The End of Constant

I've been feeling particularly nostalgic recently although I'm not sure for what.  Spring always brings a deeper inhale, the extra fraction of a moment when gratitude rushes in.  The longer days and warmer sun seem to literally thaw my brain from the winter fog I live in for a solid three months.  And when that thaw happens, I'm ravenous for thought, creativity, movement, growth, laughter....everything that has been blunted for my three month freeze.  But this year feels different.  

It feels almost like I've been swimming around for years in this beautiful water but with no sign of the woman I've always known to be me....and now if I squint, I can almost see her. I still have quite a swim to reach her, but for the first time in years, I believe that she is still there.  

I acknowledge full well that I sit squarely in the 'Self Actualization' triangle of Maslow's Hierarchy, and that fact in and of itself makes this entire rant total bullshit.  I am lucky to be continuously self actualizing, I have the privilege to feel lost and anxious about my life's direction.  But even still, this is my context right now, and I feel every ounce of the roller coaster I'm in.  I wear many hats; nurse, educator, farmer (really the wife of a farmer and I sometimes shovel things), coffee roaster, daughter, wife, and friend.  But none of these hats have accounted for as large a piece of my mental, emotional, and physical pie as the role of mother.  Maggie is now almost seven, which is completely baffling to me, and Phoebe is almost four! (Yes I created and reared a whole other human since the last time I wrote.....case in point) Parenting small children is the most beautiful experience that completely degrades everything you know about yourself.  Never has my heart been so full.  And never has my soul been so lost.

But now, as I breathe a little deeper this spring I feel the shift.  I feel that there are corners of the day that are just mine.  The girls will play outside together without me....for an hour or more (as opposed to the 3 minutes it seemed to be not too long ago).  It's simple moments like that when I can feel my own needs rushing back in and demanding attention, kind of like my three year old does but these are things that serve ME!  I finally feel like I'm coming to the end of constant.  Constant direction, constant emotion management, constant body fluid cleanup, or anything else cleanup, constant watchful eye.....just. fucking. constant.  Have no doubt, of course, that tomorrow will prove me completely wrong....and I will go to bed laughing to/at myself.  But then, even on the worst days, after I roll around in bed mom shaming myself for a while, I still lull myself to sleep thinking that I have the most amazing kids I could possibly conjure up.  

So here's to spring, here's to the deeper breath, here's to the recognition that you might just be able to find yourself after all...and here's to riding that high before reality inevitably flicks you in the forehead.

 

Wash me clean

I'm sitting in the comfy chair in my living room, just having finished an impromptu peanut butter desert concoction, the house is a mess but its quiet, and the only thing I can hear is the rain.  For the first time since last summer I'm enjoying the rain.  For the first time since last summer it feels like the rain is washing me clean rather than beating me down.  This has been a hard spring.  A really hard spring.  The trees didn't fully leaf out until the first week of June, the lilacs didn't bud until then either; it rained almost every day from April 1-June 1, and never before have I been so filled with self doubt, lack of direction and loneliness.  Why did we move here? Why would we leave the friends we had? We were supposed to have more time, more money, more passion, more meaning in our lives here.  But we don't.  And worse yet, I have nothing to give to make it happen.  It feels as though we sacrificed a whole lot of good for a whole lot of potential great, and in order to instill a sense of stability into the transition we have sacrificed all that potential great for a whole lot of mediocre.

Just in the last week or two does it feel like there might be some life in my blood, some semblance of passion and self still circulating deep under the surface.  The rain that I hear right now is wafting the smell of flowers and the sounds of birds in through my open screen door and the finally leafed out trees could not possibly be any greener.  They, like me, are for some reason grateful for this rain even though it is far from a novelty.

A week or so ago John and Maggie and I were outside by our raised beds, looking at our tomatoes and greens.  Maggie had brought a plate of moistened been seeds out to plant and one by one she would hold up a seed and wait for direction on where the bury it.  John would make a small hole for each seed and have her drop it in and bury it.  I was simply an onlooker.  As I watched this meticulous process, I was overcome with a feeling of success.  Last year we tilled up four plots of land, planted in three, watered two, and weeded one.  We lost a ton to poor soil prep, poor nutrition management, and general neglect, and felt pretty grim about it all.  This year, we turned over the soil in two beds and built two small raised beds, so far have planted in both raised beds and one plot...just a few things.  But to stand and watch my husband and my daughter dig in the dirt, put seeds in the ground, and do it while truly engaged in each other's company....that nearly leveled me with joy, this is what it feels like to be doing it right. 

Since that moment I have been in a gradual process of unfolding.  Unfolding my arms, unfurrowing my brow, unclenching my jaw, unfolding my expectations.  We have been time and again dreaming of diving into something with both feet, producing at least an impressive harvest if not lifestyle, and assuming that the balance of passion and life will just flow.  But to truly find that balance we have had to scale back to what seems like miniscule visions.  And yet, in that moment I felt that our miniscule vision fed every need in my body and fueled the fire to grow.

I have spent eight months in nothing shy of a panic attack, wondering how we are going to manage bringing another baby into our lives.  Finally, in the last week I have let myself rest in the idea that it doesn't matter how we will manage, but only that we will.  Because its events like this that ask you to stop and truly evaluate what you care about, what will read as your favorite chapters when you look back at the story you wrote.  And just as I realized that it is not the plants or the dirt or the vision that will get us where we want to be, but the ability to keep it at a level where we can remain truly engaged with one another, the same will go for this new and wholly unknown adventure.

So today, I'm going to sit, in the comfy chair in the living room, adamantly ignoring my long and growing to do list, and let the rain wash me clean.

And Back

On Christmas morning this past year, my husband had written me a note in my stocking on a card that said 'I love you to the Mountains and back' on it.  It has a beautiful picture of a dirt path leading you into an idyllic mountain range.  That card has been on my mantel since, and I finally framed it today.  Every time I caught a glance of the card, the words would turn over in my mind....'...to the mountains and back, and back...and back.'  I love you to the mountains and back is a beautiful sentiment, and my husband knows how still and peaceful my heart is when I'm in the mountains, but its not that part of the message that snags my attention.  'And back'.  Over and over again in my mind.  It is easy to be bold, strong and fiercely lovable on the path to our passions, to our refuge, to our happy place, to share in laughter and excitement when beauty lies ahead.  But what about when you turn around and head back, when the beauty is behind you, when you are returning to whatever it is you left behind earlier.  It's not as effortless, as graceful to love someone on the way back, nor is it as easy to shine forth your most beautiful self (certainly not for me).

Ever since moving to Maine, John and I are perpetually making the metaphoric expedition to the mountains and back.  We go through a phase where we dream, in both big and practical ways, feeling like all the things we have ever visioned are right there at our fingertips.  We get giddy with possibility.  Driving to the mountains.  And then we go back to work, clean up the house for the sixth time in a day, change our daughter's princess outfit five times, pay too much at the grocery store for poor quality food, enjoy each other's company for 30 minutes at dinner before starting the bedtime routine and then collapsing on the couch with only enough energy to browse instagram and the Free section of craigslist.  And back. 

Its not loving someone to the mountains that makes this journey worth taking.  It's having someone to love you on the way back, to hold your hand in the moments when you're unsure that the future is as bright as the past.  Because having a steady hand to travel back with is what makes us strong enough to pack up and make the journey once more, into the mountains.

Solarizing fool

So we solarized our front bed, the one that we accidentally bought and planted blueberry and elderberry bushes in, and then forgot to weed or maintain in any way shape or form.  Yup, that one. Well we set our sights on next year for this bed so we needed to either retill it or solarize it and then plant a fall cover crop if there's time. So after doing a bit of research on solarization, I decided that I would cover the bed in its entirety with two layers of 2mm thick, clear plastic.  Two layers because apparently they help to build heat underneath more than just one layer, clear plastic (as opposed to black) because it lets more heat in; one source made the metaphor that if you think of tinted windows on a car, the windows get hotter but the inside of the car stays cooler, and if you have clear windows the inside of your car will bake like a Thanksgiving turkey.  I added the last part, but the point was clear that clear plastic will heat the grass and weeds underneath more than black plastic and hopefully cut down the time it takes to kill everything off.  So here I went, hauling wheel barrow load upon load of rocks up from the woods to hold my plastic down....you should have seen me, I would load it up and then I would have to back up to the end of the flat and get a running start to make it even half way up the hill with my load of rocks.  I'm sure I looked like I was training for some sort of cavewoman race.  I just really didn't want to use stakes or pins and rip the plastic....buying plastic and putting it all over the earth goes against so many of my grains so the least I can do is make sure I can reuse it. (I am completely aware that this conviction cost be about 10 hours of work)
I get all the plastic laid and carefully woven around my berry bushes and hubs gets home, I tell him about the cavewoman race and show him my final product.  He looks at it, takes a drink of water and says "Hm. Probably should have mowed first." So I turn to him, about to unleash my primal cavewomanness all over his 'hm' and he says "But good job...you did good, love." I simply cut my eyes a bit and thought to myself, 'he'll see, this is going to be the best, fastest, most successful solarizing event of the century.'

Sidenote: John is working a ton this time of year, often late into the night, which is truly inconvenient for all of us, because he would much rather be doing all of this stuff around the house, and he actually knows how to do it.  Me? I'm just flailing around and Googling stuff, hoping that something works.   The benefit? I get to experiment and learn on my own, the drawback? I'm probably wasting lots of time and energy for a far less epic reward than if we were both working on this together.

Skip ahead a couple of weeks and I'm standing in said field, noticing that my blueberries are shriveling up. Nooooooo! Not the blueberries! You have survived in the face of zero soil prep, zero maintenance and you haven't been eaten by deer and birds yet (thanks to my Fort Knox chicken wire wrapping), you must not shrivel! Then I think about it...I laid all this plastic to heat up the soil temperature to an uninhabitable degree.  I did that, on purpose, somehow not realizing that it would also affect my berries!! Of course they are dying! They must need like 80 more gallons of water a day to survive my super stellar plastic wrapping job!  I actually hadn't watered them in a while because we had gotten a bit of rain recently and the soil out there holds it pretty well.  But as soon as I realized this I grabbed my hose (right, because we are still handwatering, because the outdoor hosebib is still just a hidden pipe under 8 feet of dirt somewhere).  Now first of all, for everyone driving by, it absolutely looks like I'm watering a field of plastic.  But to make it even better, once I get to the last and farthest plant I realize that the two hoses I grabbed are just a bit short to get me there, but there's no way I'm going to go drag a third hose out to get me an extra 10 feet for one plant.  So I plant my feet and put my finger over the nozzle to spread out the water spray juuuust right and then I lean back and arch the hose so that my water trajectory juuuust makes it to somewhere near the plant, and there I stand.  So now, as the cars go by they see me, battling with the hose, shooting up a rainbow spray, arm up in the air holding it just right, looking very focused, and still watering a field of plastic.

That brings us to current day.  We'll see how this goes.  It would have been much smarter to simply solarize rows rather than the whole thing. Of course, I wouldn't have needed so many rocks that way so I wouldn't have gotten these awesome cavewoman arms.

In other news...

I just made my first cup of golden milk! (A golden latte if you will), its so good!!!  For anyone who doesn't know what this is, its one of the latest yuppie delights that make people like me feel like they are doing something really good for their body while mostly just indulging in a delicious treat.

Here are the deets:

-Milk of your choice (you can also use coconut milk if you want a thicker, dairy free version)
-Tbsp coconut oil (good fats and increases bioavailability of turmeric)
-Tbsp turmeric (anti inflammatory properties, improves brain function, improves heart health)
-Some amount of ginger (can help lower blood sugar levels, improve GI health, lower cholesterol)
-One cinnamon stick (helps stabilize blood sugar, improves cholesterol, strong antioxidant)
-Tiny sprinkle of black pepper (increases bioavailability of the turmeric...and who doesn't love a little kick?)
-Sweetener of your choice (honey, agave, maple syrup.......just because)

Put all of those things in a pot and heat until the oil is melted

Add your favorite bag of chai tea for a little caffeination

Sip. Slowly. And Enjoy.


Lastly, I found these in an old dump site on our property, they clean up nice! One had gelatinous bleach in it, lovely, another had Milk of Magnesium that had since turned to powder.  At least I think that's what it was..

The Business

Ok all, I've been yammering on for a while now about all my emotional revelations and you are probably all ready for me to move on.  Me too!  I've been itching to talk gardening and house projects for some time now.  I keep feeling like I don't have that much to report back on, but I reminded myself today that I have actually learned a ton in the last couple of months about gardening and farm-like topics.  So I'm going to presume that some of you know as little as I did (and still do) and might actually find some of these things interesting or helpful.

Number one....Make a plan.  Every book you will ever pick up about farming or gardening or homesteading will start with the importance of an outline, or a business plan.  It's the first chapter in literally every book we own on the subjects (which is a lot).  So naturally, we made no plan.  We talked about plans, we discussed the importance of plans, we even half formulated many different ones, but we definitely did not solidify one concrete plan.  In hindsight (and foresight), this was a poor choice.

This is our lion statue. Yeah we have a lion statue, he thinks we should have planned better too.

Prepping a Garden Plot

We had endless options on our land, for where we should establish a garden....we could have done one very large garden, multiple small ones in different locations, raised beds for our salad greens and herbs and row crops for our veggies, or we could have a small personal garden and then establish our "farm garden" elsewhere that would be for larger scale production and eventual income generation.  Instead, a friend volunteered to come rototill our garden plot before we had really decided how we wanted things laid out, so I made a snap decision which always goes really well.  We tilled three different areas, one small 5x16' bed that had been tilled in years past but hadn't been used for probably a couple years, a medium 30x30'ish bed that also seemed to have a good history, and a large 40x75' bed that had never been tilled before and was all sod.
   
Things I've learned:

• Tilling a plot that is currently grass is really hard.  It will likely need to be tilled a few times, have any chunks of sod removed by hand, and its probably best to plant a cover crop at first to help develop healthy soil.  Buckwheat grows well up here and supposedly has a seed to till time of about 4-6 weeks so its a good one to use if you want to use the plot the second half of the summer.  Its also good for bees.  Hubs tells me white clover is what he used in Colorado as a strong reliable cover crop because buckwheat didn't grow as well there.
• If you are going to take the time to send soil samples (which you should), you should take them correctly, and then actually do something with the results.  Figure out before you plant, what type of soil amendment is needed, stock up on an adequate amount of compost and work it into the soil.
• Expect a massive amount of weeds with a freshly tilled plot.  A lot of the ruffage that gets tilled into the soil is not dead and can reroot, or seed new plants.  Another reason to till a couple of times before planting.
• I keep saying tilling because that's what we did, but apparently tilling is actually not the best way to establish a garden plot.  It's the fastest for sure, but for longevity and health, it seems that people encourage solarizing your desired plot. This is a process of covering your plot with clear plastic directly on the ground to create a mini greenhouse effect on the grass underneath it.  Eventually the grass will die out and compost into the earth.  Apparently tilling can bring up bacteria and disease that is deeper in the soil and can effect your plants.

Water

Next is the issue of watering.  Again, no plan.  We have multiple outdoor water spigots so we figured we would either hook up a surface hose to a rainbow sprinkler or a hose to PVC tubing running the width of each bed and extend drip tubing from there.  But then the organic fruit tree company up here had a massive sale, so naturally I went and bought 10 trees, which I had to immediately put in the ground....with no preset watering system in place.  Suuure we can hand water for an indefinite period of time before we figure it out. So we got all of our trees in the ground and gave them their initial water.  After a few days of handwatering we had the time to turn on the outdoor water spigots, so we did, and found that the spigot closest to the trees had severed far underground and was now just a rusty old pipe sticking up out of the earth.  The water, of course, still flows but now just seeps into the earth in the vague area of the spigot and even after digging down 8 feet, all we see is wet earth. Awesome.

So, here we are nearing July and we are still hand watering.

Things I've learned:

• Really, truly, seriously, just have your water set up before you put things in the ground. Like, really.
• Rainbow sprinklers (the oscillating ones that shoot up into the air), are not seen as The Devil here in Maine like they are in Colorado.  Most people are on a well system and water actually exists here (and living here is not like sitting inside of an oven), so water waste is less of an issue. 
• That being said, it is more conscientious to use a drip irrigation system, it generally takes less water to achieve the same end and plants like it better.
• Many plants, particularly leafy plants do not like water coming from above, as it predisposes them to molds and certain bacterial and viral transmission.  I am a bit of a skeptic on this because up until the quite modern introduction of drip irrigation, all plants were watered from above (the sky). But hubs is adamant, and he's a smarty pants, so I'm sure its true.

Companion Planting

Then there is the whole ordeal about where do I plant things?  How do I plan out my garden space? (Again with the planning- this is really going to be an adjustment for an antiplanner such as myself).  It is best to use the practice of companion planting, i.e. putting plants near each other that help keep bugs off the other plants, or if they make a byproduct that is helpful for the other plant's growth, or planting things far away from each other if they both degrade the same element in the soil.  So our "plan" for this was to put our blackberries, strawberries, bush beans and other legumes, and chives together in our medium sized plot because they all compliment each other nicely.  Then we would do row crops for our main veggie garden in our large plot (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc).  But again, we accidentally bought 10 more berry bushes before veggie planting time and put them in our large bed because they need damp, acidic soil and that location fit the bill.  So we planted them in our very large bed and let the rest grow back into sod (Not on purpose....see section one on the importance of prepping your soil.  We will be solarizing that plot around the berries starting next week). 

Sweet blueberries right? Check out the weeds behind it...
So now we had a very small bed (already dedicated to greens and flowers) and a medium sized bed already filled with berries that we were going to need to plant everything in, regardless of companionship.  Now we have a very busy garden bed that is filled with equal parts noncomplimentary vegetables/berries, and weeds.

Things I've learned:

• Plan your cover crop (either in the first half of summer or at the end of the summer) to compliment whatever crop was growing there.  Many plants deplete certain compounds in the soil, so planting cover crops that "fix" or replenish those compounds will set you up for success on your next planting.
• Its too soon to tell whether or not our noncompanion way of planting will have effects on our plants or not.....and probably impossible to attribute any successes or failures to companion planting alone, but I will keep you posted as things begin to grow...or die.
• Mother Earth News is a great resource for gardening, here is a link to their companion planting guide.

Farm name time!!

We need your help in choosing a name!  Here are some ideas.....

1) Firefly farm- pays tribute to our sparkly friends and the magic that comes with the rebirth and growth of spring and summer

2) Tilted Barn Farm- if you come to our house you will understand the inspiration for that.

3) Halcyon Farm- halcyon has two definitions that inspire the name

          1) Denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

           2) A mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm.

4) Hyggelig Farm- a Danish word that means...

1. nice, friendly
2. cozy, comfortable, snug
3. awesome
4. homey

Please vote!! Leave your vote in the comments!

Just put your shovel in the dirt

John, Maggie and I went to the Wayne Yacht Club today.  It sounds like that should be a joke, but its not.  Wayne has the oldest lake based yacht club in the country....maybe just the state, I don't remember, but Maine is big, so either way you should be impressed.  It's actually a brilliant place, tucked away in a wooded cove; its a beautiful old house with a wrap around screen porch that overlooks the beach and the lake where there are many boats on moorings, floating in the waves, just in front of the setting sun, waiting patiently for their next ride. 

We walked there (because the beach is just down a dead end road out of the center of town...this town is so cool.) after getting afternoon ice cream to celebrate the amazing weather and our moderate amount of productivity today.  You see, for the last few weeks we have done an impeccable job of accomplishing very close to nothing.  First it was still too cold to plant, then it rained for a week, then I went to Colorado for a week, then it rained for a few more days, and then all of a sudden we were a few weeks late to planting.  John and I have, in fact, had a lot going on, but there has also been, at least from my end, a vague sense that this whole thing is quite daunting and if I just drag my feet for one more day then surely I'll gain enough clarity to plunge in full steam ahead. Right?  Let me expand...

Maggie's latest catch phrase is "I'll do it".  She says it for everything, whether I say "Do you want me to put your socks on?' or 'I'm going to build a to-scale replica of The Gaudi Cathedral using individual grains of sand' (I've never uttered those words....that's a dramatization), the response is always "No, I'll do it."   But she doesn't say it in an empowering 'We Can Do It' feminist power kind of tone, she says it in this really elongated whine, as if shes already annoyed at the task that she's volunteering for.  It's as if she is so excited about her recently acquired ability to do things on her own that she wants to continue to be industrious, and at the same time is already exhausted by how difficult she knows its going to be.  And I totally get that.  I have somehow gotten stuck in this rather dampened reality where I still have the desire to do all of these really wonderful and important things but can't seem to find the will to make it happen.

We are also at a precipice, right now, where we can either hold steady and nurture the few things we have started and probably maintain some semblance of calm in our lives, or we can step into the next step of adding the full fledged garden that I had envisioned.  If we do the latter, it will likely be surrounded by that very exciting but exhausting hurricane of tasks that leaves you invigorated with meaningful activities but not a free moment in sight to sit and breathe.  Do we want that? Absolutely. Are we ready for that? Hard to say.  For those of you garden friendly folk out there reading this and thinking 'What is wrong with you people, its June 9th, and you don't know what you're doing with your garden??'  My response to you is....'We live in Maine, so yes, that is correct.'

So during one of Maggie's nap times (my greatest time of conflict as it is literally the only time of day to do something efficiently and also the only time of day to sit down) I was feeling particularly bad about my lack of accomplishment.  So I walked out to the yard and looked at the garden....there it was.  And I looked at the fruit trees, yup those were there too.  And I looked at the barn, and I'll be damned that was there too.  But I wasn't inspired by any of them to do all of the things they were begging me to do.  But I needed to heed their desperate pleas for attention so I grabbed a shovel.  I figured I could dig up a couple of sod patches that had reestablished themselves in the garden.  It took me a good five minutes of leaning on my shovel, making a plan (procrastinating), and lamenting the task, before I actually put my shovel in the dirt.  But then I did.  And I immediately felt tired.  But then I picked it up and dug it in a few more times, enough to make some dust fly and I felt it settle on my hands and forearms as I worked.  I love that feeling.  And so I began digging with more and more vigor until I was feverishly digging and turning over the dirt feeling like I had to do 3 weeks worth of farm work in the next hour while Maggie was asleep.  Since then we have retilled and weeded both gardens, cleaned out the chicken coop and refilled it with clean shavings, built chicken wire cages for the remaining fruit trees, built a shade hut for the chickens, spread hay around all the fruit trees and berries, planted squash, cucumbers and tomatoes, built a trellis for the squash and cukes, and harvested enough rhubarb for everyone in Wayne to have a rhubarb pie (thats only a slight exaggeration).

Point is....when you are feeling lazy, just put the shovel in the dirt...the rest will follow.

That being said, however, as I was putting the chickens to bed the other night (sometimes they are not smart enough to go inside before it gets dark and then they can't find the ramp and end up huddled in a mass outside), I was walking back from the barn and I saw my first firefly of the season.  I'm not sure which is more magical, a field full of them or the first, single firefly blinking defiantly against the still chilly nights.  When I was down in the druthers this winter, a friend of mine said so beautifully, 'hang on my dear, you'll have fireflies soon'.  She, of course, didn't know how much of an emotional connection I have to fireflies and how I truly feel that they are a tiny slice of magic remaining in this crazy world.  So I stood and watched the firefly with total wonder, and I thought to myself....'You know what? Who cares if I don't have rows and rows of exotic vegetable varieties growing in an adorable and sustainably built garden. Just who cares.  That's what they have CSA's for.  And if I'm too busy watching my daughter pick flowers or roll down the hill, or watching this firefly blink around the yard, then so be it.'  So I'm trying to simply be with what is, nurture all that we have, continue to pick up the shovel and dig it in, but also to put it down if what truly feeds the soul in a given moment is to stare at all this beauty around me.

I felt that more than ever tonight as I was driving home, alone in my car, through the back roads from my parents' house to our house.  I was blasting the song 'Emmylou' by First Aid Kit (if you haven't heard it you must stop reading immediately and go play it), watching the sun slip slowly down behind the rolling hills, and feeling so much life and love in my body that it almost physically hurt.  There is a pulse out here, you can't help but be more connected to the world around you, the dirt beneath your feet.  For years I have found refuge and strength in the mountains, but today I felt that same soul filling energy just by existing in the place that I live.  And for that I will always consider myself beyond lucky.

 One eighth of the harvested rhubarb...

 Experimenting with training the squash plants and cukes up over the trellis tunnel while planting lettuce underneath to sit in the shade of the other plants....we'll see.

Guess whose a rooster....These guys are about 10 and 11 weeks old now and they have been pretty easy to sex for a couple weeks now.  We have 4 roosters, not a bad ratio! We did have one casualty, chicken dug its way out of the run straight into the jaws of our canine beast :(  That event was followed by tears and some serious fence reinforcements.

 Rhubarb pie! Stay tuned for the recipe (I'm writing this in bed and can't be bothered to get up and get it).  And what is this baked log looking thing???  Don't you worry about that, recipe coming for that too, but just know that the main ingredient is butter...get excited.

Sawdust, bread and goat babies, oh my!

Good morning from the farm!
We finally got our patio furniture set up, we have upgraded the chicks out of their foil insulated box and into the coup, started tilling up (hand shoveling) some garden area, fixed the fencing around the chicken run (temporarily improved one side of it), picked up a massive load of wood shavings that I'm oddly proud of and the juices over here are flowing!  I've been in this kind of nesting phase where I've been needing to make sure the house is set up and fully functional before I can refocus my energy outside where it is actually needed.  But things in the house are finally coming together; each room in our house now has a vague but dedicated purpose and is outfitted to ensure some degree of functionality.  So onwards and upwards to the great outdoors!

The chicks are super happy to be in the barn and I think quite relieved to realize that the world is not simply an eternal orange light but rather cycles of sun and dark, warm and cool.  I saw one chasing a dust speck today as it floated around in the air....for a while.  They are not smart.  But oh so sweet.  It seems they are starting to figure out their pecking order and find new activities (like standing on a new piece of wood...).  They are eating a ton but once they get a bit bigger and can forage a bit and eat our compost scraps that should be a little (financially) easier.  I learned yesterday that the top part of a chicken's beak will grow indefinitely, like fingernails! That's why they peck at stuff so much, to naturally keep their beaks from growing too much, crazy!

They will be in the coup for another couple weeks before we will let them out in the run, so we are needing to fix up the fencing around the run....it's currently more conceptual than structural.  So John and I spent a few hours the other day accomplishing just about nothing, but we stood near the fence.  I went inside to see how the girls were doing (my mom was over, watching Maggie) and I looked out the window a few minutes later to see that John had just torn the fence down.  Well that's one way to fix it.  My dad joined us and we spent the rest of the afternoon putting the fence back up, but in hindsight it was definitely the right idea. (Sidenote, it is amazing to have grandparents around!!)

We also went to the lumber yard (which Mags adorably refers to as 'the lumber store') and got an entire truck load of coarse sawdust for $20.  We got it home, shoveled it into a pile in the barn and put a clean layer down in the coup for the girls (and likely a few boys) to get comfty in.  For some reason this had been the activity that was really going to make me feel like I was doing something, and sure enough, it made me so happy, it just felt like it gave the barn purpose.

Well, it photographs small...

Now, above anything we are doing at our house, let me tell you what I'm most excited about right now.  The town of Wayne, Maine.  Who knew that it would come alive in the spring?  Who knew that one of the best farmer's markets in central maine was in Wayne?  Who knew that Wayne had the oldest 'Lake Yacht Club' in the state (which really means there is a beach with a bunch of people who have motor boats and like water skiing and barbeque- all good by me), who knew that at Halloween the whole village gets together in the town center and trick or treats together?  Who knew that the guy who refurbishes old boats in this town used to play music in our barn with his bluegrass band every thursday?  All these things that I'm learning about this little town make me so excited to be part of it!

And then there's this.

This showed up on our front doorstep the other day.  Let me tell you, my whole perspective on white bread changed that morning.  I sliced that bad boy up into 2 inch thick slices and made the best french toast I've ever had.  A couple of days later my neighbor and her 8 year old son came strolling into my driveway and we chatted for a while and I found out that it was her grandmother (whom also lives next door) that had made us the bread.  This lovely lady's name is Mary and I had met her a few weeks back when I trudged over to her house in my pj's and winter boots to apologize for my dogs who had just tried to eat her entire flock of chickens.  She seemed entirely unfazed by that and was just so excited to meet me.  She was about 4'6", wearing an apron, which is likely her daily uniform, and had a strikingly energetic handshake.  I brought over a bag of cookies I had made, in modest repentance for my savage dogs and she gave me an odd look but accepted and we moved on to chat about other things.  Now with this french toast on my plate I completely understand the odd look.  She was probably thinking 'girlfriend, I'm 100 years old and I sleep in this apron, there is nothing you can bring over to my house that I didn't already bake before 8am this morning.'  So I giggled to myself and thought maybe next time I'll bring her flowers.

Yesterday was 65 degrees and Maggie and I were outside literally all day.  I was needing a morning run so I loaded Mags up in the stroller for the first time since we've been here and took her for a run down the road.  A short ways down the road there is a pasture with some gorgeous goats so I figured we would stop for a minute and look at the animals.  As we parked ourselves next to the pasture fence I saw that there was a man and a woman leaning on the fence adjacent to me.  I hollered a good morning and told them we were just admiring his herd.  He hollered back that we were more than welcome to and that that one there was in labor.  Goat labor?? How cool! So I asked if it would be ok if we came down and said hello and he said it was fine.  We had been meaning to meet these folks for a while, they have a huge solar wall on their roof, tons of goats, a llama, bees, a cool old house and just generally seem to be running a fascinating operation.  His name is Dan, and we are now best friends.  I'm not sure he's entirely aware of that yet, but he will be.  Dan is retired and now focuses his time and love on his animals (the lady there was another neighbor).  He welcomed us into his yard and I, once again became painfully aware of my yuppiness in my neon salmon (yeah that's a color) running shoes, yoga pants and jogging stroller rolling over mounds of dried manure.  No one but me seemed to notice though, a testament to the Maine people who for the most part, don't care what you do or what you wear as long as you are friendly and honest.  So anyway, Dan welcomed us into the barn and showed us around, introducing us to all his goats, showing Mags and I all 7 of his brand new week old kids, and answered all of my probably naive and likely irrelevant questions.  The goat in labor was wandering around the field, she was 'a first timer' as Dan said, and apparently didn't know what she was doing.  For as many humans as I've seen labor, I thought she was doing a damn good job.  Dan kept a watchful eye on her from a distance to see if he needed to help her out at all.  But in the 20 minutes we were standing there, sure enough she birthed a tiny, wet, very confused, but darling little kid.  Maggie looked bored as we all stood around and watched and at the moment the baby goat popped out, she gasped and pointed and said 'baby!' and looked at me like...ma, you got some 'splainin to do!  The new mama goat cleaned her kid all over and somehow knew just what to do, just as mothers across species do.  Such a beautiful thing to be able to watch.  Just another Monday morning in Wayne Maine.

Trust vs mistrust

John and I stood out on our back porch today, drinking afternoon coffee, and watching Maggie run down the hilly fields behind our house.  What a cool thing to watch your kid explore on their own; to know that they feel secure enough to venture into the unknown, safe enough to be brave and curious, but still glance up at us to make sure we are there if they need us.  I sense that this child has some wild in her soul and this is the beginning of fierce independence, and I love it.   In kids, this type of curiosity is pegged as a normal part of development, Erik Erikson's stage of trust vs mistrust, where children learn whether or not the world around them is safe and ok to trust and explore, or whether it is a place to fear, harbor hatred and anxiety.  Sadly, in adulthood, people that walk around believing that the world is a safe place for them to explore and learn are talked about as naive, ignorant even. Perpetually stepping outside of our comfort zones and pushing our limits isn't always seen as normal,  in fact some go so far as to say that it is irresponsible, unstable, that we should find something we love to do and hunker down.  Not to dismiss that, there is a lot to be said for hunkering down in a comfortable life.  But there is a beauty in restlessness.  Maintaining the need to see and understand what is just beyond your reach, just beyond your comprehension, just beyond your bubble of comfort.  Trusting that not only is the world safe enough to let you explore, to try and fail and try again, but that you yourself are strong enough to survive this sometimes untrustworthy world.

This is why my husband is the smashingest of all husbands.  I swear the dude believes, ACTUALLY believes he can do anything...which might make him sound cocky, but no.  What it really means is that when we do something crazy together like buy a 44 acre farm in Maine with no experience or knowledge, and he grabs my hand and says we can do this, it makes me feel like a toddler exploring a field.  Like I can explore to the farthest reaches of my imagination, I can trip and fall and get up again, and I'm still safe...and still excited to keep exploring.

So, what, you say have we been doing on said farm?  Well, so far (after all of that epic talk about being empowered to get outside your comfort zone), we haven't actually done anything crazy.  The snow is ALMOST melted (although a few more inches this week I think), and there are a couple of green shoots of grass coming up.  So we got the chicken coop ready, we cleaned it out, set up the roosting boxes and some other boards and posts for them roost on.  Maggie helped by swishing a badminton racket around in the old chicken poop and saying 'working, Maggie working.' Love.

We wanted to get 4 hens and 4 chicks, just a small group to keep it simple.  We wanted hens so that we would have eggs sooner but we also wanted chicks so Mags could get comfortable with them as they were little and then watch them grow.   But our craigslist searches for hens were minimal and we asked the one person in town that we know and she had no recs on where to get hens, but she did say there was a roadside sign just down the road for chicks for sale.  So I drove over later that day, in a near blizzard which just seemed wrong.  Mags was in the back, we had our box with shavings and were ready to go.  I knock on the door and an older man answers, he had been at the stove making a grilled cheese.  He told me he was making dinner for his mom (wow she must have been old) and he would be right with me.  So he continues making his grilled cheese, grabs a plate and a couple other things out of the fridge and walks out of the room.  I stand in his kitchen with Maggie.  This is one thing I love about Maine, no one is ever putting on airs for anyone.  When he comes back we exchange a total of six words about the weather and go see the chicks.  He was very nice but I know that he took one look at me and said 'oi.'  As I'm juggling Maggie and my shaving filled box down his 14 steps in the snow, with my non work boots.  John and I decided to get 14 chicks, since they were 'straight run', which I learned that day meant that they hadn't been sexed yet so we will end up with a mix of hens and roosters.  We don't have a huge use for roosters so we figured we would get more and hope for 8 or so hens. So we load them up, him picking up three to each of my one awkward grabs of a chick.  The box is full and he looks at me and says blankly, why don't I carry the box out to the car for you.  Oh man I'm such a stereotype right now, I laughed to myself.  I get the kid loaded up, the chicks in the car, the man paid ($2/chick, my kinda price), and he kind of hesitantly says 'oh uh, just keep an eye on their, their butts.' 'Their butts?' I say.  And I realize now what this man has known since the moment he saw me....I know exactly zero things about raising chicks. He proceeds to tell me that their poop crusts over on their butts in the first couple weeks of life and they will die if you don't clean it off because its basically plugging the vent. So...

You should have seen me, a dish of warm water, some dish soap, some rubber gloves, some Q-tips, and a look of determination.  I picked them up one by one...and sure enough, every one of them had good ol crusty butt.  Thanks dude!  So here I am, dunk, pick, rub, repeat until all their little butts are cleaned and allowed to do their job.  I'm proud to say that today we are six days into owning chicks and we have 14 happy, seemingly healthy, growing chicks, none of which died from butt plug syndrome, or hypothermia in our very jerry rigged warming set up. 

(I had some foil packaging that I lined around the trough to reflect our heat lamp, and put our electric space heater just outside...I'm not a purist).  I'm also proud to say that my chicken handling skills have improved vastly in the last week.  They are getting big and strong and are starting to loose their fluff and gain real feathers.  There is one, the runt, that is our favorite who has four feathers right at the tips of her wings and the rest of her is still fluff, she is so sweet. 

Anyway, we have just transferred them into a bigger box that they will probably be in for another few weeks before we start to bring them outside.

Another "farm endeavor" that is really no different from our previous life is that I've been making tons of granola.  Don't worry, I'm absolutely storing it in mason jars, like any good yuppie would.  Here is the ingredient list (I didn't measure so I can't help you there) if you are interested, its certainly nothing novel but I think its pretty good!

Melt butter, coconut oil, maple syrup, molasses, agave and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, whatever you want)
Mix oats, flax, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, shaved coconut, raisins
Mix melted deliciousness with dry goods and bake on 400F until golden brown (25 minutes or so?)

In sum, we are still very much in prep/plan mode (without much planning) here at the farm, but I have been feeling so empowered to simply try things, to excite my creativity, to challenge what I know about what I am capable of.  I'm so excited to be a toddler in my own field and explore this crazy world of homesteading!

Cabin Fever

Spring, my friend, you fooled me.  I thought you were edging nearer to me....even though I suppose I knew better, in the part of my brain that I rarely listen to.  The snow was melting at the base of the trees, each day the perimeter of exposed earth grew a little bit more.  The tips of the branches almost seemed to be looking up to the warming sun as if to say, 'is that you, spring?' It was not.  The 30" of snow this week made that abundantly clear. Not spring.  The trees' branches bent under the snow and they seemed even more drab looking than before.  I wondered if their hearts sank the way mine did.

So we all continued to hunker down, keep settled into our winter hibernation, doldrums, cups of tea and solitude.  I forgot about winter up here.  I mean, I remember winter here, but not really.  I remember the snowmen and the ski days and the cold faces but warm insides, and how it might have dragged on a little long at the end but it wasn't a big deal.  I was a kid, so I don't remember how everyone keeps their heads down and kind of freezes up with the weather, I don't remember having to shovel out the driveway at 10pm so that I could get out to go to work at 5am, I don't remember feeling trapped in my own house because I wasn't.  I don't remember winter coming with much grim or glum at all, but I suppose that not surprising, kids are much smarter than adults.

But back to present day.  I had a rare afternoon with just myself and the dogs the other day, after the first storm and I needed to get them out of the house so we went for a hike just near by.  As I stepped out of my car (in the empty parking lot) I looked out at the field where the trail wound up through the hill; the snow was falling just as it does inside of a snow globe, the trees were beautifully decorated with glimmering pockets of snow and there was simple and perfect silence in every direction.  I had to laugh at myself, because it was as if the trees were speaking to me, answering my question.

       
      'We are fine my dear, in fact we are built for exactly this.  Our branches may bend but our roots dig deep and our trunks stand tall.  Our bark may be cold and rigid but our saps are flowing freely now and inside we are alive as ever.  This is not an injustice that has been pushed upon us, after all, its just winter, my dear.  You could stand to do a little standing tall yourself.  You have let your insides freeze up with your outsides, and every tree and child knows that that's just a waste of a perfectly good winter day.  Do you think its just a coincidence that in the winter when you need a bit more coaxing to get out and explore, that you can see your very footprints in the snow?  Winter's way of showing you what you have done, how far you've gone.  So stop worrying about us trees, my dear, and go make some footprints.  You'll feel better and you might just start to melt those insides back into the living breathing soul that you are.'

And let me tell you, those trees (or the words I imagined they were saying to me) were damn right!  It turns out that if you just keep chuggin up here, you might just be ok.  John and I had a date night the other night and we went to the nearby town of Hallowell.  As an aside, Hallowell I think, will be my lifeline out here in my new home of 1,100 people.  It has all of the charm and bustle of any of my favorite liberal, yuppie neighborhoods in Denver, boasting a good many eateries, a bakery (and I'm talking a GOOD bakery, which is saying something if you know anything about my very solid relationship with high quality baked goods), and even a quilting shop!  So John and I set out for a night in Hallowell.  It was about 6 pm, which meant that it was already freezing and had been dark for a good two hours.  We pulled into town and parked the car after having to drive around for a few minutes to find a spot, which I thought was weird.  We got out of the car and walked down the road toward said eateries, and it was quiet.  I mean the kind of quiet where all you hear is the clang of the flagpole and you can almost hear the 'Closed' signs on the doors.  We had already decided on the brewery for dinner, so we walked on. We opened the creaky door and in we stepped with a gust of cold air and John and I just stared at each other.  The whole place was packed.  Not with lonely people wearing gray and drinking alone, but with happy, laughing, normally dressed people! And some of them were even under 40!  Where did you all come from??  This place actually felt alive!  There was music and beer and food and fun lighting and a hipster menu written in chalk on the wall, ah all the things that make my heart sing!  Once we were settled into our window bar seats (because all the other seats had real live people already sitting in them), we looked out the windows and realized that every place in town that was open was packed just like this one.  So these are all the salty people of the north that have been listening to those trees!

Now granted, next winter I think, will be much easier.  I hope.  John will be settled into his job, I will be settled into...something.  And we wont be moving back and forth between two houses a couple of times a week like we are right now.  Oh and hopefully we will have a friend, just one would be nice.  That will all help to keep the insides thawed a bit but for now I'm holding tight to the lessons from my tree friends and feeling excited that there is life happening in a place nearby.

The tumult and triumphs of transition

Dear friends,
As some of you may know, John and Maggie and I have purchased a 44-acre farm in Wayne Maine!! You may recall us talking about moving to San Francisco for a travel assignment, or taking a year and travelling the country before settling down in a yurt somewhere, or building a tiny home and wandering about in that for a few years....none of that happened.  But what DID happen is we moved to Maine to do a travel assignment and started looking at a few places to get some vision about our future.  A few short viewings into our browsing we happened on this incredible home, barns and pastures in tow, along with 40 wooded acres, and all of a sudden all of our imaginings disappeared and we both knew that this place had to be our future.  So here I sit, on our bed (and by bed I mean mattress on the floor, because life), trying to take in all that has and has not happened in the last few months.

Let me first start by saying that leaving Colorado was (and continues to be) the hardest move I have ever made.  If any of those reading this are some of my Colorado compadres, know that you have made a deep and everlasting mark on who I am and you continue to inspire me every day to be a better me.  Life there had settled into an easy and fulfilling mix of familiar faces/places, and new and exciting adventures.  I had a group of friends and coworkers there that many people look for their whole lives.  Our lives there were good, and if land weren't so damn expensive maybe we'd still be there ;)  Just kidding, Maine was always the destination, but that part of the journey was my favorite to date.

So we arrive in Maine...in November, like geniuses.  For those of you who don't know, it was just shy of a month that the temperature did not rise above 5 degrees.  So there we were, in our 900 sq ft rental with a baby that we couldn't take outside and dogs that didn't want to go outside.  So we went to the library and the one nearby coffee shop as many times as reasonable people can repeat the same activities over and over....and target, lets be real, there's always target.  Not surprisingly we both progressed into a downward spiral of boredom/loneliness/captive animal rage fairly quickly.  So when it came time to close on our new house and start moving stuff out of the storage unit, we were ecstatic to say the least.  John was on cloud nine, finally feeling like he could take a deep breath, like he had projects to work on and productive things to think about and visions to vision.  He was putting his hands and his mind to work again and embracing all that the farm had to offer.

Me? I was taking deep breaths too, but they were the kind that you have to talk yourself through, the kind that still had a quiver of panic at their base.  "Wow I can't believe we get to call this place home, (*I am taking a deep breath in now, isn't that nice*), look at the sky so full of stars and the air is so clean and fresh, (*And now I'm breathing out, see me relaxing? So relaxed*), I can't wait to build a life and memories here, and what if I never make a friend, and I'm definitely never going to have a job that is intellectually stimulating again, and where oh where will I go to feel like I'm a part of something (*hyperventilating now*), but oh man those stars are pretty (*oh right, I'm relaxed and peaceful, I forgot)." That kind of deep breath.  The travel assignment that I'm working at now asks me to function at a fraction of what I was functioning at in Colorado, and offers me a fraction of the challenge, thus a fraction of the intellectual achievement, thus a fraction of the enjoyment.  I just had this voice in the back of my head saying 'what are you going to do? this is never going to be enough' on loop like some broken robot that was taunting me.  Meanwhile the weather has changed from 5 degrees to 34 degrees and raining, which is really helpful for one's mental state....

So I continued on, trying to really believe that everything would be fine and work itself out.  There was some point at which I decided I was wrong and that nothing would be ok and that I had actively chosen to step away from everything that makes me feel strong and empowered and grounded and motivated and that those things could never exist in tandem with a life on the farm.  True panic.  Of course as always, the universe guides you in a new direction and if you're lucky you might just notice and follow its lead.  So as fate would have it I was required to take a course in Boston for my travel assignment, so I decided I would take the opportunity to see some girlfriends.  I stayed with my friend Erin who has a little girl a couple months younger than Maggie, went out to dinner with her and her friends, I dropped in on my friend Kate (which as an aside I really think that we as a society need to bring back the practice of "dropping in") and we had a lovely chat and walk, and I reconnected with one of my favorite people from nursing school and we made and ate delicious food after which we sat on the floor of her bathroom and hung out with her 4 year old while she took a bath.  I felt an energy soaking in under my skin, the kind of energy that rubs off on you when you are surrounded by people that are both meeting their full potential and enjoying life.  I don't know why it always comes as a surprise to me that a little time with some girlfriends truly can be the answer.  I left the weekend feeling redirected and motivated to carve out a life for myself that somehow combined the two worlds that I love so much, the quiet still of the country, and the moving, thinking buzz of the city.  Serendipitously, I also happened to get a foot in the door at a Boston hospital while I was down there, and suddenly, working per diem a few shifts per month at a place that would keep my mind sharp and my heart happy didn't seem like an impossibility at all.

So here I sit, still on my mattress on the floor, for the first time in a long time, actually taking a deep breath, with no robot voice at its center. Thinking about the ups and downs of transition, and how the downs somehow seem so much more powerful, able to manipulate you into thinking there will never be another up.  When you are up it seems so obvious and clear that there will come a hard time again in the future, but the downs strip you of that clarity and consume you, convincing you that this rabbit hole IS the clarity.  I am fooled every time.

Yesterday I was determined to get to this space of peace, so battled my toddler into her snow suit and demanded we go outside to enjoy the property and get to know our new home.  I shoved her mittens on despite her sorrowful pouts and whines, I scoured the house for a leash-like object since I couldn't find the dog leashes and Bailey has a propensity for chasing deer...I finally found the shoulder strap of a duffel bag and clipped it to her collar, grabbed the kid in one arm and the dogs in the other, shoved my snowshoes on the wrong feet, grabbed the taboggan sled and put Maggie in it (still whining).  There, now we were having fun, dammit.  We got approximately 20 feet into the field before I realized that allowing my kid to careen down an icy hill on a sled with me on snow shoes with a dog on a leash was probably less than safe and certainly less than fun.  So we went back inside where my anxiety kindly greeted me at the door and welcomed be back into my new life.

Today, we had a dance party with the dish rags in the kitchen, slid across the floors on our knees, ate a delicious dinner and sat cross legged on the floor while Maggie fetched book after book that she wanted me to read to her while sitting in my lap.  After putting her down to sleep I came downstairs to the smell of cedar and realized that my wonderful husband had filled up our new jacuzzi tub for me, lit candles in the bathroom, poured me a glass of wine, and left me to take a bath to some Iron & Wine.

Sometimes in transition everything is all wrong.  And other times, everything is exactly right.  Learning to use the moments of panic and doubt as chances to grow and overcome and light a fire...that's the good stuff, that's how you find your feet again.