Whew! What a winter it has been! I must say that I accomplished nothing during my seasonal torpor. I didn’t expect to. Winter is always super hard on my body. Usually everything hurts, I get super tired, and my mind turns into a mushy mess. This winter was no different although I am happy to say I somewhat kept my mind going – just a bit. Maybe it’s the French I have been learning off Duolingo, who knows.
My mind is on fire these days! It’s been spurning on my writing, giving me ideas to make my life better, and driving me to find more stimulating activities. When the sun returned so did a slew of completely random memories which inundated all my dreams – intensely specific memories, mostly about the homes I visited or lived in during my formative years. Occasionally someone I haven’t thought of in twenty years shows up to say hi. It’s been really odd.
Meanwhile my body is still VERY unhappy with me because I have simply demanded too much of it. With the snow gone I had to make my way outside to clean up the back yard. It was TRASHED. Sadly when I moved back in here, being as it’s a hoarder house, there wasn’t enough room for all my stuff and there definitely wasn’t enough room for trash and recyclables to be collected so it all built up outside the door. The Tupperware tubs I used to move in also got thrown out there for lack of space and let me tell you – what appears unbreakable plastic does not fair well with snow! All ruined. So for three days I have been dodging rain and going out for fifteen to thirty minute bursts to throw things in garbage bags or put other things away. I have only had enough stamina to do this in tiny bursts because my body gets super fatigued super fast and the day after? YIKES. That’s when the hangover pain hits. Right now I am absolutely trashed but I am building my muscles back up and it’s starting to look OK out there!
I’m overjoyed to have a ton of seedlings growing on my kitchen counter almost ready to plant. I cleared out a space for my garden and spread all the rabbit manure and bedding I’d gathered during the winter over the entire bed. It’s the same thing I did last year which gave me beautiful results (such rich black soil it has this year!) I decided to move the garden closer to the house for ease of watering. Last year was just too much for me. I need convenience to do these things I enjoy. I finally feel connected again. I have become very attached to the seasons, nature, and the homesteading life. I realize I can’t have livestock here and this is not the ideal place for me to be but since I seem to be semi-permanently stuck here due to my lack of finances I guess I will just settle in and start planting. I’ll make the yard into my little green oasis. This year it’ll be a garden, strawberries, blueberries, and maybe currants and an apple tree or two. Next year maybe I’ll add flowers to the mix.
And of course I am devoting myself more to my writing. I still have about 150 articles to either rewrite or transfer to my various blogs. Then everything will be “monetized” and it’ll have at least a small chance of throwing me a penny or two. My book continues to tank, mostly due to my lack of self promotional abilities, but I have added an Author Page on Amazon and am working on several other manuscripts – usually on rainy days like these when I can’t be outside, or semi-bad days when my body’s killing me but not too much to sit upright at a keyboard (real bad days I am not even granted that.) I’ve started sleeping through the night again, my hair is growing back, and I am getting up with the sun. I am going to keep pushing myself to get things cleaned up around here and more functional and when my body allows I cannot wait to hit the road on a little adventure or two for Catching Marbles. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a site as beautiful as the Rutland Quarry in Vermont where I took all of this entry’s photos?)
In brief: I’m baaaaaack!