I LOVE MY CAT

 I love...

Gilmore Girls

Cats

Coffee

Cheesecake

Children

Good Music

This is my cat

These are other things that make me happy...Wildflowers and veggies:

 

I created a space that made me happy downstairs.  My husband recommended it.

Some other things I love

Bringing the Homestead to the outside world

 I have been asking myself a lot lately, this one question:

How will I bring my inner life to my outer world?

I mean to ask, should I be bringing my inner life out to the world as an expression of art?  As a Business?  What is my Legacy?  What is my purpose?  What is my destiny?

In 2009, or thereabouts, I began searching for an answer to this very question.  Prior to that, I did not know this question.  My son was about a year old.  I was 34 years old.  I am about to turn 46 this year.  

In 2009, I was still living with/partnered with, my children's father David.  David was not a very committed family-man.  He never married me, drank often, gambled and let us fall into a very low place with money.  He treated me like an object and not a partner and further, he limited what I was "able" to do.  So I began to read, research, study and grow.  This journey was PAINFUL, dramatic and turned my world inside out.  I faced some dark times, and mostly I faced them alone.  My daughter was about 10 years old and my son nearly 3, when I decided we needed to leave that life behind.

In 2012, after planning and waiting for the best possible moment to change my life, I jumped.  It got ugly again, but only for a few years.  I say that like, "no sweat"...but those years was full of moments that TESTED me to my BREAKING POINT and beyond.  I felt during these years that there were many moments where I felt my whole being breakdown into pieces and get built back up again...slowly of course.

In 2016 I married a man who turned his life upside down to set me free.  He is my best friend.  He and we are not perfect.  But we are married, we are a team and we are building a life, late in our lives.

So I bring forward my question again...

What is my legacy?  

Am I survivor?  Am I something else?  

Expressing myself as Art alone does not feel like enough...but getting older, I don't have the same ambition I once had to be as assertive, aggressive and driven as I would need to be in order to make a business of my own.  That would involve 60-80 hrs a week of hard work etc.  

I want to help people heal...but as I encounter them...not by going out to look for them.  Does that make sense?  I want to give what I can and what I have when I have it and as I have it...not by going out to look for it.

I feel like the over-arching words that describe me is, "I can relate".  But when I take it further...I also healed.  

So many people that I meet are going through something but they are not healing through it, healing from it...they have experienced a thing and then they got stuck.

I did not get stuck...even though I am very set in my ways and fixed (fixed Sun Sign Leo).  I kept heeding my inner urging to keep moving forward, keep doing new things.  Why am I so driven?  Why are others not?  

Then there is this depression...that I battle.

I will come back to this...for now I must go.  There are people who need me.  So many half-completed thoughts I have, writings that deserved further review...but I am needed by Aunt Jean.

~namaste

HOMESTEADING HAPPINESS

Homesteading is  a new passion of mine.  

A few years back I began to formulate the vision I wanted to create for my life.  As much as I would like to "work from home", nobody really wants to work...do they?  I mean I don't!  I am not saying that I want to sit around popping chocolates in my mouth while I watch the soaps.  I just mean that some types of work are extremely stressful and put a burden on your time and resources.  That is not what I want for my life, personally.  I am 46 years old and I want to start now and have it work for me through my retirement years.  In saying that, it must be sustainable (hence, homesteading).  

When I first mentioned the idea of homesteading to my now husband, he referenced some Homesteading Act from history pertaining to purchasing land.  Homesteading is a lifestyle of Self-Sufficiency. I love the idea of personal sustainability.  My husband did not really "get it".  

SO... we bought a house in November of last year and when Springtime came, we slowly started to use the land we had.  First we planted a few flower gardens.  My husband seeded the lawn areas to get healthier grass.  I had wanted to create a berry patch at the far back of our 2nd lot, so we tilled the soil and planted 3 blueberry varieties and 2 raspberry varieties.  Next we planted 6 inch veggie and herb plants that we purchased from the store.  The plants were so prosperous and gave us so much joy and pleasure, that I began to see my husband really changing because of tending the plants.  Suddenly our relationship began to center around these gardens.  In addition to our pets, we had numerous gardens to care for.

We have not yet even been one year in our new space, and we have set some important "roots" already.  We are learning how our land responds to things...So how does that translate into self-sufficiency and sustainability?  It's deep...there is a lot to manage.  Can I handle it?

I'm starting with my favorite items:

1.  Herbs

2.  Salad veggies (tomato, cucumbers, peppers)

3.  Flowers

4.  Berries

Our land is just shy of a half acre with two buildings on it (house and garage).  So with approximately 7000 square feet of land to work with, we have ample opportunities here. 

One of our most loved items is this tractor.  The husband cleverly found a trailer to use for hauling.  It's a lawnmower and "stuff-mover".  Any good homestead should have one!

During the warm nights of early summer we started to spend more time outside in the backyard (the second lot of land behind the house).  This photo taken at dusk shows my neighbors house and car in the rearground.  My son is getting ready for the marshmallows as he lounges in a low beach chair.  In the farground left- my husband built me this great wheelbarrow.  It was in a box (from Lowes)...but it's a great type because it is for push or pull.  Its nice and deep and I use it to haul watering cans from the water source to the berry patch.  We are planning on making a water storage system (picture a large barrel that catches or stores water with a spigget /hose to release the water using gravity).

                           CHILD + DOG + TENT= HAPPINESS

My son is 12 years old and this tent is tiny but a fun place to chill with his best buddy Cloud, our 13 yr old Australian Shepard.  This little pop tent is great for shade or rest.  We invested in a larger 3-person tent shortly after this and we have it out in the backyard.  It's nice to just lay in it and relax sometimes away from the noise of the house.

Above is a picture of my herbs drying in the house (in the kitchen).  We grow the herbs in our garden right on the property, and then they can be dried, used fresh or stored in the refrigerator. We found a long stick in the neighbor's yard and my son took time to whittle it by carving of the lichen and outer layer of the branch.  We suspended it from the kitchen ceiling by twine, using eye hooks in the ceiling.  We hang the herbs themselves by twine using clothespins so they can be hung and taken down easily.

The herbs and veggies are growing together in one small garden patch at this point but we have plans to change it next spring.

Above is our 6 inch cucumber plant that we added to the corner of the 

2 1/2 x 20ft garden that goes down about 8 inches deep.   Instructions stated to plant them 6 inches apart...so aside this we planted Parsley and then Basil (in a row).  But...the plant grew and grew and grew...and about a month later it was SO HUGE.

My husband saw that the vines of the plant were crawling onto the ground OUTSIDE of the garden.  It began to creep along the yard and the driveway.  I would get home from work, and where I park in the driveway is right next to this plant...and the curling vines would reach my foot as I stepped out of my truck.  So my husband built a trellis made of wood stakes and twine.

This was the garden when it was young...I would say about 2 months in.  

This was a few weeks ago...the veggies are over the window line now and much rounder and fuller.  There are a lot of tomatoes and cucumbers growing on the plants.  What we have concluded here is :

1.  It is sensible to grow veggies vertically- see how they climb the trellis but they continue to blossom?  This saves us space!  

2.  The soil and sun on this tiny bit of land on the side of our house is great for growing!

So my husband and I have hatched a plan for next year's planting season:

1.  We are going to create another 2 1/2 x 20 ft -long bed against the road (creating a path between the two garden boxes).

2.  Against the house we will grow the vegetable plants that grow higher and crawl such as the tomatoes and cucumbers.  In the other bed nearer to the road, we will grow smaller plants such as the peppers.  

3.  Our Wedding Arbor will be anchored as the entry point from the parking lot and our rear door of the house, to this garden zone.  The walkway will be just organic (dirt path) that will run about 22 feet and go from the driveway to the front yard.

I love the picture that this creates in my mind and I cannot wait to develop it!  Right now we are working on weather-proofing the Arbor by filling cracks in the wood.  Then we will give it a few weather-proofing coats of a good paint.  These steps are SO necessary for anything outdoors in New England.

These were today in the veggie garden- it's in the 90's today, so I am about to give them some water.

As you can see from the above, we have a rather large cucumber already growing and many more starting.

I cannot wait to write the blog when the entire garden area is built and prospering!

BE WELL 

~namaste

Nature Soothes me

I enjoy reflecting on what makes me happy...and I often look at photos of my garden because i feel inspired when I see them.  When we bought our house in November 2019, we were uninspired by the yard.  We knew that the work that needed to be done would be fun and rewarding.  March 13, 2020 we all were sent home due to the Covid-19 epidemic. During that time, we dedicated much of our free time to working on the yard...a project that evolved rather rapidly into some very large projects.  In a way, it's the best thing that came from Covid 19 for us.  The time and the timing (season) were ripe for the planting.

We started small...and over the months that lead to summer, we have created quite a masterpiece already.