Too many monkeys

The other day I was planting my fall lettuces and in the midst of digging around in the dirt, I found myself muttering, "I am so bloody sick of doing this." I soldiered on through and got everything in the ground, but thought about what I'd said later on.

I was sick of it? Really?

It's a sad fact but sometimes frustration will make you turn on things (and even people) you love. For me, it's been a tough few months with some health issues (a labral tear in my hip socket, not fixable but it is getting treated at this point), some work issues for Big Ag, and an elderly relative going into a nursing home. 

We've definitely seen that for all the plusses about living in a rural area, there are definite drawbacks as well. Medical care is most definitely inferior, and if you want an even slightly complex medical problem solved, you'd better plan on a trip to the big city. If the weather doesn't kick your ass in one way or another, the endless, endless, endless chore list of a rural homeowner will. 

Days off are kind of a joke. Crisis with the relatives? Need something not available in-town? Plan on hours-long trips away to handle it. Big Ag gets one day a week off from his regular job and usually spends it ticking off a honey-do list I've made for him. Not meaningless chores, either. Mainly just doing the things I don't have the upper body strength for but which are absolutely necessary.

Yes, if you want that homestead, you'd better really, really, want it. Because even the ones who desperately want it still hate it sometimes. That's the secret no one tells you in the glossy magazines and pretty homesteading blogs, of which there are many.

That's because a few months of constant busyness can make you hate even the things you should love, because they're just one more "to-do" chore you have to complete by sundown, (which happens earlier and earlier these days  by the way). It's like putting 3 monkeys in a cage in a zoo, who do very well. 3 works. Add 30 more and suddenly even the ones who liked each other before begin starting to attack each other, because there are just too many monkeys in the damn cage.

And so, if you follow the metaphor, if chores and obligations are monkeys, we've just had too many monkeys in our cage of late, and it's even caused us to resent and attack the things we love, like me hating my lettuce (I have since apologized to it). That's a kind of sickness only found in our modern society, but luckily it's one which has a simple cure if we're willing to go into the cage and remove whatever extra monkeys we can.

Today the fog of all the work kind of cleared and I actually had an entire day when I could spend it doing exactly what I wanted. That hasn't happened in weeks. And so where did I find myself? Not in front of the computer, TV or even with a good book on the patio. I found myself in my garden, trellising olallieberry vines and pruning back the summer vegetables. Because, it turns out, that was where I wanted most to be in the world.

And I realized I'm not sick of it at all. I just need more time to do it so it's not the proverbial last monkey that makes all hell break loose in the cage that is my life's work.

Part of homesteading is, ideally, putting together a more simple life, but even the simple life can get impossibly busy if we try and do too much on and/or off farm. When canning, gardening or animal care interferes with work or family obligations, something has to give or you will absolutely resent your time spent in front of the stove, digging in the dirt or hauling hay into the pasture. It becomes the monkey you want to kill, which would actually be the worst thing possible. But your instincts are off at that point, and can't be trusted.When those chores you love are just one more mouth crying to be fed with your time and attention, it is possible to hate anything. Even the wrong things.

I don't know how the next month is going to shape up, but I'm making a concerted effort to bar the door to any more monkey business. But it is nice to know I've chosen at least a few of the right monkeys for my cage, and my goal is to feed and care for them well, enjoy and be entertained by them, but to resist adding any more at this time.

Peace if you want it.

There are a lot of advantages about living the homesteading lifestyle.  I love the way the hours shift with the seasons in particular. In winter we have things set up so that I rarely have to venture outside to the business end of the property before 7 a.m. because it's too cold and dark to effectively get much done, and in summer I try and be DONE with my farm chores by the same time, meaning I will rise and start work at about 5 a.m. once the days become long, which is about now.

In this area (and it's what makes this region great for wine grape growing) there is a huge diurnal shift in temperatures -- the morning that starts off at a brisk 50 degrees can easily morph into a day where it's in the high 90s by noon. Some climes stay warm all the time in summer -- there are balmy midnights and temperate dawns, but we are not one of those places.  If you are going somewhere after dark, you will need a sweater or jacket -- maybe two. And so it just makes sense (if you have any sweat-producing tasks to complete) to rise early and get started before the sun even makes an appearance on the horizon because it's just so much more comfortable to work in cooler weather (this is the hot flash homestead, after all).

Today my 5 a.m. task was finally getting around to tilling a spot where our pumpkins are (hopefully) going to be growing. I threw some bagged soil on top of the tilled spots, enough to make three mounds, where I then placed my seedlings.  Since I'm starting this whole project about a month behind when it should have been done, I also used some white shade cloth to keep the seedlings cool for the first week or so, until they're a little more acclimated to their new spot. 

Undercover pumpkin patch.

And then, around 8 a.m. with the fog lifting and the sun making his first appearance of the day, the world was warming and my chores were done.  It was a good feeling.  And I sat down there in the garden on my little plastic chair and just enjoyed the peace surrounding me. There was no wind, and no sounds other than the occasional chirp from a hummingbird and the sounds of bees at work among the plants. 

"Peace" is a noun, I have realized, just like the words "shovel," "eggplant," and "house" are. And just like those things, peace is something you can pick up and enjoy/use, or just leave it be. You have to consciously decide to attend to peace, to observe peace  and to use peace, just like any other object in your life. Otherwise it will sit quietly on the sidelines like an unused tool, never crying out for lack of use or really even letting you know its there. It IS there, of course, all the time.  But it doesn't demand its place in life the way other things in life do. Use it and it's a tool to make your life better. Don't use it and it sits out in the garden, always there, just unnoticed, like an old spade or garden hoe left in a corner. The bees buzz, the hummingbirds chirp and whiz around the bushes, but no one is there to notice. Peace exists even when you are not there to notice. And so the trick is to do so.

Peace is possibly the most valuable crop, garden tool, and place to shelter out of all the things we think about on a day-to-day basis. This morning, after finishing my chores I consciously picked up peace and held it in my gaze for awhile.  And I'm glad I did.