That’s where we’re at these days — defining, living, seeking out, and maybe lamenting the lack of intentional time. Time we spend intentionally being present in our lives, in the world we want to live, is a focus we are trying to pay heed to. It’s hard — because it’s so easy to swept up in the crazy of the day-to-day, in the insanity of our governmental turmoil, and in the erasure of history and community through media. And with the cliff dive of our financial security (however, tenuous it was before that), we’re trying to find the strength in multiple ways.
The baker is baking, that’s what he does for you and for him (it keeps him sane-ish, and feeds folks which makes him feel purposeful) and taking care of us, the kid is arting (always fruitful critical thinking and imagining for a new world), and I try and write/run a social justice center/take care of my mother who is very ill when I can (and she lets me) and be at the shop/running events. There is not much on the homestead that calls to me these days. I call it a success that we picked all kinds of fruit (which grew despite our neglect), made a little wine and foraged some medicinals (I add dried hawthorne berries and reishi to our coffee to help). We are packing up books and other goods so that we can clean up this house to hopefully sell next summer (though it is unlikely we can buy anything, we will just be out of debt on this place; it’s been an adventure having our own place for a bit).
We didn’t even put the garden to bed. We just one day, stopped going out there. Who knows the state of things or the clean up that I could still probably do (it really has only snowed one light snow so far)! I can still see fat red Wolf River apples hanging from the bare tree — the deer are going to love them all winter. And if it snows and they fall on the ground and get buried, they will dig them up. Most of even the tiny multiflora rose hips are gone from the birds getting their daily vitamins; Mr. Cardinal is just as red among them, keeping a nest deep within the thorny canes we can only vaguely see in the winter.
And so it goes that, like many others, our business and therefore our life struggles…and we were already on the cusp of concern, now we are on the precipice. Many things might change our world in the very near future, but we cannot rely on them nor gauge how they will affect us. We will just have to wait and see. If this were like a few years ago, when we were able to homestead full-time, I wouldn’t be as worried — in fact, we were pretty self-secure during the pandemic, at least how it felt food and house-wise. Time to put our heads down and muscle through, as they say. At least as long as we can. We get a lot of flak for spending what little funds we have (and our income has just been halved, so it’s even less) on organic/local/clean food but it is for our health — we don’t have health insurance anymore either (not that gov’t healthcare helped us at all, we haven’t been able to find anyone to take it in years).
Until then, we try and get most of our goods from the local farm, barter pig’s feet and ground beef for bread when we can, and stretch what is left in the pantry. We are likely to cancel our internet soon and ration our wood (a winter of many sweaters!! all at once!), as they are the only things we have left. I’ve squirreled away a couple of small gifts through the year so we’ll have a meager Winter Solstice but it will be a real testament to celebrating the hopeful survival of a lean season. The kid and I salted lemons yesterday so in month we can save up for olives and a roast chicken to have her favorite Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons & Olives (djej emshmel) for our celebratory dinner.
The ‘holidays’ are always very stressful for us — at this time of the year, when there is always little money, we are ostracized by our families because we don’t want to celebrate colonial or christian lies, and they do their best to make sure we are not respected, and our own struggles with life traumas during these times. We used to have some great chosen families over the years, and we miss them terribly, though in order to see them or get them to gather we had to host — which we loved, but now that we are unable, there is no gathering. And we’re so worn out these days, it is hard to seek out a gathering that might welcome us.
This is not an uplifting post, but it is a reminder that we are trying to find the intentionality to go on. To live with intention is to notice the small things that do work and where we find joy. On grey days, it is a struggle, but we are grateful for our love for each other and that we have the three of us to make our days worth focusing on.
Rock Bottom Homestead 