Living-Deliberately.com

I can hear that pulsing, though it’s faint. I am a gardener in my soul and while my hands have not felt soil this year, the desire is returning. I think, I love gardening so much, that the removal of my own plot and effort was a hurt too deep to touch. Because for three years I planted one and left it. Then for the duration of what became The Longest Spring, I had to surrender it all…house, contents, garden, understanding I may never see or touch any of it again. Miraculously it’s all been restored to me, a fact I still can’t always fathom.

So while my mother’s garden is beautiful and quite close to me, it’s hers. And containers were something I couldn’t bare to transport, because too much other was transient and plants speak of roots. Seemed to add insult to injury. Rather than sink seeds into the soil with water and sunshine this spring, I instead buried my garden dreams. Like bulbs set deeply to wait over winter, my visions of flowers and veggies and growing and permanence went deep down into the dark. To wait. Patiently, because revisiting them hurt too much. I planted them and forgot them.

Last week, on that brightest of late spring days, it was with freedom I returned to my house; bold freedom that dared spying neighbors to peek at me through their half-opened curtains. I stepped from the car and turned my face to the sun and stood there breathing. For the first hour I didn’t even go inside but instead walked through my garden.

The grass and weeds have had their heydey. I grabbed fistfuls and tore them from the well-mulched ground. I smiled at the real victory going on before me…there were sweeps of yellow violas and purple pansies that had re-seeded themselves. My rosemary and sage were gianormous. The little plaque still welcomed a visitor to “my garden”. And best of all, the Iris’s bloomed in my absence, triumphant purple blooms reminding me of Love and Hope and of the progressive work of Time.

In another corner thrives the Ivy I once clipped from an Atlanta hospital and transplanted in every garden since. Nine years later there is a beautiful patch growing. St. Francis still marks the grave of a beloved dog and I could see that the red tulips had risen while we were gone. The grass is knee-deep, there are snakes now that the cats are gone, and bee’s in the trees and shed.

It’s a messy, aged garden. Like me, it’s imperfect. Like me, it will heal. Like me, it will tell a story, persistently and with determination.

• today it occurred to me that we throw away too much compostable content around here…
• I could smell dirt when I stepped outside this morning…
• I had an urge to soak something….like beans….
• Sarah posted e.e cummings…
• I feel an itch to paint in tones of pale greens and yellows…

Maybe this is what the start of healing looks like?

This was the garden a month ago, the day I got the seeds and plants in.

This is it now:

The above shows how I like to mix it up. Green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers, all planted closely together but with support from the back and all will grow to a different height.

I’m so glad I added in a few brightly colored flowers.

The yellow squash is HUGE. Next time, I’ll plant the lettuces under the squash because those need some shelter from the direct sun and this would be perfect. As it is, the coleus loves hanging out under there…the rasperberries not so much. And the cucumbers in the back are very happy!

First Tomato.

Some of the kittens, from front to back: Sookie (short for Sucanat, since she’s sweet and we don’t eat sugar!), Sushie (the calico), Custard, Sprout, and Baby Grey (the mother to Custard, Sushie, and Stripes). Not pictured: Everett, Sam, Stripes, and peanut.

In other animal news…we thought Sascha the stray had left. Turns out…she got our crawlspace open and birthed puppies under our house. We have no idea how many yet…they are WAY under there. We are totally befuddled as to what to do with all these animals! We can’t afford to feed them all, vetting is out of the question financially, there is no animal control out here, and they ALL come to our house. It is very disturbing.

I realized this over the weekend. My neighbors have neatly tilled squares in their yards; little red-brown clay rows studded with dark green sprouts. No mulch and lots of space between every row.

Mine, on the other hand, wasn’t tilled. I started layering the lasangne steps right away last summer, by laying cardboard over the grass where I wanted to grow stuff. I have this strange mixture of lasangne, square-foot, permaculture, and moody gardening going on… no rows. I like the tomatoes to be side by side with an iris with an herb with a marigold. I like green beans tucked in between everything and peas and morning glories competing for climbing space. Over the cardboard went grass clippings, raked leaves, ash from the wood stove, and chicken shit (oops…trying not to say that word but goodness it fell in rhymically into the writing there…) poop. It cooked compost style all winter. Before I planted I put a layer of the NYTimes; old stocks and beautiful models becoming worm food in short order. I poured top soil over all that and punched holes where the plants needed to go. Then, I took straw and nested it all around; this keeps the water in and the weeds down.  Nice and pretty low maintenence; the actual planting was done in two afternoons and now every evening I just go out to water it.

In a few weeks I’ll add stakes for the tomatoes, the blackberries, and the cucumbers.

I decided to line the edge of the sidewalk with garden. This way, I can use it for “edible landscaping”. It’s also very much more in keeping with a passion of mine: suburban homesteading. I have a city sized lot out here in the country…there’s no real reason to have a squared off “farm plot” in my yard, a miniture version of a pasture. Especially in light of the Food Stamp Challenge, I think it ultimately makes sense to continue to work and discover how much food can be produced in the suburban and urban garden scenarios because they are a wonderful resource for a higher quality food while still saving money.

So we’ll see how it goes this year. The last two gardens I had were left right before harvest due to summer moves so I’m not sure what the yeild was for the amount of planting I did.  I kept is small this year too; my original goal was to add two goats,  25 meat and egg chickens, and another raised garden bed. The neighbor situation has led us to beleive we’ll try to sell next spring and so most of my “home energy” will go to finishing projects up rather than starting new ones.

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For those interested in tidal homeschooling, I have a new post up on the blog I keep for the record. And I revamped my 365 blog as well and it’s back in business, somewhat adjusted to allow for imperfection ;-).

My fingers are about all I can move this morning without hurting something on my old-before-its-time body. I don’t think I even shifted positions in my sleep last night.

Yesterday was a high, blue spring day blown about by gusts of wind strong enough to blow jeans off the line and knock down toddlers. Several times we heard cracks in the trees behind the house, causing us to look up and stand still until the force died down and it felt safe to walk beneath them again. David worked on getting the fencing attatched to poles placed a week ago on the new chicken yard, a task that proved incredibly difficult and led to the discovery that the new posts all need braces for support. I laid seed on the bare spots of the yard, composted the garden beds, cleared a section that is going to become a sunflower garden, and moved bucketloads of rock from places on the big hill down to the garden beds, where they became edging.

Since one of my passions is supporting and encouraging  suburban-sized homesteading, and  since despite it’s rural location, my yard is currently a normal-to-large sized suburban lot, I am designing my garden here so that it’s applicable to that kind of setting. So the garden may look more like “edible landscaping”, I’m paying attention to boundaries where fences would be, the orchard trees will be dwarf varieties, and the intial chicken set up is a “city chicken” model. Granted, the new one will not be; more eggs and meat won out and most city people can not keep 25 birds. But for the past year I’ve kept 3 in a very city-friendly manner.

When the kids came down today and said it was snowing I thought they were all lying. But the joke is on me….over an inch of white stuff is on the ground this morning and it’s still falling. Big, heavy, totally-unforecasted, flakes are lazily making their desent. I dreamt of tomato varieties last night; guess the snow is telling me to “cool it” on the spring fever a bit. As if my aching body wasn’t already screamin’ it.

it will never, ever make up for a lack of good care, feeding, and watering. Discipline without nurturing is always abuse.

It’s spring time in more ways that one around here.

Winter is a time of dormancy, of sleeping, of waiting. It’s often a time of pruning so that there is a better health. Interesting thing about the act of pruning: the healthy return sprouts in a new place, not the old. Unlike a starfish….cut it off, grow one back; starfish restore what’s been cut off….pruning means redirecting and ultimately can be a tremendously healthy thing. Life is better off for it, but that old growth will not revisit from whence it came.

And so that is where I am this morning. I’ve been pruned, I’ve pruned, there is a redirected health that is ready to explode forth in glorious color. This morning it is a bright day with a high blue sky and the birds are singing. I swear I hear one of them say at dawn, “put off the old, behold all things are new”…. and so I will.

My list today includes a heavy clothesline, an order for a new batch of chicks, names of plants and maps of where they will go, mopped floors, and a few open windows. I will paint fence posts that now have a bit more time to wait until they need to contain new birds and this is fine, even an improvement over the old plan, because we are no longer rushed and can do the best job in our own time.

If Winter is old and grey, Spring is new and alive, much as I am today. Seasons propel forward, not back, and moving on never felt so good.

I debated: should I write a review of this while it’s fresh or should I sleep on it? I’m here now, at 9:30 pm, so you know which one came out on top.

I’m stunned. I’m gagging on corn products…corn and soy that I know sneaks into our diets everywhere. I’m invigorated to plant the biggest garden I can next spring, with seeds from Seeds of Change and Seed Savers. I want to loudly outcry the fact that life (food, things that grow) has been patented, that so many of the government officials have worked for or accepted money from companies like Monsanto, that so far there is no mandatory labeling for genetically modified foods and seeds.

The movie points out that if they label, they can trace the adverse effects, and if they can trace where it came from, they can hold corporations liable. Did you know that these companies are allowed to voluntarily conduct and submit their own research to the FDA?

And yes, the thought occurred to me more than once that those yellow fields of corn are also being hailed right now as the next best thing: biodiesel. But I fail to agree that GM corn is necessary to use corn oil products for fuel. It’s one thing to compromise that it might be a better way to use monocropping than say, using foreign oil. But it’s another to say that these lengths need to be gone to in order to get there.

Okay, heads up: the movie is not unbiased and doesn’t try to be. It an expose type documentary on the way science is changing how we eat, who grows it and how, and where. Little researchers with budgets of 2k stand up against corporations with 25 million and sometimes get heard. The wind blows GM canola over to another farmer’s field and if it grows, he’s infringed on the patent law. The only way to tell if it’s GM or not is to spray it with the Round Up the same company produces. What will die is his own crop and what will not is the “round up ready” canola. Plant diversity and individual farmer’s rights are what’s gone and super weeds that require even more spraying with even more toxic chemicals are what’s left.

Breathless moment: watching a slug ingest corn and die. The corn itself is classified as an insecticide (thanks to it’s modification) so if it eats the corn, it dies. NOT: it was sprayed and it died. But IT ATE THE SAME CORN I ATE and died.

The biotech companies sell their product’s image by saying it can feed the world. But think about that. Much of the third world countries were once ag-rich. They kicked small farmers off their land to grow exports so they could pay debts to 1st world countries. The problem is more accessibility to food, not growing methods, as food regularly rots in abundance in this and other countries.

“Go Local” has simple wisdom behind it that can be applied in just about every setting. This movie shows what happens when an approach, that has never been voted on by the people (and the majority of people do not want GM food, or at least want labels on it), for global methods takes over. When four companies control ALL of the food supply. The seed supply. The retail. Sound free to you?

Never mind how much better something locally grown tastes. That isn’t the primary focus of this film but it will leave you longing for something grown in your own yard. The beauty of a variety different than the beige monotony of a typical produce section is mentioned at the end, when the counter-movement is emphasized: farmer’s markets, CSA’s, and organics. When the reminder sounds that the “consumer is still king”, that we have power with our dollars and how we spend them, hope springs. I remember that I can refuse to buy canola oil (not good for you anyway), items with high fructose corn syrup, soy-everything, and non-organic grains.

Even if you read most of this and thought, “blah, blah, blah”, or felt overwhelmed at something that might cause you to pause more in the store, or simply thought it didn’t interest you, it’s still an important film to watch. It will take one hour of your life and will leave you more motivated to support what could save our future, our children, our food supply. It will dawn on your mind what a world-economy controlled by a few could look like. It occurred to me how ironic it would be for the apocolyptic kind of world catastrophe that we sometimes hear predicted to come from not a big bomb and nuclear power but from corn seeds….little kernels of science fiction.

The movie: The Future of Food. I got our copy from Netflix. I’m wondering what my friend the botanist would say….I think I need to watch Path To Freedom’s new video brochure again for a little inspiration and encouragement.

After a week like what we just went through, I needed some serious R and R and with the beautiful sun shining and a bright blue sky there really was only way to get it. Be Outside.

And so I pruned trees. And I pruned trees. And I pruned some more trees. I’m not sure I did it right but I did look some stuff up online first. I have two apple trees that produced poorly this year that I’d like to stimulate to do better next year. And there are several bush-tree thingies that I can’t identify that probably bloom on old growth. So I wanted to cut them back to a manageable size without destroying my spring show.

We’ll see. One pulled elbow muscle and plenty of time to think later, I think they look pretty good.

My lasagne beds are coming along well. I have no tiller so I lasagne is the way to go. It’s much less-labor intensive way to garden too. I started with cardboard over the grass, everywhere I plan to plant this coming spring. Then layers of grass clippings. In fall we heaped on leaves. Now in winter we are adding ash. Always coffee grounds. The neighbor had a tree fall on his house and the stumps are getting ground to sawdust, which we’ll put on top of the beds. And then in early spring I’ll top it all with a load of dirt.

Plant, then cover with straw and maybe I won’t need to weed.

We moved Das Chicken Haus away from  Herr Pit Bull’s fence line and up to the top of the Big Hill. The owners come and get the brute every time he barks. I hope he’s gone soon! The girls seem to like their new hay-filled nesting spot and Hercules is strutting so as to work his way right into the pot. Twice he’s chased Rowan and as far as I’m concerned, that is the fastest way to become stew.

The evening was spent in town, a christmas parade Wartburg style. This means lots of vintage cars, ATV’s, firetrucks, and church floats with people throwing tons of candy at the sidelines. One of the santas was smoking, the lit semi-trucks could have honked Jingle Bells” with just a little more coordination, and we learned that shouting “Merry Christmas” is the key to getting a handful of candy thrown your way. It was a fun night that the kids thoroughly enjoyed; maybe they’re getting easier to please with country living! And along the way, we had a surprising chance meeting with another couple of “transplants”, who used words like “alternative energy sources” and “growing independent thinkers”. Refreshment I tell ya.

I’ve got all the good aches and pains a day in the yard can bring. Somewhere in there I cut everyone’s hair (the baby has a short hair cut!), made Lentil Pecan patties, and did a fair amount of housework. There were no emergencies today and that’s fabulous.

and Going Local. Read it here.

“Not so!” cried I. For if my dear hubby ever took over the job of mowing our lawns, he would surely break my heart. So, dear friend, in this house, it’s mine all mine!

Mowing grass is by far my favorite of all household chores. I love the white noise, the time alone to think. I love getting to know the piece of land in question; the best way to learn land is to walk it and the best way to walk it is to mow it. I’ve decided against a riding mower for our yard, and The Big Hill, as well. It’s hard work, a bonefide excersize session manipulating our push mower around curves and up hills, over ruts, in and out of shade. It means I can eat Chunky Monkey, thick burgers, or have a glass of wine, guilt free.

And that’s right where I find my freedom with it too: in the exertion. Sweat dripping, bugs flying into my nose, muscels straining, hours of hot work in the sun. Somewhere in there I let go of my stress. Negative energy is purged.

I remember the first time I really threw myself into yard work. I was about 14 and was in between friends. I’d recently, and quite intentionally left my “bad friend Jenna”, with her seventh-grade abortions and burgeoning drug habit. My friendship with Joy was tumultuous and that weekend we were probably on the “outs”. I knew Ronda and Christi but we were all still in Jr. High and I wasn’t quite close to them yet. It was a sunday afternoon and I did not want to go to church for the evening service, choir practice, and feel that I didn’t quite fit in yet again.

So I went outside and mowed the back yard. Then I noticed the azaela and hydrangea bushes on the back line, with years of piled pine needles underneath. I got a rake and….hours later my mom came out and not too disapointedly said more than asked if I wasn’t going in that night. I’d purged all that dread and awkwardness, found freedom from it in a few hours of hard, sweaty work that was solitary, and for the first time, fell in love with dirt.

When I mow or garden I feel strong. I feel the temptation to obsess about externals fall away. I feel connected to the ground, to how we eat, where we come from and where we’re going. I feel raw and natural and green. It’s hard to be pretentious when covered in yard dust and sweat! One gets in touch with oneself, with one’s essense, and learns to be at ease in one’s own skin. Or else the time of it will be maddening, uncomfortable and confrontational. It needs release; you’re not going to be fit to be seen until you shower so go ahead and give into it. Appearances don’t matter, station in life, finances…it all falls away and reality is found in layered mulch and compost, little green things starting to bloom and give up their secrets, the smell of freshly mown grass, and beautiful rows where you’ve gone before emerge from the tangled mess you started with.

This year I’m learning the highs and lows of our little patch of terrain. Where the sun falls, at what time of day, and what wants to grow where. I”m talking to my little apple tree, struggling with something, and producing only two apples. The kids sang Ring Around the Rosy with baby on the porch while I took my break on The Big Hill, and I wondered when this street heard little voices fall in laughter last. I’m dreaming of the gardens to be, wondering if my neighbors see me and wonder if I’m worth my weight in uncooked grits, still uncertain of how I fit in this town. Someone planted mint where the shed is now and little bits of it’s nearly invasive-self are popping up around the foundation. It’s lemony. A train goes by, no longer whistling for a town without a crossing. Time is standing still as long as I’m in the yard. The cold shower is like the starting gun, shocking me back into life. But for a little while, for a green reverie, I stood behind a mower and listened to what was around me. I gave away my pressures and the ground absorbed it. Freedom smells like grass and heat and gas fumes and the salty sweat on my nose.

I tore out the carrots today, cramming wet-clay dirt so deep beneath my nails that it hurt. They are small and pudgy. Sweet babies picked a mite too soon but somehow, it seemed like the day to do it.

I picked every single sunflower. All the rudbekia and shasta daisies too. I kissed the pink and purple morninglory that is pulling the garden down day by day. Three cucumbers finished that harvest and I found two of the first bell peppers. They are mine.

I ripped out all the basil for washing and drying a freezing. Pulled up whole plants by the root and stripped them more thoroughly than any grasshopper could. I did the same to the cilantro.

Uncaged tomatoes trail all over the decomposing straw; I brought in several half-ripe jewels. There were others out there, red and top and rotten with bugs on the bottom. That’s what happens when you don’t lift them up as they grow. I knew that when I neglected to do so; I still don’t know why I didn’t care. The corn is turning red; I wonder why that is. The beans that remain are dry pods; I may save them for seed.

But mostly I’m going down later to take off the pottery sign that says, “Welcome to my garden”. I’ll pick up the clay herb signs and pack them up. I may strip down the dry pea plants no longer making sweet pods for snacking. I might not.

It was a sweet garden, a pretty place for a season. It’s tired and weary and overgrown now and somehow, that seems right. It stuns me, but I realize that this year, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.

Like snow flurries and honeysuckle and the first tulips are fireflies in Tennessee to me. We’ll just be sitting there talking, sipping something and maybe sighing in fatigue, and it will catch our eye out in the yard and there’s no choice but to smile. They dance in a swirl, extinguish as abruptly as they ignite, and enchant any who see.

My garden is beautiful. “Stick that feather in my hat”, I grew corn. I grew last night’s salad, I grew pickles that we’ll have in winter. The tomatoes are rippening and my transplants miss their native holes in the ground. I’ll miss seeing how the carrots did most. My friend isn’t moving in after all; my garden will go to a stranger. I’ve already done the letting go and there is so much I want to do in the new house that I’m not even going to do much in the dirt until later this fall, in preparation for spring. Maybe I’ll get some garlic in the ground in enough time.

I want to be done. I want to load it all and lock the door here and turn face forward and uplifted to the future. Bring it on…we’re ready.

• the cucumbers are beginning to be abundant! Yesterday we ate 5 and today I made freezer pickles out of another five plus a vidalia from the produce market yesterday. No time for canning but I really, really want to make some batches of Bread and Butters before the summer’s end.
• The corn is waist high and starting to put out those feathery looking tops. The lettuce is thick and high and seems to enjoy being picked over every other day for a salad. The cilantro went *crazy*.
• The peas are Pathetic. Huge long vines but only a few pods. And now the bottoms are dying so they are at their end. No idea what I did wrong.
• Prolific green beans! I blanched and froze three bags today. One of those was thanks to a contribution from our Most Wonderful Landlord, who stopped by yesterday with the beans, some squash, and 18 of his perfect eggs.
• God has made letting go of my garden quite a bit easier! My dear friend is going to be renting this place after us!! She’s a kindred spirit and I know my garden is good hands. I tried transplanting a few things the other day and they are surviving but not very happy about it; I’m going to just leave most everything behind for her. The plants are happier that way and maybe it will some comfort to my friend, who will be leaving a much-loved garden of her own behind. I’m more than satisfied just knowing I can find out if the corn did well and if the tomatoes really were as prolific as predicted. Once again, God is in the details.
• Richard, Chipotle, and the Six Redheads are doing fine. They are growing so fast! I’m going to need a bigger brooding box for them before week’s end or they’ll be flying out!

My chickens, that is!!! :D

I woke up with a hunger to get outside. We’re still having cool, country mornings and the birds were singing when I woke up. David came in from work all energized and perky and anxious to tell me the wonderful details of yesterday’s home inspection. Inhaling the scent of coffee and not really waking up for a good hour, I tried to take it in. More cardboard was NOT appealing today and I was dragging my feet.

So, spontaneously we packed up and headed to the co-op store to buy our chick supplies and then over to Jen’s to get our babies. They came in on Sunday but I wasn’t ready for them with everything else. It was bumming me out pretty badly though that I was going to miss their fuzzy-chick size entirely, getting them in that weird and awkward feather stage instead. And, having to leave my whole corn patch and a good 75% of my maturing garden was at the forefront of my mind so I “changed what I could” and went and got my babies!!

They are soooo cute!! We have two little unexpected ones in addition to the five we ordered. Richard is a rooster, a Red Star they put in for extra warmth. And Chipotle is a “fancy breed”, which we haven’t identified yet, and we don’t know he/she/it is a rooster or hen. They threw in an extra Rhode Island Red too for good measure and so we have….(drumroll)…. SIX RED HEADS!!!

How cool is that?!

Their brooding box is in the kitchen and they are chirping happily. I think the finches are freaked out that other birds are making noises so close to them. I’ve got lots of plants to get potted for next week and I plan to just fairly wallow in the fresh air and dusty grass. It’s a day for barefeet.