yo-yo’s

keeping warm with new Christmas hats from Grandma

sunny (and wet) winter harvests and yummy winter meals

rain and rain and floods

wet explorations, loads of splashing, and oh so much puddle jumping

baby goat joy and tragedy

and many hours of learning, playing, and loving with this silly crew, the youngest of whom was not happy to be slowed down by big sister for this photo!

What else?

We are mixing potting soil to start transplants, ordering greenhouse supplies, tinkering with the tractor to make sure it is running well when we need to start using it this spring, finalizing the fruit orders for the year, and contemplating a week’s vacation before we start to get busy again.

January is such a sweet, quiet month.  It is usually sunnier than the months to come, so we try to get outside to soak it up as much as we can, all the while itching to be doing more work with the ground than we actually can.  It is a month of dreaming big and filling back up after the drain of a whole busy season.

It is one of the best, don’t you think?

(but really, I do love them all)

This year I think I’ll throw my lot in with the Chinese calender and call this the start of a (great) new year.  I am a dragon child after all;  according to the eastern skies this will, indeed, be a year meant for me.   There was a part of me itching to go right after Christmas, ready for resolutions, goals, plans.  But there was another part of me right in the middle of serious pain, pain that began the day after Thanksgiving as what seemed like a sore muscle and turned into a misplaced rib and tightened shoulder/neck muscles causing nerve pain through my whole arm and hand, lasting through the holidays and into the start of my fresh, new year.

So, I just gave in, finally, to my body’s cry to slow down and practice some much overdue self care.  Part of that meant a few weeks of mellow.  After a busy and stressful year of adjusting to the new family size and the growing business pace, it was really what I needed.   At the start of last year, when I was riding high on the bliss of a very relaxed and positive year on the farm and a brand new baby, I intentionally didn’t set any goals for myself, wanting to just be with that new little guy as he grew that first year.  Still, there was such an ominous feeling to the beginning of 2011, I should have been a little less shaken by the stress of the little dip we took in our roller coaster ride, a little more prepared.  Instead, I just pushed through making sure to take care of everyone else.  As for myself, I certainly didn’t get enough sleep, and I drank way too much coffee!

But now our little guy is so solidly rooted in the family, another wild and wonderful sprout toddling along with his brothers and sister and making just as much mischief and laughter in our home as ever.  And I think that as much as last year was one with growing pains, this year is a year to grow, stretch, and work hard too, but without all the worry and feeling of being busy.  I had to stop drinking coffee and modify my diet as well as take myself to get a massage, a few chiropractic adjustments, and some accupunture (which really rocked the pain!).  It feels good to spend a bit of time mothering my own body a little, and I feel refreshed and ready to take on the year.

The farmer, too, was feeling really tired by the end of the season; but two week off of market and a new season to plan and he is as fresh as spring and ready to go!  The beauty of farming is that the end of the cycle–the winter, the death and dying part–it so quickly becomes the start of new! hope!  growth!

So–2012!

I am sure we will be just as busy and we have lots of plans, lots!  So there will be the balancing of the farm and the family, as always.  But it is the year of the water dragon, a year of good luck, prosperity, a year of flowing and flying high again!

Here is to a very happy new year!

While some say it is the first day of winter, for me it is more like mid-winter.  This morning, saying hello to that winter sun, I knew that each day henceforth would be brighter.  So Winter, though snappy and still and blanketing our farm as you are today, really your grip has loosened. 

And that is just how it goes sometimes.  Maybe I should have had the photo taken sooner (well, I know I should have), but the thing is, life right now is busy–so, so busy.  Not busy always with things, but busy with so much life.  I remember being the mother of just two small people, living in town, doing all the little motherly things right.  We always had a cute and fun holiday photo, a million and one organized crafts, and time for a million and one stories on the couch.  There were still toys left out at the end of the night sometimes, and sometimes dishes too, but everything was more neat and tidy, and my goodness, it was SO easy!

Nothing has really been the same since we moved to the farm, our third babe just two months old.  But that ride, as fast and furious as it seems at times, has been wonderful.  This busy that we are now is very much the good kind, full in the simplest sense, uncomplicated but wild.

And so this holiday season, with no family photo to share and a million and one holiday craft ideas left by the roadside in favor of the 4-5 picture books on the couch each day (and the bedtime stories…always the bedtime stories), I am so happy to find us all filled with holiday cheer and I know for a fact that this happiness stems from the one instance where trickle down theories seem to apply.  The calm and simple intention of the big people in our home is all the small people in our home need to enjoy the season.  This spreading of good cheer is more important than any other holiday trick I could play.

The winter solstice is fast approaching, the darkest day of the year, after which the sun will return a little more each day bringing us closer, bit by bit, to mid-winter.  Then, plant growth resumes and around that time, another growing season will begin too, in the quiet space of the greenhouse.  As the days grow darker, and generally colder too, we get to really embrace the light and warmth of our homes, our family, and our friends.  And in turn, we get to shine our own light out on these sources of love and light in our lives:  we make our homes bright, we gather together, we give.

There is a solemnity to all this, but really, the point of these winter holidays is to celebrate!  To bring joy!

And so this week, the last week of “farming” for 2011, the end of another wonderful CSA and market year, our holiday wish for all of you is simple: 

may your heart be light!

Things are winding down for the year just in the nick of time.  As the farmer harvests these last few CSA shares in the brisk window of time between defrosting and dark, washes them in the cold in spurts while alternately coming inside to warm his hands by the fire, he is all the while saying he is ready for a break.  This man loves what he does, there is no question about that; still, the work he does is both strenuous and consuming from the first tipping of the scale toward the sun in late winter until now, when we are blanketed in darkness.  He is busy and working hard and loving it, but after next week’s final CSA harvest for the season, he will thoroughly enjoy two full weeks off for the holidays.  The darkest days of the year, the brightest in the home; this will be the farmer’s respite.

After that, we of course will be harvesting again every week through the winter for the Saturday market.  We will also be busy filling up the CSA for 2012, ordering seeds (which we usually do some of in those last few weeks of December actually), and after just one month, the quiet month of January, he will be back at it again, in the greenhouse, starting the cycle of a seed’s life again.

Time is unruly in many ways.  Each day spins by a little faster than the last, but at the same time the beauty and pain of this life equally intensify.  The faster things move along, the more tightly I try to hold on to the amazing journey we are on.  I know that a lot of spiritual work is devoted to the idea of letting go of that grip; but for me, this life, in this body, with these people, in this place–I love it, perhaps more dearly than I should.

So with two short weeks of celebrating on the horizon, two blissful weeks that are ours (mostly), I will try to slow things down the best I can.  The farmer, who is equal parts husband and father and musician, will probably not do a whole lot of anything related to Growing Wild Farm the business.  He will come back to those duties refreshed and ready and the plans for 2012 are big and exciting so that is a good thing.

And in light of this short, short window he has to rejuvenate, my main goal for the holiday season is to keep everything simple and meaningful and purposefully relaxing.  These times of good cheer, with friends and family and each other, not only lighten our hearts in the darkest days, they energize us, breathe fresh life into our spirits as we continue moving along this path of time into another year.

These are the things I try to keep at the core of all that we plan and do during this month.  Next week, when we arrive at market with the last harvest of the year and wish everyone happy holidays, my  hope is that we all fall gracefully into those weeks of bringing joy and light to each other.  I know I will do my part to make this farmer’s spirit bright so he can continue to shine in his wonderful role as tender of the earth in the coming year, the seeds of which are already starting to germinate here within us.

I know this Thanksgiving stuff is going on and on and on here, but for us, the feast just happened last night since Thanksgiving Thursday proper was just another harvest day, and I am not the only one who has thanks to give either, so I happen to have more to share.  This was the list we made yesterday, with some of my own gratitudes thrown in, but mostly those of the small folks, a few of the farmer’s, and even some of Grandma and Grandpa’s and our friend’s who joined us in celebrating.

This morning, after what ended up being a late night of good cheer and intense scrabble competition, I felt the impulse to reach for a complaint when faced with the need to hurry up and write a CSA newsletter on a Monday mid-morning with a very busy baby getting into all kinds of trouble, a task normally tended to Sunday morning with some measure of leisure and a papa who is helping the kids.  But complain?  How can I.  The blackboard is filled with these words, my heart is still lifted by my own thankfulness, and there is just nothing worth complaining about, absolutely nothing.

Filed under: children, family, gratitude, home, thanksgiving Tagged: family, gratitude, home ]]> http://growingwildfarm.com/2011/11/28/im-still-thankful/feed/ 3 growingwildfarm i'm thankful for them http://growingwildfarm.com/2011/11/23/thanksgiving/ http://growingwildfarm.com/2011/11/23/thanksgiving/#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:44:02 +0000 growingwildfarm http://growingwildfarm.com/?p=1231 ]]>

And now for the fun part.  The part that really brings joy to this season.  The list of gratitudes, the small ones, the ones that lighten the darkness, keep warm the heart, and push away the other countless small complaints–the growing list of necessary car repairs, the broken dishwasher, the unpainted walls, the loss of yet another children’s shoe, the stains on the laundry, stupid stuff,really–that could take their place instead.

In no particular order, this year, this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for:

• a picture perfect downtown, laden with gold and red leaves to kick around while strolling in the autumn, and now, as we approach Christmas, full of twinkle
• the equally awesome indie stores and restaurants that line that street (as well as other streets in this town)
• an indoor, year round market to bring our veggies to nearly 52 weeks of the year
• arugula and delicata squash season!
• wool to wear and wool to knit
  
• wood heat (I swear it warms more than the house
  
• the irreverence of 10 year old boys to keep my heart light
• the intense and complete love of one five year old girl.  I can tell that next year she will have moved a little further along in the growing up category and she is holding on tight.  I am happy to hold on a little longer too.
• silly, toothless smiles on the 7 year old boy.  His smiles are like sunshine already, but now they are so goofy that you can’t help but smile back.
• watching the baby learn all the little things babies do and still finding it amazing, the fourth time around
• seeing this same excitement in my older three children’s faces too.  This boy has sure got a lot of love surrounding him!
• the amazing and endless love of a good husband
  
• said husband’s ability to really let some of my less than stellar qualities roll off his back when they make an appearance…I’m pretty lucky
• written words.  I would be lost without them, both others and my own.  
• the mornings I wake alone to a quiet house all my own
• the mornings I wake in a bed full of this family of mine and we all stay put and talk and share some silliness before the day even begins
• expansion in all its forms (the farm, the family, the children, ourselves).  It can be hard, and scary, and sad some too, but it is always good.
• good friends and new friends
  
• grandma and grandpa

There is so much more, but the little things in my life are calling me back to them.  There is lunch to be made, dishes to wash, help with projects, stories to read, and a baby who needs a nap.  The small, the day to day, the mundane;  finding magnificence in that can be challenging, but it is well worth it.  May all of you find some of that everyday goodness this Thanksgiving too.

It has been harder than usual to sit down and begin the process of clearly bringing to the light the specific things I am grateful for this year.  Although this task is meant to remind us that we usually have so very much to be thankful for and the act of giving that thanks builds up our spirits and reminds us of all the good that abounds, it can also make one wonder why others in the world find themselves suffering at the same time we are feeling so fortunate.  I felt quite a bit like this last year too, although I can’t help smiling when I look back at this list.  I think there are two things at work causing this feeling and one is just the simple fact that life contains both tremendous joy and tremendous sorrow and there is no logic to the wheel of fortune.  The other, less existential, piece of the puzzle is that there are simply a lot more people right here that are having a hard time.  Growing up from 1976 on, I have always felt like the really hard stuff was happening to other people in other countries.  I really felt like prosperity was there for all but for the taking (or the making might be more accurate).  I can’t help but feel that even though there are still places in the world living in situations that make everything we are going through here look like a walk in the park, that there is less assurance now that all will fine.  How does one count their blessings without realizing that there is always a part of our good times that is riding the roulette wheel of chance and circumstance, when friends and neighbors are on the flip side?

But in the thick of these thoughts, this one really does shine like a beacon for me; I am quite thankful for a whole lot of things, and with compassion and concern for others ever present, I still don’t want to let this Thanksgiving pass without bringing my attention fully to my blessings.  I think this year I will spread them out over the course of a few days because today, I really just want to focus on how thankful we are for our CSA members and regular market customers and the gratitude we have for this work we do.  This farm provides our family with so much more than just income, and without our wonderful farm members and customer base, this wouldn’t be possible.

So here is just a small bit of what we are thankful for, things that all of you have helped our family enjoy:

• Being connected.  In one sense, the mere fact that we operate a small business whose customer base is solely our very own community connects us to our community more than if we worked with a different business model.  All of the buy local hoopla is certainly not hoopla!  Aside from the responsibility generated between consumer and producer when things are kept face to face, there is just something so awesome about getting to know all hosts of people who share the same town or valley as you do, who you will talk with each week while doing business but will also see at the park with your kids, the library, the festivals, and out and about at the other local businesses in town.  And often, farm members and customers are other local business owners from town and often other vendors at our farmer’s markets.  We get to see first hand the truth behind the significance a thriving local economy can have and our farm opens the door to this interconnectedness,that given the instability of the world market, gives me hope for our own smaller, community marketplace.  But this community connectedness is just one side of the coin; being able to farm for a living has allowed for our family to enjoy a really wonderful lifestyle of connectedness.  For goodness sakes!  We live, learn, play, and work altogether on this farm, everyday (aside from market days I suppose, when we get to come live, learn, play and work with all of you!).  Family togetherness has always been one of our main hopes for this family, and we feel truly blessed to be able to see this achieved while we do work we find so satisfying.  Some years the farm is in a growing stage, and we all feel a little flustered about whether we are balancing business life and family life well.  This was one of those year…but nevertheless, we still ate almost every meal together at our table and made time for the small things that define enjoyment for all of us (you know, strawberry desserts in spring, the creek and a picnic in summer, hot tea and gathering leaves in the fall).  We are so thankful for this, more thankful than for almost anything else.
•  Being nourished.  Being able to grow delicious produce for a living has allowed our family to eat like kings.  We fill our plates with the same beautiful, tasty produce we harvest for all of you and even in moments of business motivated crisis (these happen, although not too much!), I always remind myself of this added richness we enjoy.  The food we grow, or any other local farmer grows, is so superior in flavor and offers so much more enjoyment in the eating that we really do feel like we eat lavishly, especially when we couple our products with the wonderful products others offer at market.  We know that eating so many well raised vegetables also acts to keep us strong and healthy.  We are nourished both by the experience and in our bodies.  Coupled with the fact that doing work that we feel is important and that we feel makes the world a better place has been another one of our main hopes as a couple, so we are nourished in spirit by having the opportunity to do so.  We are so thankful for thriving in the most important ways.
• Being challenged.  This is a double sided gratitude, because although our business has grown every year and we are still moving forward, starting your own business can be extremely challenging and starting a farm business comes with its own set of challenges.  Nevertheless, all challenges present an opportunity for growth, and I can say that without a doubt, we have both grown so much in this process, all in positive ways.  There is the simple way in which we are challenged to constantly learn the intricacies of our craft and to learn new (to us) things about farming and living on the land.  We must find ways to adapt and solve problems.  But more significantly, the process has challenged our humility, our physical and mental endurance, our kindness, our shyness, our relationship skills, and our sanity!  And along the way, we find ourselves so happy to be here, to be the people we are, the family we have made, the life we have created in the process of creating this business.  Living your dreams is not easy, but the truth is that it is the act of pursuing them that is the real deal.  That is the stuff that makes our stories and we are so thankful for it all because it is our story!
• Being free.  This one I know will sound silly, but I can’t help but relate to the words of Almonzo’s mother in Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which I can’t find right now, but basically express the feeling that Almonzo won’t be free if he takes an apprenticeship in town and doesn’t pursue farming.  His father is worried whether farming will provide him with enough security, enough money, and knows that it is such hard work; but his mother simply can’t stand the thought of him not being free!  Now, this freedom is kind of up to the individual, and I am not saying that one can’t find it doing just about anything;  but for us, living on this farm and working with the land, for ourselves, we feel free.  Not unencumbered, because the farm ties us to it with pretty tight binds, but as others have worked out before me, we can’t really be free without fitting to ourselves the right strings.  For us, the bounds of farm and family life give us the freedom we need, the freedom to pursue all those things I just wrote about, and we are ever thankful for that.
• Being thankful.  Ultimately, without all of you finding it beneficial and important to participate in our CSA and to visit us at market every week, we wouldn’t  have all of this to be thankful for.  This farm and this business is really such an integral part of our lives, connecting us to this place and the wonderful people we share it with, to each other.  It shapes our days and our time, our health and our lifestyle.  It gives us so much more than just a livelihood.  This Thanksgiving, we can’t help but say, repeatedly….thank you!!!

All around the farm, the golden brown of autumn surrounds us.  Summer plants have died and are in various states of decay, the leaves are well on their way, shouting out in bright yellow before falling quiety to the ground.  Always on this farm, we live up close and personal with this cycle–the cycle of the seasons:  growth, death, decay, re-birth.  That this cycle is matter of fact, that it applies to all that lives and breathes this fine air of life, this truth permeates, so to speak.   The more shocking truth that we have come to know as we spend time out here is that everything we are engaged in at one time on the farm is also always playing itself out on the other end of the spectrum too, at the same time.  We are in a constant state of duality.

Life and death, or death and life as it is at this time of year…ever present, side by side.  Just as the summer crops turn to mush and the leaves crinkle and dry up, there is an explosion of green in the fields.  So much green, much like in the spring, only darker and sturdier are the leaves, full of the promise to feed us through the cold.  The brown billy goat smells up the farm with his inate drive to make life now, just as so much around him dies away.  Next spring, those baby goats will liven up this place, just as the tender and bright green shoots of spring brighten the bleak landscape of winter once more.   And in spring, while all that life is exploding, we will be planting and planning for the coming winter again, sowing crops for harvest half a year away.

When my parents passed away,  I found this all so comforting.  In an abstract way, it really is.  It does allow one to feel connected, even in death, to something grand and beautiful in design.  Still, this fall I can’t help but feel a distinct separateness from this.  Human tragedy seems to superceed this design.  Is there comfort to be found in knowing life goes on with or without us, with or without our hopes and dreams?  I don’t know.  In the face of inexplicable human sorrow, where do we search for meaning?

Fall is the great time of turning inward.  The spark of thoughts germinating inside as we lived more loudly through summer are finally given air.  There is so much this month for my family to be thankful for, this farm and our lives are so truly blessed.  Yet, at the same time we are faced with loss and deep wells of compassion for our friend’s and loved ones we know who have suffered unbearable losses in this life.  This duality is so confusing, and yet, in the day to day workings around here, we work and play as ever we did.  Like the earth that forever puts forth both the blossoms of life as well as the blankets of dying leaves, we live both sides of the coin simultaneously.  The deepest joys coupled with the deepest pains; we feel them, let them shine or burn the center momentarily depending, but mostly let them lie on the periphery while we continue with the day to day. 

Such mysteries I can not understand on this beautiful fall morning!  All I know is that wherever we are on our paths today, most of us have only things to be thankful for.  Let us not give weight to the small things–the intermitent pests on the crops, the unpredictable weather, the hard day; these things matter little in the grand scheme.  My own personal harvest is so bountiful and beautiful, there has been no great suffering.  Why?  How?  I can’t say, but it is selfish to do anything else but feel those blessings and let go of the rest.  I am saving my worry for others.

I actually shudder to admit that this great slowing down time on the farm, the wonderful quieting of that raucous din that is summer around here, is proving to be neither quiet or slow after all.  September came, and suddenly I am so busy with homeschooling and activities for the kids and trying to squeeze a little bit of time out of all of that for taming the wildness that summer inevitably created inside our home while we worked and played outside for a season (which doesn’t make sense when you think about it, does it?),  that I have had little time to give to my “office” and “writing” duties for the farm.  Ideas come and go, poignant and thoughtful or just simple and funny, but I rarely have the time to sit down and put them to pen (so to speak!).

I keep thinking that with just one day to get things organized, a day to breath so to speak, I could get on top of this schedule and find the missing time; but the reality is that this  life will always be busy, or rather full, what with six of us and a farm in the cards, so the busy part all comes down mostly to a state of mind…and then just a little bit of good planning.  I am making a point to find the moments to breathe, and learning to live with certain piles until that grand day of organizing comes.   In the meantime, we take the time to stop a day of cleaning and wood chopping to carve those pumpkins with the small folks, we scoot the pile of school stuff out of the way and gather around the first fires in the woodstove with our board games and our books or various musical instruments.  I say the heck with it all and pick up the knitting basket instead of the vacuum, because life really is short, and the days, even shorter.  This fall has been glorious, with so many perfect, shiny golden days, with the bold colors of trees exploding before they go to bed reminding us to celebrate it all and the less showy but equally soothing colors of decay all over the farm our companions.  Busy isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Maybe this winter will bring with it some quiet?  Or more likely than not, it won’t, and so we will just have to continue practicing our graceful walk though this life one day at a time…with just a bit of stumbling along the way.