I’ve been itching to write for days. Truth is, I’ve started half a dozen posts or stories over the last month while my daughter sleeps on my lap, just to capture thoughts for future writing sessions that won’t have to be so short and inconsistent. While it’s not as productive as I’d like to be, it’s something. May vanished in a blur of planting season beginning on the farm. As I sit here in the lower hay field in my half-built shop, I can hear the rattle of the corn planter as Kellen inches towards the hundred acre mark for fields planted. I believe he has another sixty or so to go after that.
We are a couple with grand plans, I’ll give us that. I’m having to constantly edit my “grand” aspects out to reflect reality. The cut flower plot has shrunk dramatically in size and species I’m aiming to grow this year. I’m reassuring myself that I’d rather have a well-tended plot of a few things than a weed-stressed and water deprived half acre I’d have to watch die by midsummer as I chase a soon-to-be crawling Millie around the farm.
The heat and dry conditions have already begun; last year one of our springs dried up and made life a bit more challenging than usual for a few weeks until Kellen could reconfigure all of our hook ups to a lower spring on the property. One of my unfinished writing pieces is explaining our off-grid conditions. In a nutshell we’re a happy medium between the two extremes people seem to place off-gridders: we do shower and watch TV, we don’t lounge all day in hammocks and make amazing fresh-foraged meals from our woods. Life is full of little extra steps (Bonnie did you charge the inverter?) and a keen awareness of where our power, water, and heat come from. And appreciating just how precious these things are when we run low, or out completely.
Other precious things we run low on are time and energy. As I sit here, two trays of unplanted flowers and herbs make a lovely display as they wait to be planted on the edge of the garden. Soon. My tray of seeds, pared down from the original pile, is splayed out in Millie’s pack-n-play, with three of the dozen or so things planted this morning. A few weeks ago I had boldly announced an opening day for my little shop as the first day of summer, but as I sit here in what is to be that shop, now turned into a shaded hangout for Millie and me, I’m reconsidering timing.
I’ve spent two days with Millie in this shell of a little building, and I don’t like the idea of adding walls, at least not yet. Decent bouquets will most likely not be ready until July at my current planting rate. I lost half of my seedlings in the freeze we had a few weeks ago. I’d already moved them and my little greenhouse to the garden area- a good six hundred feet from the house, and there was just not the time to grab them or space for them inside. When you live in a small space, if one item leaves, two seem to spring up in its place. In my case, the greenhouse and seedlings HAD to go because my first and second litter of kittens were beginning their exploratory phase. A lighted greenhouse is an irresistible fascination to a kitten, if you’re ever wondering.
So back to the reality of planting. Currently I have several patches of voluntary dill growing quite well. I also have about two dozen voluntary sunflowers that I managed to transplant in a less haphazard manner than they sprung up. Johnny-Jump-Ups that I grew from seed are planted in little swirls between spots intended for herbs. My feverfew seedlings survived the freeze and are in two little clusters around a thyme plant that overwintered in the garden. The garden space we made last year is about a quarter planted, and I’m still deciding exactly what else will go where.
I was telling Kellen this morning that in another time in my life that little garden space would be planted in one day, but in that time in my life I wouldn’t have a Millie on my lap. I also wouldn’t have this garden space of my own in that past time either. These things are all new to me. New space to plant is beyond exciting to a plant nerd like me. Add to that a partner who is willing to help me break ground on whatever size garden I want on this 150 acre farm. It’s overwhelmingly thrilling. I want to plant ALL the things. Everywhere. All at once. And yet, here I sit, with less than five different species planted in a space no bigger than last year’s garden.
I can’t say I’ve been entirely grateful or even mindful for the slow pace I have to adopt for this year, and the foreseeable future. It’s frustrating and in a way humiliating- I’m a horticulturist for goodness sake and the most I’ve gotten in has been seeds that planted themselves from last year’s plants! Half my seedlings died after three months of care. And yet, I know I need to be grateful for the delay. I need to be right here for Millie’s first crawl, to run Kellen to get another part for the umpteenth piece of equipment that’s broke down, and to just keep our little sprouting farm from going backwards, if not progressing quite yet.
No, Millie hasn’t been asleep this whole time; this is a three session post, but this is where I’ll close, as the sun is getting low in the sky. Going slow has never been my speed. It’s a major adjustment for me. Most of my life I can say has been a fast-paced marathon of accomplishment. Doing so much that enjoying most of it came by looking back at pictures after the fact. But this is a new life, and a much different way of living than I had. One in which if I choose to, I can enjoy the moments like this where a hummingbird zips up to my unplanted flowers and a cool breeze tousles my sleeping daughter's hair. It’s a journey after all, and maybe Millie isn’t the only one learning to crawl in this big new world.
