pretty much obliterated. We've declared a few nights as stay-at-home date nights complete with delicious, extravagant meals, but any other effort has been nonexistent. It's all right. We've been doing better. We had a run-in at the lumber yard recently that made us both think. There are certain areas where Birch and I just do things differently and we've come to realize that when discussing projects we both have to put extra effort into saying our ideas nicely and staying friendly throughout the process. It feels fake still, but I'm confident that it will start coming naturally and feelings will be spared (while still getting the project done and looking lovely).

I still haven't finished ridding ourselves of books galore we don't need/read and I'm at a complete stand still on the clothes purging. We have, however, built a new chicken run that will actually keep the chickens in. (There were about five or six that consistently flew out to explore and demolish the neighbors' plants. Always the same hens, too.) With our neighbors' invaluable help, the run is now taller, slightly bigger, and easier to upgrade later. I'm still mourning the loss of our first chicken coop but what are you gonna do? Additions in the coming months will include a decorative top edge, a coat of whitewash on the inside of the coop, an upcycled window door, an indoor dust bathing box, and another set of nesting boxes.

With Keats' third birthday and party coming up next month, we are gearing up for the Great Switch. Keats and Frida will have the big bedroom while Birch and I go into the smaller room. All we really need is a bed and the closet but we'd like the kids' room to have tons more space for playing and storage. The Switch is necessary. I'm hoping to finally build a lofted bed for Keats over a playhouse and a small/medium-sized play table for their trains (with built-in storage). Keeping it simple is key.

I borrowed a lovely book from the library and I'm a few chapters in now. I'm really enjoying it and highly recommend it. When I finish, I'll do a full blown review here, but for now, if it looks interesting and useful to you, I can say that it is motivating, sympathetic, and useful.

With all that, this is the (hopefully) final month of flood season. If the house makes it through, I'll feel much more secure in all the effort I want to put into making this house our home.

I hope you and yours are healthy and well. What have you been working on lately?