Too much or not enough?

I thought it would be like this all the time.

It's been a busy summer here on the homestead, both with homestead-related activities and off-homestead fun and events.  Since moving to Wine Country, every summer I usually feel, guiltily, that I'm doing too much partying and too little homesteading, and have felt that way ever since we moved here three years ago.

But we've had out-of-town guests visiting from New Jersey for the last three days, and their last comment upon leaving us and heading to the Bay Area was something about how they were so impressed with everything we do for energy conservation -- water, electricity and propane. So there's me, feeling like we're slacking and not doing nearly what we should, and then there's our extended family relatives, who live more or less like comfortable urban folks on the East Coast do, in a planned development, who see how we live as something quite unusual and almost extreme -- but, surprisingly, in a positive way.

It's all in how it looks from where you're sitting, I guess.

When I started homesteading, I was committed with an almost religious fervor to live as lightly on the planet as possible, knowing it wouldn't change the big picture, but at least feeling like there would be an impact on the small one. And so I became conscious of every little thing we needed to do to cut back on the things we were wasting energy on (and also spending money on, not-coincidentally). I did as little driving as I could get away with, watched the thermostat in the house like a hawk, and made the family learn to live with crispy line-dried clothes.

Our lives changed, and the first place I saw it was in our bank account, which started growing almost as fast as the crops in our back yard, because we were no longer spending on a bunch of stuff we could grow/make ourselves, or using electricity without thinking about it. 

 But not everything we started doing became habits that stayed around.  While it's true that I still feel the same way about the importance of living sustainably, my world changed and grew bigger over the last three years and some things, like eating at home 100 percent of the time, have simply fallen off the map for us as our social life expanded. Not a good thing, but it is what it is.  Other things we started back then have stood the test of time: watching the thermostat, canning, hanging wash, making soaps and cleaners, growing some of our food.  

But once those things became ordinary for me, somehow I ceased to see them as making a difference.  They were just one more chore to add to the list each day or week. Until the other day, when I was reminded just how different those chores are by my urban relatives who don't/can't do them.

The reality is more of a balance.

We live in an area, thank God, where I've finally found a community of friends we love, and being active and attending gatherings is one of the best things about it. But I also love the quiet, relative isolation, and rural lifestyle we have here. It's truly a balance, but like the average temperature in any given month, is not so much a single line but rather a series of plusses and minuses that average out to a certain number.  Sometimes we're out too much, sometimes we're home a lot, but the average carbon and financial output of our lifestyle is probably still much less than the average American.

And so instead of focusing on my homesteading lapses and feeling guilty over all I'm not doing, from now on I'm going to allow myself to feel positive and proud for the things we have managed to do, and just enjoy that. 

I Love Me Day

Flowers blooming on the bluffs.

I Love Me Day is an occasional holiday when I treat myself to whatever it is I am in the mood for -- usually some time in nature.  Big Ag would probably argue that for me, every day is I Love Me Day, but that's not really true.  While I love the work I do around the property, and I love my job at the winery, it's not quite the same thing as spending a day doing exactly what I want.  

Today's agenda called for a hike along the coastal bluffs a.k.a. the western edge of the North American continent. The flowers are just starting to bloom and the sun was warm and welcoming. I decided to have lunch at the Smokehouse in Cayucos, which makes the BEST smoked abalone tacos ever.

Picture courtesy Trip Advisor

Best abalone tacos ever.

 After that, another hike a few miles north of where I started and then a quick trip to Soto's and Linn's in Cambria for some dinner ingredients, followed by a wonderful meal at home of lobster, shrimp, onions and cucumber salad with lime and cilantro.  And olallieberry pie for dessert. 

Grocery shopping time.

Another hike.

It's January in California, and I spent the day doing the perfect activities for this time of year. I even met a new friend!

New friend.

The Simple Life

I have lived long enough to know that the simple life is a life that has to constantly be protected and defended, much like liberty itself. The simple life requires fences, boundaries and early warning systems.  The simple life is a police state around the edges with paradise within.

That's because few, if any people today recognize a simple life when they see it.  Many will see no life at all.  Others will see a life which looks like a hobby to them, things you'd do on a Saturday afternoon when the weather is pleasant and there's nothing more important going on.

I have found that, over and over, my simple life must be protected from those who would cut it around the corners, shaving away until there is little left of it.  I have also learned that the person capable of making some of the most impactful cuts is none other than the woman I see in the mirror every morning.

In short, it is far too easy to be overscheduled, whether you are farming 500 square feet or 500 acres. Or no acres, for that matter.

It takes a huge amount of wisdom to step away from society's trend towards cramming everything you can into each day, whether that be farming, working off-farm, shopping, or socializing.  All those things are important, but all must be kept in balance if you yourself want to stay balanced.

That being said, I can tell you now that May was hugely overscheduled for me.  On-farm, there was abundant harvest and preservation (yay!), and off-farm there were abundant wine events, parties, get-togethers and of course work itself.  This week I found myself fatigued and behind on chores, and vowed that next month will be a slower month.  

Next month will not naturally be slower; however, I am going to actively take steps to make it slower. This means saying "no" to some stuff I'd probably like to do, and saying "yes" to a lot more things that have no value to anyone else but me.

I still have half the olallieberry crop on their vines, the spinach has been harvested and put up for winter, lettuce continues to be harvested and will be re-planted.  Good things on the land are happening and continue to happen, and those things will not change, because as much as you'd like to, you cannot slow down the harvest once it starts. Work is in its busy season, too, and it's a very pleasant kind of busy.  And keeping up with friends old and new is always important, of course.  

But so is balance.  If you are harvesting berries, for example, and never take the time to bring your head up and look to the glorious horizon, as the sea breeze wafts in and the grasses dance before you, then you really have nothing (except some berries, I guess).  If your social life is so crazy that you have no time to sit and have a meaningful conversation with one good friend, then you really have no true friends to speak of.  

If this month was about production, work, events and harvest, next month will be all about balance.

Expect some posts about how the grass feels between one's toes and the color of the sky.