GrowingWildFarm

January through the lens

January 28, 2012 by growingwildfarm

A small look at what our month has been full of:

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)

Posted in children, cycles, farm, farming, home, winter | Tagged family, farming, home, seasons, winter | 2 Comments »

Happy (Chinese) New Year!

January 24, 2012 by growingwildfarm

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!

Posted in family, farm, farming, health, home | Tagged family, home, mother, rhythym, seasons | 2 Comments »

Happy Solstice!

December 22, 2011 by growingwildfarm

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.

Posted in winter | Tagged winter | 1 Comment »

Let your heart be light

December 18, 2011 by growingwildfarm

Yesterday, the day I planned to take a holiday photo of all of my beautiful 1,000–I mean4!–children happened to also be the day that our oldest child’s face was puffed up like a balloon and covered in a terrible poison oak rash. Needless to say, that photo wasn’t an option. He is gradually getting better; and although I have been so worried since the one other time he had contact with poison oak and reacted just the same, this is surprisingly, only the second such incident. He is super sensitive to it, and now, about it. We are sticking close to home until he once again looks like himself and not some strange child I don’t know and one he keeps looking at in the mirror.

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!

Posted in children, home, winter | Tagged family, home, seasons, winter | 1 Comment »

A farmer’s respite

December 12, 2011 by growingwildfarm

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.

Posted in CSA, family, farm, farming, home, winter | Tagged csa harvest, farming, home, winter | Leave a Comment »