Settling in.

Looks like we'll be here through this season, so I'm settling in and getting dirty. Funny thing, we might even be doing something farm-based as a business. Fancy that. My bees survived the winter and are active and numerous. I might even have to split the hive again. We have had real summer weather for the past couple of days which has thrown the spring into full gear. I have enough seeds from last year for ninety percent of the garden, so my budget for this year for the food garden is next to nothing.

One big project: building a deep raised bed in front of the porch, filling the bottom with gravel for drainage (it's crazy wet there) and planting perennials in it. I will enlist my friend and neighbor's help with this, as I have finally realized that I don't "get" how to plant a flower bed. I can grow calendula till the cows come home, but I'm at a loss when it comes to how to really landscape with flowers and plants. And I'm tired of the front area looking awful. So, something aesthetic this year.

We're contemplating the bigger decisions, like if we'll raise meat birds for value-added products this year and sell at the farmers market. It's still muddy here, so possibilities are bouncing around like airborne cars over the rutted roads. What I know for sure: we'll be here. We'll plant vegetables. We'll raise some chickens for meat. We'll finish the chicken coop and pen the girls into a run because the chicken poop situation is out of control. We'll thin the roosters to zero or one, and give away half the hens, keeping eight to ten for eggs for us. I'll try to take care of the bees and maybe we'll even get some honey. We have a ton of work to do on the house, so that will keep us plenty busy.

Embracing not-knowing.

I've been quiet on this blog, because life is in transition, and I haven't felt up to the task of translating that into words. But I'm ready to share.

2011 was a huge year. So much growth for both me and Matt - as a couple and individually. Matt came to realize that he needed some space from his job and possibly to make a longer-term change. He is on leave this semester and working at a different job with a much lighter schedule. It has been huge in many ways. He's had so much more time and energy and been an incredible help in facilitating my writing work. And it's only been about a month. His energy has just been so much lighter, like he was cartoon steamrolled flat and is now beginning to puff up into three dimensions again.

For me, the year has been about learning to let go, as I have talked about here. I've become so much more relaxed about the little things and the big things. I've stopped making to-do lists that are unrealistic. I've stopped fretting about how clean or cluttered the house is. I've learned to breathe more deeply, to stay calmer in the face of stress. And to embrace not-knowing. Hanging in the air, not sure what the next step is. It used to make me feel crazy, wild, out of control. And I'm learning that holding all those possibilities and just sitting with them for a while can be a good thing. Rushing to make a decision is not always the best option.

We've had so many things to consider, still do, in terms of transition and change, that we've had to pin down one thing at a time, look at each part separately before considering the whole. And one big thing has been school for Jake next year. So, we've finally found a school that we think will be a good fit for him for middle and high school. The only problem? It's 45 minutes away. We're in the process of finding out what kinds of transportation options might be feasible, so we're in that state of not-knowing - we don't know what the next step will be. But another possibility is moving closer to the school.

That means leaving the homestead. For me, moving here was it. The land, the 25 acres where I would be for the rest of my life. I fantasized that on some level, anyway. Matt shared it for a time, but he wasn't as fully invested in it as I was, and I think he now realizes that he played along for my sake, and because he thought he could embrace this life. But he wants to be a little less isolated. And he doesn't enjoy tractoring and DIYing coops and taking care of farm animals. He's learned that over the past five years. So he'd be very happy to leave this all behind, sell it to someone, and move closer to the city where the school is.

As for me? I've spent some time thinking about what it is about this place that I love. What I want out of life. What I enjoy doing, and what I don't enjoy doing. Given that I no longer have a partner who is passionate about farming and homesteading, that we don't share a dream of self-sufficiency, that I would be doing all the work myself, going forward. Over the past five years, my writing career has blossomed. I now have enough work to keep me very busy. Supporting my family is important, and I get to do what I love. I definitely love writing. That's clear. I feel very blessed to be able to do what I love and earn a living at it, and I've worked hard to get to this point.

So what about the little homestead? I've learned that I enjoy it most when I'm not overwhelmed. There is a balance for me with writing: stopping work to let ideas percolate while I thin carrots, feeling the sun warm my face while I plant seeds, sitting by the brook and letting its burbling soothe my overactive mind. The drive for full self-sufficiency has faded since the move in 2005, when I was determined to get us off the grid, growing everything we eat, and buying as little as possible.

Yet as I've thought about the next move, I've revisited where I was, and rekindled some of the desire to pull out of the money-based economy, to get frugal again, to DIY where I can and where I enjoy it. I think the difference is that now I have a more realistic sense of how much is reasonable. I no longer consider my own body as a workhorse. I've learned that I have limits, and when I exceed them, I suffer - and often those around me suffer with me. Working full-time and developing and maintaining a true self-sufficient homestead is not a possibility for me.

What's next? I don't know. Yet. I'm trying to embrace the not-knowing. We may sell this place and rent a house right in town, or a house on some acreage within a 10-minute drive. We may buy another place. We may rent this house, and rent another, and see what happens for a year or two. We may stay here. Right now we just don't know yet.

Stripped down to essentials.

This is what my son did with a few minutes of unsupervised time last week. Repeat this with several variations -- including this morning's, with school library books, an outdoor garbage can, a birdfeeder full of Nyjer seed, and his iPad -- and you have an idea of what our life is like right now.

It's not always garbage. That's a new thing. It used to be, he would just make a nest of our king-sized bedding and whatever laundry (clean or dirty) he could find in hampers or baskets. But he's moved on to garbage if laundry isn't available -- and preferably a mix, as you see here, of pillows, blankets, laundry and garbage.

I don't know what motivates this behavior. I just know that we now can't leave him unsupervised for even a minute. We have locked the doors to the bathroom (where bath toys and washcloths/towels get dumped - I need to find new storage solutions for these, but we have no closets in our house and as you can imagine, my time has been occupied doing other things) and the bedroom and the basement, where the clean laundry lives. We're trying to keep him engaged doing things with us. It isn't always easy, as he would rather be doing this.

These behaviors have morphed from the status quo of summer, when he would have crying, screaming, thrashing meltdowns almost every morning. I hear one starting now...perhaps he dumps and makes these piles to relieve whatever feelings lead to the meltdowns. It's all a mystery, as he is very limited verbally and can't really tell us what is going on in his head.

It's my husband's day to take care of him today. We decided on this because subconsciously on both our parts, I was ending up with the lion's share of keeping an eye on him. I'm exhausted, friends. Seriously exhausted.

My point in sharing all this with you is simple. Yes, exactly that: simplicity. Right now our lives are focused on stripping down to bare essentials. What do we really need to hold onto? What can we let go of? Having a massive task of caring for our son's suddenly very intense needs just thrown on our overfull plates has been a revelation. Wait a minute. We can't do it all. We've been doing far too much already: my husband's been working two jobs, I work full-time as a freelance journalist and do all Jake's medical care, appointments, school advocacy, and watching him while Matt works in the evenings, plus most of the housework. And I homeschool my daughter. My husband plays baseball and plays in a band. It's simply insane for us to continue trying to do all this.

So our last push before winter is to strip down. Get rid of stuff, allow ourselves the space to make a decision in the spring. We may need to move to find a school and community for Jake that fits his changing needs. And ours. We need support. Less isolation. More opportunities to do things with him without driving an hour first. The plan is to sell our tractor, our riding lawn mower with snowblower and tiller attachments, the motorcycles, my fabric -- everything we have but don't use. Live like we're moving in the spring. We'll see what happens...what life will bring.

Making time.

For me, fall is all about retooling my life, recommitting to goals and projects, and beginning new routines. It's a great time to do a gentle cleanse and improve eating habits, to rekindle exercise and wellness goals, and to retool my schedule. I'm currently working on all of these, and wanted to share some thoughts about work and life balance and how to "fit everything in."

I think a great first step is to list everything you want to do - whether you feel you have time for it or not. Just take a piece of paper and write down everything that you want to fit into a day. For me, this looks something like: walk, journal, strength training, yoga, meditation, writing my novel, working on creative projects like personal essays and blogging, hiking, wildcrafting, tending the garden, fixing up the house, decluttering, eating well -- oh yeah, and my freelance writing work. It's a big list.

Next, edit your list. Sure, I'd like to hike every day, but I don't really need to put that on a daily schedule. Edit the list down to things that you really want in your everyday routine or rhythm. The other things get to stay, but they can be added in later or in other parts of your rhythm - like maybe every Saturday morning is a good time to go for a hike.

Then, I play around with the order of things. I actually really do take several days to try different routines. For example, today I decided to journal right after I put my son on the bus at 7:05am. My plan was to then go for a walk, but I ended up reading some tabs in my browser that I had been putting off, and now I'm blogging. Write down what you plan to try each day, but also record what you actually did -- because maybe there's a reason that journaling opened up blogging for me. Maybe the walk would be best at a different time of day. Just keep messing around with rhythm until you hit on something that works.

If you have young children at home, or homeschool, it can be more challenging to set a rhythm, since you're not entirely in control of how the day unfolds. I think it's important to think of the one, two or at most three things that are at the top of your priority list, and pick points during the day that you can use as anchors, when these things are most likely to be able to happen. For example, if walking a few miles a day is really important to your physical and emotional well-being, when is the most likely time that can happen consistently? Maybe when your husband returns from work, you have a deal where you say hello, give him a hug and kiss, and lace up your shoes and head out for your walk. Or it might work best for you to get up really early and sneak out of the house before everyone's awake. Lunchtime could be another anchor--maybe the kids do a quiet art project or other independent work while you journal for an hour after lunch.

You might be shutting down, thinking, "There's no way I can fit everything I want to do into my day!" You might be right; there's definitely a tendency for us to overschedule ourselves. But there's another question I'd ask, as I've asked it of myself: what are you doing all day, then? Is it what you really want to be doing? If you need to, keep a log of your activities all day. Just jot down what you're doing and the time frame. If you do this for a few days or a week, it can be really eye-opening. Suddenly those hours spent reading blogs or chatting on the phone with a friend or relative are put into sharp perspective. Is that what you really want to be doing, for that many hours? Compare your log to your list of daily goals. How much time did you spend on what's really important to you?

There is a way to make time. It takes intention. It takes commitment to yourself. It takes owning what's really important to you and feeling like you deserve to do what you really want to do. As parents, we're pulled in so many different directions. It's up to us to claim time for our own priorities. Yes, caring for our kids is of course at the top of that list. But the cliche is true: if you don't take care of yourself, you're not doing your kids any favors. Being present for your own needs and being true to what you want in your own life is a very powerful example for our kids to see. I don't want to raise self-effacing martyrs who put others' needs before their own. I want my kids to see that parenting means taking care of myself as well as I take care of them. (And I'm not talking about infants and young toddlers, for the most part -- although I think it's important to take time for yourself when your kids are under two or three, I also think that very young babies and toddlers need an incredible amount of care from us, and it is a challenge to maintain just our basic need for quiet, sleep and alone-ness during those early years.)

It's about balance. It's not just the kids, either -- with the Internet always beckoning, it is all too easy to fritter a day away doing a whole lot of nothing, without even realizing it. I challenge you to recommit to what you really want out of life. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write it down. Then play with it, work with it, and make it happen.

The Story of (My) Stuff.

If you don't get the reference, watch this. Then come back.

With the start of school (for my husband and son - my daughter is homeschooling this year) and the first crisp weather comes a desire to purge, organize, and simplify. I think it's probably a getting-ready-for-winter urge, a need to nest, a subconscious realization that we will be stuck inside for months at a time, unable to spend time outdoors nearly as much as we do now.

Earlier this summer, we did a clean sweep of the basement. We took everything out and spread it on tarps in the backyard (I keep wanting to type "lawn," but lawn does not describe the grassy-weedy area we mow around the house). It took the better part of a week, but we filled the van with stuff to donate and purged countless bags of garbage. Because of impending rain and my work schedule, we had to put some things back down in the basement unsorted, and stored a few other things in the shop. So there is still plenty of work to do.

But this clean sweep allowed us to demo some interior partitions in the basement and have enough space to put not one, not two, but three desks down there. I have a roughly ten by ten foot corner in the basement for my office now. Matt has a ten by ten space that serves as his beer brewing area and desk/office. And Katie is using our old kitchen table for her homeschooling desk. Yes, there will be photos, although we're not quite there yet in terms of moving in. I'm still organizing things in my office area, and my sewing table is still set up in it and covered in junk.

So this fall we'll make a major push to finish purging the basement and shop. To live in a way that maximizes the small amount of square footage we have. We plan to heat the basement this winter - we think with radiant tubes and a second concrete floor poured over it (which yes, will mean moving everything out yet again). We have a really nice space down here, once it isn't flooding regularly, is dehumidified and most importantly, clear of stuff.

All this purging and decluttering has gotten me thinking about stuff. How and why we acquire it, what motivates us to keep it once it no longer serves a purpose. Last night a little sewing basket of mine fell off a shelf in the basement and spilled its contents onto the floor and partly into my office garbage can. As I picked each item up, some went directly back into the garbage. Most of it I haven't touched in years, because I haven't had a space set up to sew. But I'd say well over ninety percent of what we pulled out of the basement, we haven't touched in years. And it's debatable whether I'll sew now that I have a space. If I don't, I'm going to either pack up or sell the machines and sewing stuff. For sure I'm going to pare down the fabric massively. I've been living with eight plastic tubs of fabric for going on ten years now. I've made two or three costumes in that time, that's it. So why do I hold onto the fabric?

I think a lot of it comes down to feeling like I'm "wasting money" if I donate something I paid for. And there's a layer of guilt for having acquired the crap in the first place (how that's assuaged by keeping it, I'm not sure - I think it's about not facing the reality that I did acquire it but didn't use it, and thinking that if I hold onto it and use it, then there's no reason to feel guilty). Then there's the scarcity mentality: maybe someday I will want this and I won't have the money or resources to buy it, so it will come in handy. Hoarding against future poverty.

Lately I've been thinking hard before buying more stuff. I'm not a spendthrift by any means, but I do tend to see, want, buy, especially in certain categories. Things that are for my writing work fall into this category. I had no problem dropping $60 on an antifatigue mat for my new standing workstation (newly reconfigured IKEA Jerker desk I already owned). I am standing on concrete all day, after all. And I just bought a new drafting-height chair for when I do need to sit down. And I'm not saying those were unjustified purchases at all. I think they fall into the "use every day" category and I don't regret them. But I also moved an entire shelf of books on writing down here, most of which I've not yet read. I get sucked in by any organizational tool that's new and shiny.

Then there are the things in my life that just appear. An ice cream maker, because my mom knows Jake needs high-calorie food and he was eating ice cream for a time (and she didn't use it). We've used it twice in four years. An electric cupcake maker (like a sandwich press for cupcakes, sort of) -- a gift for Katie from Matt's mom for Christmas. Has been used two or three times, then the novelty wore off, and now it collects dust in the kitchen cabinet. A bagel maker that Jake's teacher gave me because he was eating gluten-free and her sister used it for her daughter who has celiac. Three huge plastic appliances that I didn't buy, didn't ask for, and don't use -- but which were given with the ultimate thought, care, and good intentions behind them, so I have a hard time giving them away.

Picking up, looking at and considering each of the many thousands of items I own has brought simplicity into sharp focus. I look at everything with a ruthless eye. Do I need this? What desire am I trying to fill by purchasing this? Have I used this item in the last year? One thing I used to do when we had less disposable income was to make a list of Things I Want. Instead of one-clicking on something on Amazon like I tend to do all too often now, I'd let things sit on the list for weeks, months, even years. Often I could cross the item off without ever getting it. Other times, I'd find someone giving away the item, or find it used at a thrift store for a few bucks. And sometimes I'd break down and buy it. But mostly, the desire for the item passed. It was fleeting. It wasn't something I needed to act on.

I'm going to start that list again. I'm excited about keeping our space simple, uncluttered, and open to possibilities.

Augustness.

August is such a strange month. Someone said the other day, "It's like the Sunday of summer," and in fact, with Lammas on August 1st, I feel that it is more the start of Autumn than the end of summer. When you wait till early July for it to really feel like summer, and late July for the garden to really start producing, that makes for a very short Summer here in the hinterlands of northern Vermont.

My garden is going nuts. The ground is finally warmed up! No tomatoes yet, but there are tons of green tomatoes just ready to ripen. A lot of things are late in getting going because of some issues I had with growing in raised beds for the first time (not enough water or nutrients for the early stages of growth). But we're eating lettuce, kale, chard, and herbs from the garden. I only got four 4x8 beds done, but that's okay. I also did a huge hill of Jack O'Lantern pumpkins, which are doing amazingly, and a row of Mammoth sunflowers interspersed with the rest of the pumpkins (they didn't fare so well between the sunflowers). The sunflower growth has been spectacularly uneven, which is interesting to me. I think there is more topsoil on the one side of the garden than the other due to the way the land slopes and trying to even that out.

I had to requeen both of my beehives. The first one just never took off and was staying very small. The queen was there and laying but there just never seemed to be more bees, and there were starting to be fewer of them. I had to smush her to install the new queen, which was harder than I thought to do. Now there are plenty of eggs, and I gave them a few frames of honey from the other hive, which is huge.

The huge hive was doing fantastic, but I must have injured the queen accidentally during my early July inspection, because when I checked it on July 24th, there was only capped larvae, no baby larvae or eggs. So I simply added the queen to the hive without trying to find the old one. I am now hoping that I checked the two frames of honey well enough for the queen that I didn't accidentally move her to the first hive. Ha! The worry never ends with beekeeping, it seems.

I'm sure things are fine, though. During inspection yesterday both hives had eggs. I will check again in a week. I am excited to watch the hives take off again and thrive.

Summer spinning by.

I've been absent from this blog as summer has blossomed fully and the days beg for time outdoors, tending the animals and plants and insects as well as finding moments to kick back, read, soak in the sun and splash in the water.

And frankly, it's been hard for me to be here because life is in transition. I don't know where things are going, I just know that we have been talking about all kinds of possibilities for our lives in the future, spurred by the need for more space in this house, partly, as well as things too personal to get into here. Nothing bad or worrisome. It's all good, needed growth. But it's hard, messy, and exhausting. And I find it incredibly difficult to write about what's going on in my life while I'm in the midst of it. I'm having a bit of a blogging crisis, wondering where this very journal-y, stream-of-mind blog needs to go in the future, why I go long stretches of struggling to share my journey. I'm noticing how it's hard for me to spin positive about my attempts to homestead here, when things have taken a solitary turn on that front and I now question my dedication to this task, and wonder where it is on my list of "things I want" in my life.

I know so many people reading are dreaming of homesteading, hobby farming, having a piece of land and a few animals and a huge garden, making tangible, edible, beautiful things out of dirt, honey, straw, water and chicken scratch. I did for so long. It is so much what I wanted, and yet -- I'm here and feeling a bit lost with it all. I am still so very committed to nature; long walks tromping through wildflower fields, cross-country skis in the quiet snow-filled wilderness, running along muddy trails pockmarked with moose tracks -- this I still know speaks to me. And I certainly feel a deep, calm satisfaction when I water the chickens, scatter corn for them, collect eggs, or open the bees and pull frames, finding eggs and a queen and newly drawn combs, or snip baby lettuce and basil leaves from the garden. I cherish these moments, even the not-so-picturesque ones: shoveling dirt, screwing together raised beds, shoveling more dirt, moving fences, mucking out the coop every spring. But I don't know how central to my sense of self the farming/homesteading/whatever-you-call-it is. I think I could give it up and still be happy, still be whole, not feel like I was missing something. Especially if I had a smaller garden and let's say four hens for eggs. I could be okay with that, I think. Even without the hens. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I'd immediately pine for this life, this overly full, so very busy life where I somehow squish the self-sufficiency into working full-time and caring for my family, including one child who has some very significant needs. I want to write a novel. I want to have more time to dedicate to my career. I want more time to read. I want to spend less time worrying about how to make this house meet our space needs, how many things need fixing, how many things there are to do -- farming tasks being just one subset, but one that still adds many to-dos to the list that is already long.

I'm opening up to awareness about my own life and what I want in it. I thought, a while back, that I was clear that this farming life was what I wanted. And suddenly I'm not sure how critical it is. I am very much attached to this house, this land, this community. But I don't get to make all the choices about how it will go, so I may have to let go. I have no clue if that's the way it's going just yet -- it may very well not. We may stay right here and add on to the house and that will be that. Or it won't -- we could add on, then decide in a year or two or ten that moving is in fact the right thing to do. I have no idea. I'm in a space of being open to all possibilities, and to deeply evaluating what it is I want in life. At the same time my career is very full and ripe and wonderful and wanting to expand beyond where it is, so I'm evaluating what I want to write, for whom, in what format, and where I want that to go next, too. No wonder I'm so exhausted, and no wonder it's been hard to come here and share with the world about it.

It's a tender place, this opening, blossoming, changing space where I am right now. I'm much more comfortable staying in not-knowing than I was a year ago, when this major shift really began. I'm grateful to my partner because I might not be doing all this growing and learning and becoming aware if it weren't for his own journey doing the same thing. And here we go, through the height of summer, feeling our way to greater awareness and taking time to pause and notice the beauty around us.

June observations.

• Hiring out some tasks (like mowing/weedwhacking) can feel really liberating. Especially when a teenager who works for $8 an hour is the hiree. I've resisted this for a long time, but it's freed up endless amounts of time (six hours thus far, just to do the whole place once) for me to do other tasks.
• Baby chicks have an endless drive to fly out of the coop and explore the big wide world, even when that world includes a labradoodle with a strong prey drive. Thus far: one injured chick with a broken wing (about to Google whether I should tape it up with athletic tape, or leave it be and dub him/her Crooked Wing to succeed our Crooked Beak).
• Bees are mysterious creatures. When watching the hive entrance, I have no idea whether they're being robbed, just flying home, or taking orientation flights. When I open the hive, I can tell roughly if there are more or fewer bees and that they've been building comb or not, and that there are eggs or aren't (sometimes). If I see the queen, hooray! But otherwise I am completely clueless. One colony is struggling and I have no idea why. The other is thriving and I have no idea why.
• Starting seeds because who knows when you'll get the raised beds done is an excellent idea. I have only three point five beds done out of eight planned, but I don't feel behind (yet). I have several beds started in seedling trays.
• Planning a really, insanely full farming season is a great way to ensure that your freelance work will take off. It's just the perfect way to do it, really.
• Sneaking off for an afternoon to hike along a thickly wooded trail, then swim in ice-cold pools and get a deep-tissue massage from a waterfall is always a good idea. It's even better when said labradoodle survives the experience without getting a chin full of porcupine quills.
• June is always overfull, but as soon as the Solstice hits, you'll be wishing for it again. As the days begin to contract it feels like the long, slow slide toward darkness that it is. Savor the fullness and the languid, twilightly evenings that stretch on forever.