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.

Squash Baby

So I have a coworker who absolutely hates squash. We go around and around, with him coming up with pithy little statements designed to get on the squash-lovers' nerves (this includes our winery chefs and a couple of tasting room folks). Things like, "I have a great recipe for squash. Cut the squash into little pieces, throw it into the trash, and go find something else to eat." Ha ha.

Those of us who like squash are always in a difficult time at this point in the year anyway, because while we really like squash, we've also had enough of it to last us awhile (although I will never admit this to my squash-hating coworker). Luckily I work in a place that allows and encourages practical jokes. And so the idea of Squash Baby was born. Basically I nurtured one GIANT squash among my plants here at home until I had a 12 pound huge zucchini. Squash Baby got plenty of water and plenty of fertilizer, in order for him to reach his full potential.

 I went to the Goodwill and bought him some baby clothes (the onesie actually has a tractor and says, "homegrown!") and a hat. Then I pulled four more squash at roughly identical lengths to make two arms and legs.

And then I left Squash Baby in my coworker's office, so it greeted him in his chair on Monday morning. 

Haven't heard a bad comment about squash since then. I think Squash Baby now inhabits his nightmares. I know it does mine.

A few gratuitous work photos

The Office . My boss said he didn't want anymore flowers along this fence line, but if a couple of packets of sunflower seeds should just happen to be spilled around there, I will invoke culpable deniability/willing suspension of disbelief -- whichever one will work best.

So I'm finally at the point when the big, planting phase of the summer garden at work is finished, and the chefs are busy harvesting what I've grown for use in the menus for the weddings we host as well as in our café. This has been immensely satisfying for me and I'm proud of how the garden looks, as well as the poundage it's producing in terms of food. Of course it wasn't all about my skill -- I just got very lucky/blessed in terms of weather and the fact that we had an early El Nino spring. 

Mexican tarragon

Herbs, nasturtiums, zinnias and alyssum

One thing that I'm happy I did is intercrop some ornamentals-beneficials and ornamental-edibles in and around the food crops. We've put nasturtium blossoms on all the cheese plates and in salads and the alyssum and marigolds seem to be attracting the good bugs and repelling the bad.

Squash bed is very squashy.

My Master Gardener classes are also drawing to a close and it will be a huge relief to not have to drive an hour south every week to attend class, although I've learned a tremendous amount and am so grateful for that opportunity to have done so. But clearly July is going to be a slower month for me than I've had in the last five months or so, and I'm grateful for that.

I have a few projects I'll be working on....one is refurbishing two Adirondack chairs I bought for $15 at a garage sale (pics to come). Another is working on some kind of dining room table for our back patio. These are all great things to occupy oneself with in the mornings before the heat sets in.

Mmm, who doesn't love Genovese Basil in summertime!

But until I start those projects, for now this is the time to gaze and savor all that has come out of spring's labors, which were many. What delicious results for the eyes and palate!

Outside Girl

The Great Outdoors

It's funny, when choosing careers most people do not place serious consideration about whether they'd rather work inside or outside. I'm sure our high school and college career counselors would probably have scoffed at putting this requirement at the top of our lists, preferring to merely tailor the skill set to the individual. 

And yet indoors versus outdoors makes all the difference in the world to me. I can honestly say I was never happy at a job which left me inside from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., no matter how actively my skill set was utilized. I am just not an Indoor Girl.

When I was in my 20's, I took a short break from college but worked on campus in a secretarial capacity, serving as an in-house temp within the different departments, including at the medical center attached to the university. At the medical center -- with its multistory office complex and hallways with no windows, you could easily pass your eight hours never even seeing the outside. This was especially challenging in winter, when you could go into work before it was completely light and only emerge once darkness was setting in. I never thought about it until today, but while I was working there I'd usually spend my lunch hour in the nearby botanical gardens to soak up some greenery and nature.

The Great Indoors (UCLA Medical Center). Note lack of windows.

It's easy to see looking back that I was indeed an "outside" girl, and have been since I was in grammar school and always tried to snag a desk near the door or windows so I could look outside and daydream while I was supposed to be studying. Actually, it was more than just being outside; being on the playground or asphalt meant nothing to me. I wanted to be on and in some kind of greenery. Our school had a beautiful back lawn and I often looked out the door in Mrs. Mark's 4th grade classroom and dreamed of sitting under the shade trees of that lawn. It's probably why I didn't properly learn my multiplication tables until junior high school but, hey -- priorities.

Once I actually became a teacher, I always made sure my class and I took our books outside to the grass area when we did our independent reading, knowing I was not only helping myself, but also any other budding "outside" boys and girls. 

Not much has changed for me since, except the fact that my main job now takes place almost entirely outside, which has made me so happy. It does amaze me how such things as a preference for being indoors or outside establishes itself early on. It is probably something we are born with. My neighbor remarked the other day that as soon as I come home from working in the garden at the winery, she observed that I tend to head straight outside to care for my own garden here. She commented that I was obviously more of an "outside" girl than she was.

Damn right. And it only took me 54 years to realize it fully.

Bringing the outside in.

.

Turn the steering wheel.

I'll be finishing my last two shifts behind the bar at the winery in the next couple of weeks, and it's causing me to reflect on my experiences as a tasting room attendant. 

The best (and coincidentally, also worst) part of my job has been the people -- the best, my coworkers, all of whom I enjoy and most of whom I'm friends with outside of work. And the great customers I meet -- people I'd love to invite over for dinner or to my home for the weekend. Honestly, I've met people I'd be honored to call my honorary relatives. Pouring wine allows you to interact with cultured, funny, intelligent and wonderful people who all have one thing in common: they love wine. I've met NASA astrophysicists, POTUS advisors, current and ex-movie stars, you name it. But also just retired couples, newlyweds, "just-turned-21" youngsters (to me) who are anxious to really learn about how to taste wine, and oenophiles of every social class and occupation.

But in my time behind the bar I've also met people who I was less than thrilled to meet, but who I had to smile and serve wine to, nonetheless:  There was The Russian, a repeat customer who constantly asked for re-visits on the wine, complained about the portions he was poured, claimed he was owed discounts and freebies no one promised him, and who treated service staff like serfs. There were the parents who brought their children with them when they went to winery after winery and didn't look after them. There were drunks who broke things, caused scenes, tried to crash weddings going on on-site, or attempted public sex in some pretty public places. 

But thankfully, those bad experiences were very, very much in the minority and were mostly things we could all laugh about once the doors closed and it was just staff and a half-finished bottle of Cabernet going around as we swapped tales of the day.

One of the things about providing great service though is to always ensure your smile is genuine; in other words you should never burn out, and after three years and increasingly busy customer counts, it's time for me to hand over the bottle to someone else before I do, in fact, burn out. It would happen. I've always believed it was a smart person in life who knew when to change lanes or get off the damn freeway completely when it was time to do so, and who turned the steering wheel without fear. Before someone asks you to, or you are desperate to change. Make the change before you hit that point, if you can, I say.

My new office.

My new job has several distinct advantages: I can set my own hours, including during summer when I'll try and be home before the heat sets in. I can take breaks when needed, or just stop and visit with a coworker without fear of neglecting a customer awaiting their next pour of wine. I still get to work in a happy work place with happy coworkers. And I'm outdoors on the best days -- the cool, sunny, breezy ones, and at home with a good book when it rains or when it's 105 degrees.

My shifts will also be a bit shorter, but more often, which will allow me to dovetail my own homesteading activities with work a lot more, which will help around here a lot.

But of course there will be the challenge of growing a beautiful and also a productive garden, meeting the needs of our kitchen staff and chef while also making the garden a place that beckons you to walk around and visit. 

At this point, I'm just turning the wheel and hoping for the best.

A New Chapter

So yesterday afternoon I found myself among friends at the winery on a purely social visit, sitting beneath the veranda as the sun set with a glass of Cabernet and catching up with everyone. One friend is going through a difficult divorce and was passing her phone around so we could see pictures the new house she just purchased, which she'll be working on to make totally hers, reflecting her new life.

I will be starting a new life of my own soon, in a wonderful way. I will be moving on from the tasting room in order to manage our Chef's Garden at the winery. Oh, I'll still probably jump in behind the bar on special occasions like festival weekends, but my energy and work hours will now be focused on making our winery garden both productive and a lovely place to look at as customers enjoy our wine and stroll the property.

There comes a time when everyone needs a bit of a change-up; in the three years I've worked at the winery it's been "discovered,"  we've have won numerous (well-deserved) awards, and the restaurant has also recieved numerous write-ups and high praise (also well-deserved). These are all great things to be sure, but the result is that my workplace has become twice as busy as when I started, and unfortunately I'm not half as young to go along with that. 

While everyone has been pleased as punch with my job performance as a tasting room attendant, I knew that I would not last through another hot summer (most our our work takes place outside in summer, in the heat of the afternoons) out pouring wine, schlepping plates and helping serve food, and I had all but determined that my last day would be the end of June, regardless of whether or not I had another job to go to.

But that made me very sad, as I love my bosses, coworkers and customers, I count good friends among them all and it would have broken my heart to leave.

But providence threw down a blessing this week in the form of this job offer, and so beginning in April I will be out in the garden at the winery in the cool mornings, making it a place you want to be -- to stand in, to walk around, and of course enjoy the products of in your lunchtime meal.

So here's to moving out -- out into a new life, and in my case, out into the garden, a place I seem destined to inhabit in one form or another. And now there will be double posts on growing and wine country life,  both from home and work. I really think I'm going to enjoy this new view from my "office," just a few yards from the tasting room, but where the breezes blow and the seedlings grow.

Can you tell I can't wait to get started?

The salvation of country life

I recently re-activated my subscription to Ancestry.com and have once again been spending time with those who came before me. This time around I'm focusing on my U.K. ancestors, since I am a first generation American on that side and have a lot of family over there, past and present.

I came across a heartbreaking story of my third maternal great-grandmother, a lady named Elizabeth Aylward. Her whole branch of the family originally lived their lives in the rural hamlet of Suffolk, England, as well as Essex County. (I've actually been to Suffolk a few times and it's beautiful.) But when the Industrial Revolution began to gain traction, like thousands of others, Elizabeth made her way to London to live in the city and find work.

Over the years, through census documents, I saw her working as a boot-mender, a silk weaver, and as she grew older and presumably less dexterous, a laundress.

Her life went on in what must have been a dreary and difficult way, earning barely enough to survive and, along with her husband, supporting a family. But it was what happened after her children were gone and her husband died that really got me. 

Elizabeth's "Poor Law" removal and resettlement document.

1881 Census for her section of Bethnel Green Work House. The age of most women there was between 50 - 70.

Elizabeth Aylward ended up at age 70 in one of London's most notorious workhouses -- Bethnal Green -- where she lived out her days doing menial labor until she died.

As I read the sad story of her life, I couldn't help wondering if she ever regretted leaving the clean air and green fields of Suffolk. I can't help but feel that somehow, if she could just have stayed in the country, her life would have been far different. There would have been a community to care for her in her old age (no workhouses were needed in the farm communities, it was a city phenomenon) and life might not have been such a struggle.

But I could be wrong. It could be that she left Suffolk for London partly because she needed to find work that would support her.  In the end I will never know, of course, what choices could have changed her life. But I know when I lived in Los Angeles, I was very familiar with the sensation of how it felt to spend everything you have on rent to a point where you're broke at the end of each and every month with no emergency fund and no savings. And while there are no more work houses, there is certainly economic uncertainty for people who live their lives in cities and spend all of what they earn, month after month, year after year. The cities of the world are, in some spots, glamorous and cosmopolitan, but they extract a high price from those who want to live in them.

For me, my salvation came not from a journey into the city, but a journey out of it. And somehow, I feel that if Elizabeth could just have found her way back to the small town she started in, her life might have ended in a rocking chair by a window under a thatched roof somewhere instead of a brick factory work house, being fed crumbs and living in filth while working until the day she finally dropped dead. 

Elizabeth's greatest challenge, in my opinion, was something that was not her fault at all -- she was born into the era that valued the man-made and technological, the brick and the concrete, over a simple country life, considered by most to be antique and passé in the face of the Machine Era.  And it led her away from that country life to a hardscrabble existence in East London, where at the end of that life she had nothing to show for it -- no savings, no home, and no close-knit community to depend on.

I don't know where the soul of Elizabeth Aylward resides today but I only hope that there are a lot of green trees, fragrant flowers, soft breezes and most importantly, eternal and blissful rest. 

God knows she earned it.

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?

Signs you are overbooked

As the tourist season has slowed down here and therefore my work schedule at the winery has as well, I've been thinking about being overbooked -- chores stacked up like planes waiting to land at O'Hare, circling, circling, with me in the middle trying to prioritize and manage all the "air traffic" and feeling more and more overwhelmed. 

My chores can easily take a half-day in summer -- every day, 7 days a week, with no exceptions due to the heat. This is mainly because we grow so much of our food. but add to those half-days full shifts of outside work, plus other things like my family, people coming to visit and the things we want to do (concerts, beach, parties) it's easy to start feeling overbooked.

My Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) resolution was not to let this happen again next year. I'm not in the phase of my life for that anymore, and I certainly don't want to miss out on things I want to do because I'm squashed under a mountain of responsibility. If my kids come up here, I want to be able to visit with them. If my husband gets a couple of days off before grape harvest starts, it would be nice to spend them together.

So in thinking about it, here are (for me, anyway) the Top Ten Signs you are overbooked: 

1. Family coming to visit feels like one more chore to add to the chore list. And squiring them around town feels like a few hours that will cause you to fall even more behind on Life's Chore List than you are already. When you resent having to go wine tasting and out to lunch, there's a problem.

2. You start to dread the concert, party or event you have had on the calendar for awhile (and were at one time looking forward to attending) because you'd just rather stay home and catch up on your rest or your chores.

3.  Things you formerly loved doing around the house now feel like time-wasting manual labor.

4.  You start to forget things; your brain's memory files are so filled with deadlines and commitments that other things begin dropping out, like paying bills on time, remembering to clean the litter box, etc. (apologies to Kitty)

5.  You see good friends on your Caller ID and let it go to voicemail. No time for aimless chatting.

6. You set time limits on everything -- "I'm going to the party, but need to leave by 9 pm so I can get to bed and get enough rest for work tomorrow because it's going to be SO busy." And you hold yourself to them, because rest at that point has become more important than fun.

7.  You stop reading anything longer than a standard news article on the internet, and you even skim that. Your focus and attention are in too much demand elsewhere.

8.  Pets feel like customers -- just one more entity with needs you must fill. (apologies to Kitty x 2)

9.  Spouses become coworkers you rely on to keep things running, meaning the only romance you have time for is kind where he does the dishes for you while you're squeezing in a trip to the supermarket at 9 pm on a Sunday night. Nothing says romance like sitting with a gallon of milk and tortillas in the Express Lane knowing your husband is at home putting away all the clean pots and pans away in unusual places.

10. You have a whole list of things in your life that go into the category of "I don't have time to deal with that right now. I'll get to it after all this chaos clears out." Projects, things that need decisions made, long-term planning -- even routine medical care all get put into this category.

I'd say if you felt an affirmative nod to three or more of these things, it's time to make some changes. You are overbooked.

Begats

In the Old Testament, there are a couple of sections which feature genealogies; they usually go something like, "And Joseph begat Simon, and Simon begat Benjamin," and so on. Homesteading chores are like the Bible in that way. Everything you do begats something else.

At the winery, to give you an example of the opposite principle, when I empty the glass sterilizer at the end of the evening and drain it, that chore is done. I won't see the glass sterilizer again until I next work. The act of draining it, setting the glass-holder up on the bar and turning the switches off is all that's needed to accomplish this chore. I won't be the one to turn it on the next morning, most likely. So my chores there do not begat anything in my world.

Now think of something like, say, tomatoes. When I plant some tomatoes, tomato planting will inevitably begat harvesting the fruits from the plant, once it's time for that. Once I harvest the fruit, that then begats some kind of preservation method or a lot of cooking. When I save the seeds from a few plants, that begats the next  round of planting in the spring, when the whole thing will start again. 

And the thing about begats is, if you leave one item in this task list undone, the whole system comes to a grinding halt.  Because the begats basically give birth to the next generation of tasks that succeed the last one, just like the old kings of the Bible succeeded their fathers.

It's also a truism around the household even if you're not a homesteader. When we finished the patio landscaping, that begat sealing the stone, something I did yesterday. Now that it's done and looks gorgeous, I see the dead grass next to it and realize I need to get moving on finishing the planting portion of the remodel, so that can then begat laying down some gravel and bark. I'm sure once that's done, I'll want to add something else to the area. You see how it works? Nothing with begats ever seems to end.

Dusting begats....more dusting.

Around the house, chores may get finished, but they inevitably begat other chores and improvements that keep your property in a continual state of improvement -- a good thing, but a time and labor consuming one. Let's be honest here: the moment after you dust, the new dust particles begin dropping down from the ether, onto the tabletop to form the base of what you'll be dusting next time. As soon as you replace your worn out sofa with a pretty new one, you notice that the worn out armchair in the corner looks terrible next to the brand new sofa....old dusting begats new dusting, new sofa begats new armchair, new carpet and new coffee table. 

At least that's how it usually goes in my household. I'm finally learning that, around the homestead anyway, the begats are as inevitable as the dust motes dropping onto the table one nanosecond after I finish dusting. The begats always win in the end, because they have the power to dictate not just what you're doing now, but also what you'll be doing next week or next month. 

It makes me think that if I want a real vacation, I need to start by heading to a place where there are no begats.

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.

Greens, reds and rainbows

One thing I'm fond of doing (as I'm sure most of you are as well if you have any kind of edible plants growing on your property) is snacking as you walk through the garden.  Right now the pineapple guavas are ripened and falling off the bushes -- what wonderful treasure to find under the trees!  I am sure I get a good part of my body's micronutrients from these and the pomegranates that are also ripe this time of year.

Sometimes I lament when it's too late in the day to get outside and pick some lettuce for an evening's salad, but with some of these fruits sitting in a bowl on the counter, there's no reason I can't boost my "fruit and vegetable" servings just a bit by snacking on them in the evening after work, instead of something more processed and unhealthy.

And while those short days do make me feel like I don't always get enough time out in the garden, the winery has its own set of pleasures, like this late-afternoon rainbow we saw over the vineyard a few days ago.

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.

Enough

Victory. Singular.

I love the days when standing in my kitchen making something from scratch is enough.

I love the days when hanging wash out in the sunshine is enough.

I love the days when cleaning the house is enough.

I'm not sure why I expect so many of my other days to be "Multiple Victory" Days, where I stack achievement upon achievement until I feel validated because I've crossed so many items off a "to do" list. It makes me no better a person.  It puts no more money in the bank.  And the list, which I whittle down day after day, somehow always seems to regenerate itself by tomorrow, like a weed that keeps coming back.

What does it take for you to say, "that's enough" to yourself, and feel like it's been a productive day?  

And if it's more than a few simple things, why are you so hard on yourself?  The list will surely re-invent itself again tomorrow, before you're even out of bed. And every achievement is a sweet one, whether it's a swept floor, warm dinner rolls or just some clean laundry.

I'm sure what you did today was enough, whatever it was.

Doing what you have to do?

This morning it is a brisk 17 degrees outside.  Everything that hadn't died already (and is supposed to be dead this time of year) will be dead when I walk outside today.  The remaining eggplants, basil,  a lone tomato, along with the bouganvilla on the side of the house, will have all died down to the ground.  The bouganvilla will come back in spring, but the aforementioned summer food crops are gone for good.

Inside, the pellet stove is humming away, keeping the common rooms warm and cheery.  It's a rural fantasy if you look at the surface....in a few minutes I will don flannel-lined denim overalls and start to clean up the things around the property that didn't survive.  It looks bucolic and seasonal and, friends, it feels that way, too.  And if you looked no further, you'd think we were a pioneer family, living the simple life and loving it.

But if you read this blog, you know there's more to my life than this. And lately it's been bothering me (once again) that others who blog on the so-called "country life" are misleading good-hearted people who read their posts and think, "well, I can quit my job and do that!"

You see, I was at work yesterday, at a job I love. Big Ag, my husband, works long hours on a corporate farm about an hour east of here.  That's how we afford to the fix fences and well pumps, add raised vegetable beds to this property, and rent heavy equipment when we need to dig post holes or re-landscape the front lawn with native plants instead of grass.  

And for some reason, this morning I've been thinking of two other blogs I read fairly often, where good, old-fashioned "country living" is elevated to almost a religious pitch, but where the necessary realities of having cold, hard cash are downplayed -- unless you want to donate some, that is.

One blog site is in the midst of a legal battle because, for the last few years, they have been trying to trademark the term "urban homestead," and shut down all other websites that use the term without giving them credit.  If they successfully trademark the term, anyone using it will have to pay them or at least get permission to use it (and I'm sure the idea that Home Depot will want to market "urban homestead" products has them seeing dollar signs everywhere).  But, hey, they are just simple folks, right?  They're more concerned with baking bread and growin' food than entering in protracted legal battles to own a term that's been in use since the turn of the century before this, right?  Well apparently not.

The other blog is a blog that once inspired me, with a blogger who wrote about growing vegetables and leading a vegetarian lifestyle, playing fiddle, owning rabbits and a goat and working a job in town to keep the bills paid. Then she quit her job and....life went off the rails.  Read the blog now and it's become a celtic fantasy world, filled with descriptions of how wonderful it is to ride horseback in a kilt, speak Gaelic to people and animals, hunt, butcher animals, do archery, falconry and role-playing games, with nary a mention of real farming, except for a few chickens and sheep that seem to be kept around for no real purpose.  None of which will pay the bills or have any real basis in reality at all.  

I'm a believer that you do create your own reality, but only to a point.  When the lawyers come demanding their invoice gets paid, or when the truck that takes you to the celtic fantasy reenactments gets repossessed, life gets real very fast.  And if you don't have any kind of REAL job, you just might lose the whole kit and kaboodle.  Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday.

Most "farmers" work at other jobs to keep their dream in the black.  Both my husband and I have jobs off the property, which help fund our adventure.  To tell you otherwise would be misleading, and potentially costly for anyone who wants to do what we're doing now.

Farms take funding, and few survive without extra income coming in.  So as they say in show business, "don't quit your day job, kid."  Because while an actor or actress might eventually make millions and win an Oscar, farmers rarely come into that kind of fortune, even by using their talents. At the most, they support themselves by selling what they grow.  We don't even do that; we do put a substantial dent in our grocery budget by growing our food and making most of what we use, but we could never live off what we do here.  To think otherwise would be to engage in magical thinking.

Yet, the latest thing in the blog world is to putter along on your property, and if you get in trouble financially, just ask your readers to support you (literally).  But to ask for money when you're not out there doing anything to bring in a regular income to help yourself survive is, well, the exact opposite of keeping your life simple.  It's becoming beholden to an "audience" and constantly having to come up with new things to keep them entertained and engaged.  That is not farming.  That is public relations and marketing.

And it's not the simple life, not by a long shot. Our life may involve having to drive down the hill and go to work a few days a week, but those every-other-Wednesday paychecks DO help keep our life simple, by keeping this farm running and keeping us in the black.  To imply otherwise would be to insult your intelligence and our work ethic.  

Here's to keeping it real, folks.

Winery weekend

If last weekend was a trial by fire of sorts, as I spent my first two workdays at the winery training during a time of unprecedented, huge crowds, this weekend was exactly the opposite -- much slower than normal weekends are.  But the lull gave me time to work on things -- learning more about the wines our customers taste, and sampling some myself in order to be able to describe them.  This is not casual drinking; it's being able to describe to customers the difference between Rousanne versus a Marsanne-Rousanne blend, or the difference between the '09 Cabernet and the '10 vintage year.

I also got to spend time visiting with each customer a bit more, and chatting with them about what had brought them to the area for the weekend and what else they were planning on doing.  Last weekend was all about bussing tables, delivering plates to the kitchen to be washed, and making sure glasses were filled on time; this weekend was about chatting with customers, answering the phone, and lingering over the counter, polishing glasses while giving people directions to good area restaurants or other wineries.

I realize you need to have a fair amount of busy weekends in order to have a successful business, but I have to say that the slow day was heavenly.  Some jobs are boring when they are not hectic, but a slow day at a winery really lets you take a breath and appreciate where you are and how lucky you are to be there.

My life is in a nice balance right now, where some days I hang with my chickens, my livestock and my plants, who aren't really chatty, and other days I am at the winery, where it seems like I'm always talking to someone.  You need both in life, I am convinced.  If you have either one of those things exclusively -- hermitdom, or constant company, with no balance between the two, and a person will go mad.  

Seen it happen, not going there.

First fruits

First squash of summer!

Summer's first fruits are finally showing up here at the homestead, while the last of the fall crops are harvested.  The last of the carrots came out of the ground yesterday, along with some of the onions and radishes I planted in October, if you can believe that. The cool nights here really help keep things in the ground for a long time, which is great when you want an extended harvest -- picking a few here, and a few there, as needed. The carrots will be blanched and frozen today, along with some more mustard greens.  The rest will be eaten now, or in the case of the onions, hung up to dry and cure for use later on.

Big Ag is bringing home 20 pounds of apricots for me tonight, for canning and making preserves with this weekend.  And my first cucumbers and squash plants are on the vine outside as we speak.  I even found three or four raspberries and a couple of ollalieberries off my first-year vines yesterday, which I ate promptly, before the birds could find them.

Last summer at this time we were busy with two high school graduations plus packing and moving, so we weren't doing much homesteading, and it's funny how easily I forgot just how busy the regular routine of picking and canning keeps me, most days.  It's hard work, but it's rewarding work.  I've said many times that there's no sound better than that of a canning lid snapping into place after it comes out of the canner.  It sounds like satisfaction from a job well done and the promise of good things to come, all at the same time.

I'm working this Saturday at the winery -- hopefully indoors, because it's expected to be 103 degrees outside -- but after this I will be cutting back to working outside the home just one or two days a month (whenever the winery needs help most, if they do) and using the rest of my time to begin putting up our winter stores.

Good work, done in pleasant surroundings -- anywhere that happens, you really can't ask for anything more.