Big changes really. The goats have gone to live with my friend at Meadowkeep in Northern Alberta.
While I miss them, I don't long for them like I thought I would. Right now life is so busy and so full, I felt like they didn't get what they wanted out of things here and knew they would there. And she was looking for some more girls so... The worst part? I didn't get a pic of them filling up the car that drove them to their new home! Need goats? Get in touch with Ester. She is a truly amazing human being who has great breeding stock and is passionate about her animals It feels like the whole province is burning and while it's awful, there's a haunting beauty to it as well.
Sometimes you realize the direction you're trying to go isn't really the direction you're supposed to go in. You know the feeling right? When you're struggling upstream or feeling abraded a bit? I realize that's been happening to me lately. I've been really stuck on the how but not really feeling it.
I've just had a sense of ease as I realized my focus needs to be more on the why than the how. So rather than how to grow tomatoes, how to trim hooves, how to can, it's more the why. I like the doing and I think when you try to philosophize about something like lifestyle from arm's length, I think it falls flat. You might have some evidence to the contrary but do you think the words of Wendell Berry would resonate so were he not out living on the land and with the land? Imagine Wildwood, had Roger Deakin just sat in an office and imagined, never having rambled or lived outdoors? Consider Anne LaBastille, had she stayed in some safe, suburban existence; would we have had Woodswoman? In all its rawness and grit? Now it's not that I'm comparing myself to such illustrious folks, except maybe by way of my aspirations, but I realize that a collection of how to videos and posts just doesn't grab me. It must be Spring. Change is the air. I'll be heading out to clean the greenhouse which has functionally been a litter box this winter - as it turns out. Now that's a how to video I should share. This is, quite possibly, one of the most beautiful (though I can't yet articulate why) articles I've read... ever, really. Perhaps it's because it's so poignant and so accurate? Perhaps it's just the beauty of this old, gentle way of life. And no, I'm not romanticizing. I've raised sheep, I know there's plenty of not gentle woven into the raising of any animals. I also know that a smart shepherd is mostly gentle when working with their animals or it just doesn't go well.
Anyway, I would urge you to read it. If you don't, just consider this: "The future we have been sold doesn’t work. Applying the principles of the factory floor to the natural world just doesn’t work. Farming is more than a business. Food is more than a commodity. Land is more than a mineral resource." Click on the excerpt to get to the full article. Well, it's that time of year again. You know the time, when we're racing towards the Winter Solstice and the mornings are getting darker and darker. Today there was a little skiff of snow making me grateful I didn't have my 90 minute (each way) commute to work. These are the days when it just seems cold out; even just looking outside from a toasty house elicits a little shiver. When there's that pearlescent quality to the sky, I find myself unstinting on extra oats for the goats and extra feed for the poultry. They're adjusting to the cold, though I notice they find it easier than the wet we've had for weeks and weeks. I find myself in a minority at this time of year. I love the stillness of the dark mornings, sitting with a cup of tea and a book, maybe while some yarn scours, other is in a warming dye pot, and still more is in a warming mordant bath. The dogs sit at my feet chewing their bones. The world is quiet and peaceful. There's space to think and just feel and consider what will come in the hours and days ahead.
As I see it, there's no stopping it. There aren't enough bright hours in the day to daylight savings time winter away. Better to just enjoy it, be grateful that you are warm and cozy, help others who aren't; pause, have a cup of tea and revel in the stillness. So, it’s the next day. Trump is the President-elect and the Republicans run everything, or soon will. I’ve thought about this all night, what’s it going to mean and where it’s going to lead us. No, I’m not an American (though I am married to one) and no, I’m not planning to move the USA. And at the end of the day, while it’s important to consider where this could go, I think it’s far more important to reflect on how we got here.
Without even getting into the whole Bernie/Hillary issue, let’s look at why people would flock to someone who built a campaign on division. The short version is: there was already so much division in the USA. This campaign didn’t cause it. It might not have helped but it can’t be called the cause. No one, once the primaries were over, was building bridges in this campaign except Trump. He reached out to the people who felt that the system didn’t represent them, he tapped into a whole cadre of voters who had never felt enfranchised, and who appreciated is approach. Whether or not what he said was factual, his approach resonated with a huge percentage of voters in key states. These were people who have been sold on the American dream but have never had it come true for them. Trump was a representation of that dream and promised them it wasn’t out of reach anymore. These were people who have felt marginalized (whether or not any of us agree, it’s where they felt they were) and finally, someone was speaking to them, hearing them, acknowledging them. And what did we do? We mocked them. We belittled them. We called them uneducated and ignorant. We held ourselves with the exact superiority that drove them out of the electoral process to begin with and we contributed heavily to the cracks that the Republican campaign was only too happy to cash in on. So to my mind, this isn’t the time for more division and more hatred. This isn’t the time to be bullying our fellow humans, complaining that they did this or that (third party voters, Trump supporters, whatever). This is the time to come together, to put down the torches, to put away the anger and the hate. Sure there’s fear but I can assure you, fighting your way through doesn’t make it go away, it just makes the darkness behind the fear grow teeth. I’m going to suggest something I never ever would have thought in a million years I’d say. Learn from the Trump campaign. Instead of continuing to shunt those folks off to the side, learn from this campaign and reach out. I think now is the time to copy the model interfaith organizations have set forth - we don’t have to share the same dogma to acknowledge our shared humanness. Mobilize, listen, build bridges, create closeness. Invite people to the table. In these times I consider my farming life - we grow the best crops and plants out of the most disgusting muck. Let’s take the mess and recycle it into something that’s beautiful and nourishing. So, I think we've talked about this before but it bears repeating, to my mind. You know how sometimes you read a blog, scroll through an Instagram feed, catch up with someone on facebook, and think "what the hell is wrong with me? I can't get half that done?" Or, "what the hell is wrong with me, I can't save/start a business/whatever" or "there's no way I can afford that/get all that done". I'm posting about this after a message I received. It was a heartfelt "please tell me your secret, I want to be farming and just can't make a go of it" kind of plea. Broke my heart a little bit because it was yet another reminder of how much social media skews our perspective of other's lives and from there, ourselves, if we let it. So let me tell you about my crazy life right now so if yours is crazy, or you can't figure out how to live off your 2 acres and ten mini goats, you won'y think something is wrong with you. First of all, we live in ten acres of forest. Love it. It's beautiful and private and restful and restorative and gives us lovely firewood to heat our home. It's also impossible to garden and live with sheep here because: trees. Why not cut them down? (I have actually been asked that). So, while we do have that to contend with dense forest (and yes, we did clear for the house and some garden) we have clay soil which is a treat. I know you don't usually read that but clay is the most mineral rich and, I have livestock with which to amend it so... I'm thrilled. I have a friend who was gardening on what seemed to be the most ideal place - open, flat, sunny, lots of water, soil looked gorgeous. But there was a high proportion of sand in it so when we had drought, she was watering multiple times per day. Yes, she had great produce but as she said "at what cost?" And they lived mostly off of what she grew so... they ended up selling and moving to somewhere more garden friendly. So, speaking of gardens... That is the unmitigated disaster that is my garden. I've convinced myself that leaving the tomatoes to fester might result in some shoots this spring (though it's rarely worked that way). And yes, there is row cover strewn about. We've had so much rain it was causing more harm than good to the plants so I threw it off and just left it there because:no time. Hopefully today I can get it cleaned up but maybe and maybe not. So, why no time? Well, I'm currently working three jobs - one of which has a 90 min commute each way. I won't be doing this over the long term and have given notice at one but yes, three. Am rebooting a small business, have the farm, this little guy: And of course, family and friends. On top of it, J is in a similar place with all of his commitments. And, I have a goat house and chicken coop in desperate need of cleaning, need to get more hay, and straw, and so on. Oh and garlic to plant and autumn seedlings to transplant. Now this is a big push for this month and isn't going to last but it's a true snapshot and hopefully, an accurate accounting so if your life is feeling a bit crazy or you're just questioning why you can't x, y, or z based on someone's Instagram feed - remember it's just the snapshot they're sharing with you. Many of us share about 1% of our life, right? So set realistic goals and work steadily towards them. That's all you can do. The Farmer's Almanac says my region is supposed to have a particularly cold and snowy winter. Now, I'm not sure what the track record of the FA is but I do know the people around here say if the berry bushes are full, it's going to be a tough winter. This year, the mountain ash and saskatoons were as laden as I'd ever seen them and folks reported record numbers of huckleberries in the high country. Funnily enough, the temps have been dipping way down, as low as 3*C/37*F overnight. That's a low we shouldn't really get for at least a month. At least the colours are fantastic. On the one hand, this cooling trend has got some challenges (tomatoes... so... close); on the other hand, it's been great. No one in my house is a heat lover, so there's that but more so, it's kicked us into squirrel gear big time. The woodshed is filling at an all time high rate, we've got canning going like crazy, though the dehydrator's been a bit quiet (I'll have to get on that asap). And, I've actually got winter crops started early enough that we might actually get to enjoy them as the weather turns! I've got a tonne of things coming - kales, broad beans, spinach, chard, cilantro, nasturtiums, and the all important carrots: I had great success growing carrots in buckets this year. I love the idea of being able to move them into the greenhouse to overwinter, mulch them, etc. But also, I don't have the usual worries about tree roots and our rocky ground. I've been improving it and building ever up and hope to have at least one big overwintering carrot bed but these are the insurance. There was a quick bit o'harvesting. The crookneck is an old beastie. Something between a summer and winter squash. If you catch it early, it's tender and cooks up just like zucchini. As it gets older, the rind gets pretty hard and then, well, I'm not sure. But I do like how it looks. And just because they can't help themselves, there's yet another hen on yet another nest. So, there may be another crop of babies coming. And there's more news but we'll save that for later. For right now, I need to get to my dye pots! I had such great intentions of writing something pithy about the value of our work and being mindful of that on Labour Day. One of the things that's odd to me is that we're at a time when days like Labour Day are important because for many, they're a day off work, not because of what they represent. For me, the most appropriate way to spend Labour Day is working for myself. So it was a canning and planning day. Fortunately, I also have a friend with a birthday so we had supper with good friends, which was lovely. I came home, dealt with a varmint (more on that later), and baked like a mad woman. I figured since this is the first busy week as we all get our wits about us, I should get some baking in. For us, school starts the day after Labour Day and ironically, this is one of the busiest weeks I've had for a long time. I'd call that one a planning fail but it's all towards an important end goal. So, I went from garden leftovers: to a delicious chutney: And made sure broody hens had enough to eat. Spun a lot because: projects. And yes, it's overspun but it's going to be plied so that's no biggie. And during it all, I managed to participate in the conversations around #fairfiberwage. Don't know what's going on there? Let me share some links: From Laura Fry, Abby Franquemont, Mary Beth Temple, Andrea Longo, Miriam Felton, and a bunch of great conversations. Seemed pretty fitting on Labour Day. Whatever you were out there doing, I hope it was good labour. |
AuthorI'm a 40-something writer and smallholder living in the wilds of BC with my family, our small herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats. Archives
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