But I have Flowers!

I am happy to report that once again, I kicked a cold virus in the ass due to my willingness to sacrifice all and take a day off to sit on the sofa and nap. This proves, once again, that laziness does in fact sometimes have an undeniable evolutionary advantage.

So today I thought I got under-paid on my timesheet and contacted the gal at work who takes care of such things. She, in turn, contacted the lady who actually cuts the checks. They looked everything over and decided....I was in error. Pay stub was correct. Which, once I looked closely enough at my pay stub, I totally saw, too. Oops.

I'm pretty hard on myself for such human mistakes. I hate that I put my friend and coworker out for nothing and sent her on a wild goose chase. But here's the thing....I have flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. Mason jars, too.

Apology.

So tomorrow I will take my kind and patient coworker these, as a humble request to forgive this lady who doesn't see well without her glasses anymore and never should have been looking at her pay stub without them.

I also currently have dried figs, cucumbers, apple pie filling and preserved relish to get me back into people's good graces if flowers don't work.

For all my bitching about how hard it is to maintain this place, there is no denying that sometimes it pays to live here, especially when you need to make nice to someone because you were a ditz.

Winter's rest

These next couple of weeks I'm completing the chore list I made when I decided to take an extended vacation from working at the winery back in November. The break turned out to be a great idea, and I've gotten more done in the last six weeks than I did the entire year before that. I plan on doing the same thing at this time next year. It just wraps up the year's end nicely to be able to make a significant dent on the list, giving space and room for whatever shows up in 2016.

But of course the items still left on my list are the ones I least enjoy doing, which is how they ended up at the bottom of the list -- isn't that always the way? If you hate sweeping, you'll do almost anything to avoid it, including a bunch of other chores you tell yourself need to get done more. 

Anyway, one of those bottom-of-the-list things which I'm finally getting to today is taking Sputnik into the vet's office for his rabies shot. The last time he got one he developed an allergic reaction in the form of a HUGE knot on his back, so this time I'm making sure the shot is done by the vet in a medical environment, where he can receive immediate treatment if he has a reaction. But as Sputnik does not ride in the car very frequently, a trip to the vet is stressful for both of us.

I have a few more things on my list before I return to work about mid-month, but when you have property, the list never really gets completed. New things and seasonal chores show up on the horizon just as old chores get marked off. 

But the break has been good for me in other ways as well, more than just getting stuff done. It's allowed me to return to living a little more in the moment -- to have several days in a row when there's nothing mandatory on the schedule to be done that day, which seems to be something necessary to really get stuff done around here. Creativity flows when time is in abundance, there's a creativity in scheduling things as well, so you can flow well from A to B to C, etc.

They only thing around the homestead that's new is that we are getting two Yuzu trees in a few weeks; they were my Christmas present from Big Ag and I couldn't be more thrilled. The Yuzu is a Chinese citrus which tastes like a cross between a tangerine and a lemon, which is quite cold-hardy and therefore a possibility for us to grow here, where temps regularly dip into the 20s in winter. 

I've picked out the most temperate place in our yard -- the south side by the house -- to place them, and will look forward to seeing how they do once they show up. They also love poor soil, so the rocky dirt that makes up our hilltop may be perfect for them.

I'm hopeful, anyway. And I start my Master Gardener classes in a few more weeks, too, so now the trick will be to not end up over-scheduled and burned out again, but to still leave myself enough time to work, enjoy life and get things done around the property. 

Same thing everyone else is probably striving for, right?

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.

Mormons, Survivalists, and Overproducing Homesteaders

There's a funny thread that runs through both survivalists and the Mormons' food storage methodology, and that is the idea of the Two-Year Plan, or having enough goods to last you two years, without needing to visit the grocery store or raid the neighbor's pantry at gunpoint. 

I pondered this Mormon/Survivalist common idea for a long time, wondering who started it first, and why.  And then there was this summer, and now I know exactly how and why the Two-Year Plan developed.  At least I think I do.

Both groups took the Two Year idea from earlier agricultural societies.  Back in those times, you put up two years' worth of a crop whenever you could, in case the next year produced a shitty crop -- or no crop at all -- due to circumstances beyond your control, like weather.

My tomatoes, as well as the tomatoes of most of the folks around here, may be heading for such a year.  It's been extremely windy, also warm, but also quite humid.  We can go from a 70 degree day to a 106 degree day in 24 hours.  

And the tomatoes are responding by producing a lot less fruit than normal, and losing a lot of their flowers before they even have a chance to be pollinated. With this weird summer happening now, it appears that the fruiting season is going to be substantially shorter than normal, and if frost happens at approximately the same time as usual, we will still lose our ability to grow tomatoes at about the same time as we normally do. Meaning there are going to be a lot less tomatoes produced for canning. 

Last month (before the weird weather had really set in) I went through the pantry to figure out exactly how many quarts of tomatoes we'd used these last 365 days, and found that we used exactly half of what I put up last year. 

It turns out, I actually carried out a two-year plan without ever intending to, which means in addition to survivalists and Mormons, there is actually a third group that has a Two-Year Plan, and that is homesteaders who got out of control with their canning and accidentally oversupplied themselves. Can I see a show of hands?

But this is not a bad thing to do, when you think about it, so don't be too hard on yourself if your hand is up. It turns out, the Mormons, survivalists and your great-grandparents were on to something.

Especially in these times of extreme climate uncertainty, having a two year supply of things you can preserve from your land is great, because as temperatures and other conditions grow more and more unstable and unpredictable, you never know when that shitty season is going to happen.

Add to that potential disasters, such as the huge solar flare we missed a couple of months ago (by nine mere days!) and there's a certain wisdom found in the habits of some Mormoms, survivalists and accidental overproducing homesteaders, who manage to put up more than they can use in one calendar year. When Mother Nature gives you more, preserve more.  

You won't be sorry you did. But if you don't, you may very well be sorry you didn't when that inevitable shitty season hits.

Lotion experiments

I'm a regular soap-maker, and have really enjoyed learning the whole process that's involved with making a great bar of soap, but my next challenge is to teach myself how to make a nice hand lotion.  And by lotion, I don't mean body butter or salve, both of which are fairly easy to make with the right oils, some water, and an immersion blender on a double boiler.  But I want lotion that can be used in a lotion dispenser -- so convenient, and more hygienic since you're not dipping your fingers into the mix every time you want to use some.

Step 1: When using cocoa butter, be sure and eat some chocolate to stop yourself from biting into the delicious-smelling (but NOT delicious-tasting) cocoa butter wafers.

So yesterday I made a salve with cocoa butter and shea butter, plus lavender and tea tree essential oils, which ended up completely solid once cooler.  To get it into a more liquid state, I then took a couple of tablespoons of it and put it into a cup or so of olive oil and some additional water and blended.  Once cooled, it was still completely liquid and fairly thin, so I added some more of the salve and repeated the same process. I'll continue doing this until I get a texture similar to most hand lotions, and then I will put it into my lotion dispenser and enjoy.

Step Two: A Melting Pot -- like America, only better-smelling.

This is the kind of thing I love doing in summer, when the day is slow and there is time to experiment.  If my lotion comes out decently, I will put the recipe on here, but this is still a project in development, as far as I'm concerned. 

Step Three: Finished salve. Time for some wine, this was hard work.

 That's the beauty of homesteading; you are free to play and experiment to see what works and what doesn't.  It's possible your experiment won't work and you'll continue buying what you were trying to make, but it's also possible you might just invent the best soap, lotion, or whatever in your history, and will be the happy benefactor of some homemade luxury.

Step Four:  Do this the next day if ended up having too much wine after making the salve. Salve is now mixed with olive oil and water. Will it turn out?  Who the hell knows! Stay tuned!

Flinchy

One of the best things about working the land is that it gives you time to think.  Most of my chores around here do not involve any higher-level thinking activities, which leaves my brain free to ponder whatever it desires as I dig, churn, stir, walk or pick.

Something that occurred to me today is that there are a few things I'm "flinchy" about, meaning I flinch, emotionally, sometimes when thinking about them. Flinchy is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Lite ...  it's not traumatic enough that you can truly make the PTSD claim, but it's something that messed with your head nonetheless.

I have found, for instance, that I am flinchy about bosses, which may be why I love being my own boss as I work on our property.  I had a couple of truly terrible bosses in my past, and they've left me in the position of being at work sometimes and wondering when the other shoe is going to drop, and it's all going to go to hell.  

Petty tyrants left in charge of staffs of people will do a lot of similar things.  I've experienced all of them in my working life -- for brief periods -- before I (and in most cases my fellow co-workers) would inevitably make for the higher, saner ground of a new job.

There were Ridiculous Rules.  There were Reprimands for Things Beyond My Control.  There were Threats of Dismissal, Unrealistic Expectations, Useless Paperwork, and Morale-busting Decrees.

In my current job at the winery, I have no such issues.  The winery is, as the kids who work there like to say, a very "chill" place.  There are no demagogues, no bureaucrats, no politics, and no ridiculous decrees. The owner came from a corporate environment and seems to have figured out that if you give people what they need to do their jobs and give them encouragement, they will give you 120 percent and do it quite happily.  

But this does not stop me from occasionally worrying that I'm going to be called on the carpet for absolutely no reason other than the fact that it's a Tuesday and my boss hates Tuesdays.  Because I'm flinchy, you see.

I am also this way about friends.  I had a best friend dump me unceremoniously and suddenly about 20 years ago, and I carried the scars with me for a long time (perhaps even into present day).  Mainly, I sometimes manifest an uncertainly about making female friends, thinking they will, at some point, send me a letter telling me exactly what they think is right about their life and wrong with mine, and tell me they never want to speak to me again.

What happened with my ex-friend was a freak occurrence, having far more to do with her than me, and it never happened before or after that, with any friend. We've even since gotten back into contact and made some rudimentary stabs at re-friending each other, although there are walls up on my end that will probably not be completely surmountable (and maybe that's a good thing). Yet, even with friends I trust, I occasionally still find myself evaluating my behavior and asking myself if some decision I made about my work or personal life might render me unfit to be someone's friend.  

We all have some areas of life we are flinchy about, based on our past experiences.  Time on the homestead provides a wonderful opportunity to ponder these questions as one digs the pumpkin patch, churns a batch of soap, and picks the berries. 

For me, it also offers a literal point, standing on the physical terra firma, where I can take out my flinchy points, examine them, and remind myself they are in my past, and the ground beneath my feet is my present. As are the pumpkins, soap and berries in my hands.  They are real in a way the flinchy thoughts are not, and they ground me in physical reality, instead of the emotional traumas of the past.

When they say the land can heal you, that's no lie.

Time, transitions and tasks

I just realized I addressed a very similar topic in a previous post called "The Simple Life."  Forgive the repetition.  Obviously this is something on my mind a lot these days!

The other night I started reading a journal I kept during the junior and senior year that our sons were in high school.  It's been a very enlightening walk down memory lane, and coincides perfectly with the upcoming anniversary of my husband and I moving to this area and our sons going to college. 

Children leaving home is one of those events that you know is going to change your life, much the same as giving birth does.  And just like giving birth, what follows is a period of readjustment -- of schedules, lifestyles, and interests -- and one's general happiness depends on how well we transition.

It took a few years for me to make the transition, but I think it's safe to say now that I have successfully transitioned now and am no longer mourning the loss of my role as a hands-on Mom to a family, and no longer wondering what comes next. What comes next has been happening for some time now. In fact, I've noticed that my social calendar is more booked with work, dinner parties and events than it has been in probably 20 years.

But within that change, or any change we go through in life, for homesteaders the question can become one of integration.  For much as I learned how to integrate my homesteading activities with the kids' schedules when they were in school, I have now had to learn how to integrate them as a working, mostly-empty-nester.   

For me, it means I've had to learn to say "no" again. Frequently. Last Wednesday, for example, Big Ag and I were invited to a dinner party.  the same day, a family friend wanted to come up for a visit.  A group I'm active in scheduled a board meeting that night.  And a couple we like to socialize with came into town and wanted me to go wine tasting with them during the afternoon.

I said no to all of those lovely happenings except the dinner party, because there is only one of me and only so much time in a day.  And more than just having things that I also needed to do here, there were things I wanted to do here...things that I consider part of the good work and the good life we live.  And I wanted to be here doing those things more than I wanted to be doing any of the other things (although make no mistake, all of the aforementioned social activities would have been fun.)

So, for me, the biggest lesson I've learned is that if I want to keep growing my own food and doing all the other homesteading activities I enjoy doing, I have to give it priority scheduling, which means turning down other things.  Unless I want to be making soap at midnight, or canning at dawn...slogging through chores during times I'm sure to not enjoy doing them.  

We choose our friends.  We choose our work.  And we also get to choose how we spend our time.  But in choosing the homesteading lifestyle, sometimes we have to choose our own homemade soap over a day of wine tasting, or a morning spent watering and weeding over coffee in town with a friend.  

These may not be easy decisions, but if you value what comes out of your kitchen or your garden, they are necessary.  And they carry with them a peace, a mindfulness, and a tangible reward that is extremely satisfying.

Because saying "no" to one part of your life can often mean saying "yes" to another.

A Perfect Day

Yesterday was a perfect day.  To some people that might mean a fancy vacation or at least drive to the beach, but for me it meant a day here on the homestead when I was caught up on everything and could just putter.

In my opinion, puttering is extremely under-rated.  To have the freedom to amble through one's house and across the property stopping only to do whatever seems fun or interesting is a gift.  Puttering is, to me, very light and pleasant labor -- a bit here, a bit there, then a little of something else.

So many times on this homestead I am outside doing things that I love, but many of those things are also physically demanding or just repetitive, like weeding, pulling and processing crops, or planting.

Puttering gives me the freedom to spend 10 or 20 minutes outside, come back in, and do something else for awhile. Even if that something else includes nothing.

Yesterday, for instance, I harvested about a pound of carrots, watered the lettuce, froze some onions and worked with the new hens a bit.  But then I came inside, made a carrot souffle and an alfredo sauce with chicken and peas, and cooked both up in the solar oven while I spent the bulk of the afternoon lounging on the patio.  It was 96 degrees here yesterday, so the option to lounge was huge.

And today I feel refreshed and hopeful that we will get all our major tasks done before the heat of summer sets in.  One day of wandering around the property made me realize how much we've accomplished, as well as the fact that what's left to do will all be done in good time.

In other words, puttering offers refreshment and perspective.  Both valuable enough that I hope to include more puttering on my days off, instead of trying to cram them full of in-town errands or day trips. Puttering is productive and free, and therefore a bargain on all counts.