Ah! I cannot tell you how good it feels to have crisp fresh spring air in my lungs, sweat on my brow, and dirt under my fingernails! Gardening has brought me a blissful state of zen in an otherwise chaotic environment. In my last entry I was lamenting how much I missed my farm and being able to raise livestock. I will always miss this, until I find a way out of here, and onto my own little slice of heaven, but in the meanwhile my mental state has improved greatly. Here’s what happened:
About a week ago the snow here FINALLY melted the rest of the way and I made my way back out into the yard to check it out. I wanted to set up some new spaces for an expanded garden this year. What I found was a real horror show. My mother’s hoarding had grown out of control in the years I
didn’t live here. She has no less than three sheds FILLED to the brim with random stuff taking up about a third of the yard out back. But even that didn’t prepare me for the stuff everywhere else! I’ll admit, I was part of the problem. When I moved in nothing was functional. I started with a mattress on the floor, the only space I could find, and didn’t have anything to collect trash or recyclables in or anything else. So a lot of the mess was me trying to cope with that as more problems built up. The breezeway and all around it were just covered in trash, which I had nowhere else to put at that time. Remnants of last years gardening was also scattered about because I didn’t have the energy last fall to deal with it all. And then there were things like pieces of chicken wire laying about, the grass having grown through it, making everything even more challenging. Looking at it all I very quickly became overwhelmed. All I wanted to do was pick up the front yard to make it nice (because some of this mess had made its way out there) and make the back yard functional enough to have a garden. I went back inside and slept on the problem until I could deal with it.
Now spring is here I finally am starting to see some energy spikes that I can actually use to be productive. They’re small bursts and I can only do a little bit before having to take a long break but I have a determination I never knew I had. I started picking up. I hauled out the breezeway, I cleaned in front of it, I threw as much as I could in the dumpster, I threw all the recyclables in the car to be taken to the recycling station, and took all the soiled rabbit bedding I had saved during the winter and spread it over some newly cleaned spots for my garden. Bunny poop is wonderful in the fact it doesn’t have to be aged like more traditional cow manure (which you can buy.) It can be spread and plants grown under it all at the same time. Cow manure would burn plants to death if not aged a good six months.
I started to remove the vegetation in a bunch of different little areas prepping it for a larger and more serious garden this year. It took me a long while of getting up, working until I got tired, which wasn’t long at all, taking a break, and repeating, but I managed! And then I took all the seedlings I’d grown on my windowsill and I delicately plopped them into the soil.
Things are starting to really improve. I still have a lot of cleaning to do before the back yard looks decent again, but I have learned how to not look at the whole disaster and just pick one small workable corner to do at a time. In this way I don’t feel overwhelmed. If anything I feel accomplished and encouraged. It’s true I will never be able to have a farm here like I did at the other place. I will never be able to build fences and raise livestock, have people over all the time, or start a business which requires visitors. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do other homesteading things… so I focus on the garden, I begin to do a little landscaping, I start to learn about collecting wild mushrooms on my adventures into the woods, and I continue to find building projects that will teach me new skills and provide better function. I wish to build an enclosure outside for the rabbits as well as build a few pieces of furniture for the inside of the house including a pallet couch and a cabinet for my bathroom. Things are improving! I just have to be patient in my own slow pace and be content that things are getting better, even if it is a lot slower than I’d like.
In the meanwhile I am almost to the point I can pick up my traveling again. I am super excited to get back to Catching Marbles, my travel blog. I have thrown myself back into my writing, something I haven’t really done, not like this anyway, and I am started to be rewarded with higher traffic, the occasional meaningful comment. I feel like the things I write are doing good in the world much like what I was doing on the farm before. If I can spread joy, encouragement, hope, or even a good belly laugh, then my life is not purposeless as I sometimes believe.
I have also learned that indulging in my photography has a very grounding effect. I bring my camera with me everywhere – on my little hikes, on any little ventures out of the house, even out into the back yard as I garden! The reason is simple – it forces my mind to acknowledge the beauty that surrounds me everyday both great and small. It also incites curiosity and wonder as I do simple and weird things like play with a spoonful of fluff! And lastly it connects me to others by giving something bright and beautiful to look at in all my writing pieces.
I don’t know where I am going to end up, or what I will be doing to find the financial security I could so use, but I am filled with optimism and hope. As I watch my little plants grow so too does my heart. I have to believe this inner joy shines so bright that someday the universe will reward me. In the meanwhile…. baby steps.