Happy Tuesday, friends.
I’ve written a lot on here about autism parenting and creative writing, but I haven’t talked much about the homesteading aspect of our lives. So, I thought I might share a little about that today. Though, as you’ll see, I’m feeling like a fraud lately when it comes to our farming and livestock care.
But let me back up.
One reason my husband and I sold our suburban tract home for a farmhouse on eleven acres was to become more self-sufficient. For us, that meant having the space to grow our own food.
In the earliest period of the COVID quarantine, Jer went alone one day to our grocery store to stock up on everything we’d need to hunker down for a while. He was shocked to find half the shelves empty and most of the foods our daughter preferred, especially her yogurt and bread, totally gone. He came home with only a fraction of the items he intended and his food security utterly shaken.
Though I don’t remember him confiding in me that day, this sudden anxiety about whether he could adequately provide for his family stayed with him, planting the seed of an idea that, over time, spurred a series of conversations between us. What were we going to do, he asked me, if we couldn’t get what we needed? What if there came a time when we couldn’t feed Daphne because all the stores were out of stock? Clearly, things weren’t as certain and permanent as we’d always assumed. The truth was, we were at the complete and utter mercy of the supply chain. And, evidently, that chain was tenuous.
It was something we’d never fully understood until those dismal, anxious weeks, and we certainly weren’t alone in our fears. Millions of people worldwide felt the same way; we all experienced a period of reckoning, even if that period, for many, was brief.
The difference for us was, even after things leveled out, and we’d found our new COVID normal (which did include the ability to get what we needed, even if it wasn’t always precisely the thing we wanted right when we wanted it), my husband and I continued to discuss taking better care of ourselves. That was how we landed on the idea of homesteading, and we couldn’t envision doing that in the place where we were, with our small fenced-in backyard, scorching climate, and strict HOA.
So that desire for self-sufficiency, along with all the other reasons I described a while back, is what led us to northern Vermont and to “homesteading lite,” as I like to describe it. We began chicken-keeping first, then we ventured into gardening.
We didn’t plant our garden until our second spring in Vermont. By then, we were settled enough to have the time and energy for it, so we launched in by purchasing raised beds, tilling the space where the original garden was (laden with a beautiful dark soil), erecting a wooden fence lined with hardware cloth around the entire perimeter, watching YouTube videos on gardening for beginners, and going to the local nursery (a beautiful place called Houghton’s) to buy sprouts.
I didn’t even know sprouts existed. I thought everything had to be grown from seeds!
In our enthusiasm, we didn’t hold back, either. We bought lettuce, celery, herbs, strawberries, pickling cucumbers, and blueberry bushes, among other things. We had no idea if anything would make it, so we purchased more sprouts than we needed–way more than we would be able to consume, it turned out.
Then we dug our little holes in the garden beds, placed each sprout in the gorgeous compost we’d cultivated over the past year, patted the dirt around the delicate roots, watered everything, and waited.
I couldn’t believe how easily and quickly everything grew.
Really, I thought there was some mystical art or technique to gardening because, c’mon. Me, grow strawberries? I could barely keep houseplants alive. Why on earth would I have a green thumb? How were we going to grow fruits and vegetables smoothly and successfully? Though I was game, I was definitely skeptical.
But I realized how easy and natural it was.
It felt miraculous, actually, when I clipped my first big, beautiful cucumbers. It’s a ridiculous thing to say, but it underscores how disconnected we were from real food and how it’s produced, like so many millions of Americans are.
We were actually nervous the first time we harvested anything for dinner.
“We just rinse it and eat it?” I asked about the lettuce Jer had plucked, trepidation in my voice. “We don’t need to do anything else to it?”
“Nope,” he replied, hands up, chuckling. He looked nervous too. “I think that’s it.”
Yes, that was all there was to it.
I loved our garden, especially that initial summer.
We were so conscientious about watering and weeding it. I discovered, too, how good I felt down on the ground, under a bluebird sky, my hands in the cool dirt, pulling out camouflaged weeds and deadheading old blossoms–culling the old and unwanted and encouraging the new, essentially. Feeling creative and in control. What’s better than that? The exertion in the fresh air and the feeling of accomplishment got my endorphins going, and I began to understand why people find gardening therapeutic.
In fact, according to the Mayo Clinic, gardening reduces stress and anxiety because it’s gratifying to tend and share your own food, and it provides a rewarding and even “soothing rhythm” that gets you into the sunlight (lowering your blood pressure and increasing your Vitamin D levels) while allowing you some quiet time “to slow down, plan, or mentally work out a problem.”
Perfect, right? Something we should all do, even if it’s only on a small scale, right?
Absolutely.
We gardened happily and successfully for two years–the summers of 2022 and 2023.
This year, well, we had the same good intentions but… not the same amount of time. And this is what’s happened.
Daphne’s behavior has been so challenging this summer that I can’t leave her unsupervised to dash out and weed or water while Jer works. I haven’t gotten up early to do it, either, because she’s been up early herself or I’ve had to sleep later from staying up late indulging in things I need to do for me, like writing and reading. I would love to garden at night, but one can’t tend a garden in the dark, unfortunately.
It’s sad because gardening would really have helped me feel better, especially during that excruciating period of my daughter’s incontinence about two weeks ago. Alas, there’s no one to watch her so I can get away for a brief, therapeutic respite.
That’s not entirely true. We had my parents and in-laws here for several days, and I did not take the opportunity to get out there and bring some order to the weedy chaos.
At that point, it was just too overwhelming.
Nor did I take that time to treat our hens for mites and clean out their coop.
Which is why, right now, I’m feeling like a fraud. Can I call myself a homesteader, or even a lover of gardening, if I’m not making the time to do these things properly?
Sure I can. A bad homesteader. 😦
I’ve lost a lot of my initial enthusiasm, I admit, over the course of this exhausting summer, and it makes me sad when I think about the optimism with which we started our new garden in late spring, as usual.
*Sigh*
I’m trying to give myself grace. We all go through periods of ease and periods of trial, I realize, and our energy levels are never entirely consistent. We’re not robots.
Still, I look at those horrible beds and feel like I’ve let all of us down, to a certain extent.
Oh well.
On the bright side, the carrots, Roma tomatoes, and corn are growing despite the strangulation the weeds are attempting, and it looks like I’ll have my own cornstalks to use in my fall decor this September, which is awesome.
Still, I’d hoped for better.
I’ll type it again. Oh well.
Next year will bring with it another summer, another garden, and another opportunity to start over. Gardening is cyclical, after all.
Do you garden? I’d love to hear about it. What are your success stories? Your favorite things to grow? Are you gardening this season, and how’s it going? If well, then please, let me live a little vicariously through you.
Much love, as always.
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 