Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Farm Journal - 2025
sKePTiKal:
HA! You wouldn't think so listening to all of Hol's lectures to me about how I need to do X, Y or Z. My opinion is that once I stopped chasing after trying to make myself into whatever the goal of the moment was... it all just fell into place for me. She'll occasionally have a moment of self-awareness and mention that we are VERY different people. No shit Sherlock. AND I have 20 years more practice at everything too. Of course my priorities shift around - my perspective changes with that much more lived experience. Things that were once my obsession have faded in importance in my life and are no longer obstacles or issues to me.
It's ironic to watch her declaim in the MOST opinionated, sometimes biased way... how tolerant she is, open-minded, free thinking... I just keep my mouth shut, because I know life has a way of teaching those lessons that are way more effective than just me warning her.
How about you Hops? Are you content and reasonably happy with your current life? Sounds like you're still keeping a hand in with gardening, you have Pup for companionship - reliable assistance for the things that are important and loads more activity involving people than I'd be comfortable with. How's the writing going?
sKePTiKal:
Well, I'm glad I waited to start my seeds till April. This month has been MOSTLY cooler than normal years. Our overnight temps have been in the low 40s and I really should've built a small fire in the woodstove. Temps like this are borderline too cool to plant out - herbs are OK, though. We've had enough rain to counter last summer's drought... so much so, that I need to till garden again. After I cut the weeds back.
I needn't have worried about it getting hot soon and waking up the bugs. AC is on - but hasn't been running.
The heat would be. We'll barely see 70 for the next 10 days.
lighter:
Amber, I dread the buggy, sticky heat if summer, I really do.
I'm glad you're enjoying the cooler days. Glad you're getting things done.
sKePTiKal:
Couple more weeks, B will be back. Only to return again shortly and FINISH his move. That's the big news.
The weather and various sundry other projects are interfering yet again, with this year's garden. It's been cool & rainy; to the point I mentioned I might be making a batch of chili today. (High 61) I am trying to organize spaces in the house, to make room for B and his "stuff" - which has been severely thinned down.
That entailed taking a couple fine days (garden isn't tilled to plant) to burn cardboard & a year's worth of magazines I'd collected. On a couple days a week, I do have opportunity to recycle - BUT - I have been told in the past that when the recycler is full-up, it either gets burned or goes to the landfill anyway. I still smell like smoke especially from the glossy catalog paper. Next rainy spell, I'll dig around and try to find how to cancel the catalogs. Again. Seed catalogs aren't too bad; I usually only get 1 a year.
I've mentioned a friend of Hol's who runs a land development company; he's been coming out to work as much as he can - he needs the money, since he can't get people to work for him. And we're getting things that need to be done; DONE and "off the list". Like mulching several problematic Virginia Pine "reservations". Cleaning the ditches to prevent run-off damage to the road/driveway. Creating additional drainage at Hol's. We'll probably use him, as much as possible over the summer/fall. He has other paying jobs, but this work is getting us much closer to the desire "infrastructure" plateau or goal we've been looking for.
C is here again this weekend. We have some last bits to finish up in the studio and tools to put away. Choosing positions for artwork; soon to hang. We are discussing replacing the current bookshelves with custom made versions to match my work cabinets. We still have ceiling (quadriphonic) speakers to hang for the ever present music in that room. Waiting on cell signal booster to help with streaming music (studio is maybe 50 ft lower than the house on the hill/cliff). Hol is quite set on making things work - if at all possible - with C. I'm just getting out of her way, unless something physical happens. Neither of us are fans of that crap. And B's means of dealing with it are "extreme", so he defers to my decision.
The rain and cool temps are certainly making everything happy. Mountain Laurel is blooming now. And Mother Nature is doing her "take over everything in sight" thing. There are hundreds of jobs around here, to keep all of us busy for quite some time. So much so, I've been entertaining the idea of a "tenant farmer" to help. God forbid we ever add animals (beyond the 6 geese that were left here - and we're not fond of them either. Eggs are rare; they're mostly ganders.) I'm on day 2 of recovery from the burning session and should be A-OK tomorrow. It was a lot of bending and twisting and my pile of stuff was TOO BIG. It's been windy a lot... and last year's fire warnings was enough to make me over-cautious.
So it's housework for a bit. Deep cleaning things I haven't touched in awhile. Like my enameled dutch oven. It gets a workout all winter. And here comes the rain again. Time to let weather-shy kitties in.
Hopalong:
Lots of nasty chemicals in glossy catalogs...might be risky to be near that smoke, imo. (When I headed up a publishing dept I learned more than I wanted to from the art dept. about inks, but you as an artist probably learned way more than that.)
Your whole operation sounds amazing. Wish I could see it one day.
hugs
Hops
PS I'm happy B is actually getting moved! Hope he's still feeling less pain.
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