It’s easy to get caught up with everything that needs to be done on a homestead. And with the shop, we’ve been very neglectful with the day to day care of things like trimming hedges and shaping gardens, even with caring for our medicinal and marvelous food plants and trees. When we were here full-time (as you can go back and see) it was still hard to keep up with it all. It’s good to listen to both yourself and your abilities and the land you grow on. It’s all well and good to have plans but be open to the reality that plans can change, have to adapt, and are open to editing.
We thought for sure we would have an apple orchard, but with the onslaught of drought and then wet conditions, we couldn’t keep up with the struggles the trees went through (between the apple borers, the tent caterpillars, the voles, the deer all on top of the crazy water needs we were doomed). We thought we’d have a great water system in place for the gardens and for awhile it was pretty good but eventually all systems fail or need to be upgraded. After I got (finally diagnosed after many years with long) Lyme, we had to focus on healing and slowing down our life. And rarely picked the 1/2 acre of blackberries we had so lovingly cared for and processed (J cut paths and trimmed back canes, you can barely see the work he put in for years. We made soda and jam, cakes and pies, so many delicious things). Even my Bee Balm is swallowed this year by goldenrod and jewelweed in the front drive bed.
Though all is not lost — our peaches and pears, still some apples and grapes are available for us. We picked 3 bushels of peaches and are turning much of it into Peach Butter (we love fruit butters), some in the freezer for cakes and crisps, and a crisp in the oven as we speak (want to process some peaches? we’ve got a free bushel waiting for you!). We picked 2 bushels of white Itasca grapes, too, which we made some nice wine with last year and we’ll set up a new batch this year. We’ll probably pick some Wolf River apples next week — though if anyone wants to come collect cider apples, we have plenty (and you can borrow our press, too!), and store the pears. We were able to get a nice little batch of Hawthorn berries for medicinal purposes, too — we dried many and will tincture a batch. All in all, not bad for letting so much go.
It’s our focus on food that keeps us going: that what we put into our bodies matters, how we treat where it comes from matters, how we share and offer it to the world matters. It’s a beautiful thing, this connection we have to the cycle of living and dying, we hope we honor it well.
Rock Bottom Homestead 