We’re getting to a place where we need to rethink our systems. Pretty much all of them: homesteading, parenting, the shop, our creative endeavors, our eating habits…what we thought was a goal is now either satisfied or will not come to be. I’m not one to think of success or failure as measures — the practice is the key, if we choose to acknowledge what we have learned from it, it’s all good. And it is good to reevaluate. Our needs change, so should the way we go about them.
So, we’re tweaking all of the things. Some changes to the way we view how we want to work with the world — the shop is about community-building so we will add to our partnerships, pare down extraneous busyness and complication (I prefer complexity over complication), and keep trying to work with folks who want to work with us. The homestead has proved to be challenging in ways we weren’t expecting; I can’t spend the time or energy in growing everything and it obviously wants to grow what it wants when it wants, so we will be more subject to the things that are favorable to the changing conditions here (blackberries, grapes, perennial herbs, small mixed gardens — not apples, not elderberries, not pumpkins, not corn) and more foraging opportunities. No laying chickens for now (perhaps more meatbirds next Summer) and we are converting the coop to a garden shed. I don’t feel like we are failures, we are just adjusting our expectations and designing better outcomes for us at this time.
Meanwhile, the Sage blooms, the late Lilac entices the Swallowtails, the Peas grow, the Peonies open, the Multiflora Rose hedge gets ready for its yearly debut (only lasting for a week) and I will get the rest of the Beans in today, the Pepper plants, seed the Tatsoi/Pak Choi bed, put up some more Tomato buckets (going for buckets this year, we’ll see), plant the rest of the Calendula, the Dahlia, the Strawflowers, Celosia, Gomphrena, Poppies, and whatever else I have as little babies (many herbs: Horehound, Basil of 6 flavors, Ashwaganda, Feverfew) and seeds (Sunflowers, Chamomile, Thyme).
And we’ll just see. We’ll see what sticks when we reassert some interest and change.
Rock Bottom Homestead 