her able hands

Brain full of thinkythoughts. Sitting with the possibilities. Knowing that the near future holds new work for me — work with food and people and growing. As I said to Lisa B-K today: I need to decide which side of the relationship I want to be on…the growing and selling, the buying, cooking and serving?

So frost advisory tonight, which I’m letting myself feel happy about because just maybe global warming isn’t happening quite as fast as it surely seems like it’s happening. I know, I’m fooling myself. But end of April for last frost is better than last year, which was two weeks earlier. Lila helped me to spread bedsheets over the raised beds and the m-shaped lasagna bed full of tender sprouts of chard, kale, collards, spinach, arugula, carrots, radish, and turnips. Hopefully the peas and fava beans can withstand a little frost, because I didn’t cover those.

No photos. Battery dead (but charging) and brain too full to think about it. Thanks for your patience. I know it’s boring around here lately.

Where the frack did that weekend go? My body is so bone tired I can hardly type right now and am thinking that the cup of coffee I have in front of me isn’t nearly strong enough.

We never had any of that predicted rain over the weekend, just a few sprinkles and then nothing but sunshine and warm breezes. I mostly stayed off of the computer and focused on work outside, balanced with a bit of laundry (hung out to dry), some salad assembly, and a bit of seedling transplanting. I haven’t once picked up my camera, so the promised photos don’t exist. Ah well. Here’s what I did knock down over the past two days:

• Raked out beds around the house and weeded out the overgrown alpine strawberries and heal-all that’s taking over (love my scuffle hoe). Visited the wood mulch pile from last year’s visit with the wood chipper about 50 times with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. The pile is about twenty times bigger than in the photo on that post, minus 50 loads. Oh, my aching body.

• Yoga class. Again, with the ow.

• Mowed and mulched lasagna beds with grass clippings, and started the new lasagna bed along the driveway that I’ll add a layer of topsoil to next month.

• That’s because I got $80 worth of manure dumped last night. One by the driveway for that bed (shared with neighbors) and the other by the gardens next door at the in-laws’ house. I shoveled a lot of that last night, too. Have I mentioned my sore torso? My aching shoulders? My hands that feel like they got stepped on?

• Raked out ivy along side of driveway (not all of it, just about 300′ of the 200′ bed) for more lasagna bed materials.

• Transplanted Bee Balm and Rudbeckia into a little bed I made a year ago with rabbit bedding, right behind the playground set.

• Dug out a bunch of overgrown bedding plants in the front, some of which became compost, and some transplanted to bare spots. This to make room for fruit trees, which I should order this week.

• Planted a dozen fingerling potatoes and thought about doing more, but the manure hadn’t been delivered yet and the beds next door really could use a good run with the rototiller (which I’ll have to borrow). Plus, I promised a friend I’d dry some violets for her, so I need to run over there and dig those up first.

It felt so good to see the property looking cared for after such a long winter, and to feel the earth under my feet, a shovel in my hands. The kids played and I shoveled and raked and dug. I let my thoughts wander but kept bringing them back to my body, to my breath.

I know I did more than that, but that’s all I have time for. Now I need to wake up the kids and get us all out the door. Tyler won’t be riding his bike this morning because it’s raining and cold. It’s meant to drop down to 31º and snow tonight. Hard to believe that when it was in the 80s on Friday, but okay. Spring in the Northeast/Midwest is never predictable.

Monday. Back to it, eh?

Tonight I play catchup on my freelance work.

This is the new playground, set up in the spot where the rickety old death-trap once stood. You can see him just slouching over there in the yard all sad and rejected and looking even more dangerous than before now that the new kid’s in town.

You know that phrase, NIMBY (not in my backyard) that people toss around in regards to building that they don’t want to look at, or high tension wires, or landfills, or nuclear power plants? When we decided to buy this house, we had to consciously let go of a bit of NIMBY-tude. I mean because we moved from acreage to city and gave up the view of many trees and open sky to look at the back of a McMiniMansion type home. The houses aren’t very attractive and are the first thing you notice when you go in our backyard, especially when the leaves are off the trees. Of course, if that house ever sells, those poor people have to look at our toy-littered, trash-day furniture covered back yard. But if they have little kids, they’ll be happy enough to let go of their own NIMBY attitude because my backyard has become the epicenter for fun and adventure in the neighborhood, as well as for growth and renewal. I’ve been walking around for days, giggling like a little girl and shouting, “Yes, please! Bring it to my backyard!”

You can sort of see the open land behind us, to the left of that house. That’s the west edge of the five acres that are going to be turned into a gated senior village. There’s no way to stop that plan now (and it looks like a fairly sane plan), but other things are swirling around in the atmosphere here. Big things, but smaller than my initial ideas, more manageable scale things, more of a scale that I can take my time, learn and then expand. I don’t mean to be cryptic, I’m just not supposed to talk details with anyone until it’s finalized. But I do think it’s safe for me to say that if it goes through the way it sounds like it will, (I’m told it’s 99% a done deal), I’m going to have a half acre of open land on which to plant and teach and hopefully make some dollars. Half an acre of open, sunny land, in sight of my own home.

Needless to say, I’m trying not to count my chickens and all that, but I do think the last two weeks have been a trip in the river of life, and for once I have completely surrendered to the current. I’ve asked many questions, stated what I want, listened to stories and advice, taken action where it felt right, and otherwise waited and envisioned this scenario (or one very close to it) with all of me, in every free moment. New people have come into my life, people who might turn out to be excellent partners in whatever this venture turns into. Other people who might need my help in a part time, paid capacity. Things are lining up to make it possible for me to be at home.

I feel like magic has been going on under the surface of that river where I can’t see it, but I can feel it gently move me in new directions. Sometimes it’s so scary to feel that tug out in to the middle where the water moves faster and my instinct is to start paddling for shore. But then I remind myself that shore isn’t working anymore. That living in the relative safety of the shallows is making me sick and unhappy. That I’m ready. I’m ready to live my life and earn my living in a meaningful way.

The guy who wants to do a land contract for the house contacted Chris yesterday and they hammered out the terms. Chris goes to see Titus, The Octogenarian Barrister today to get the contract drawn up. They want to move in two weeks from now. We’ll be holding the mortgage for three more years, but they’ll be paying most of it this year, a little more next, and then full the third year. See what I’m talking about?

Also, I attended the second (my first) Akron E4S (Entrepreneurs for Sustainability) event last night. The topic was building a sustainable local food network and industry, and was very well attended. I met beekeepers, CSA owners, landscape designers, writers, large scale farmers, two guys who are starting a distribution program to get local food from the grower to restaurants, the man who runs the Countryside Conservancy, people who work from grant foundations, a woman who manages a Cleveland farmers’ market and is starting a beautiful new glossy magazine on local foods, a chef who uses a lot of locally grown food, and many, many more. My head hurt when I got home, from the hundreds of ideas ringing in the space between my ears.

I forgot how much I hate driving at night, and a forty minute ride on the highway that’s mostly under construction, with my head pounding and my night blindess made for a stressful journey back to Kent, and I slept like a coma patient last night. My dreams were all about organic food, interesting people, writing about gardening and farming and the people who make it all happen, and feeling connected and successful and alive. My headache is gone this morning, and the sun is shining. So we’re meant to get some snow on Sunday…okay, it’s April in Ohio. That’s not a big surprise. My tomatoes and peppers are almost all up, the broccoli and brussels sprouts need transplanted this weekend, and I need to get another half dozen flats of culinary herbs and medicinal herbs started.

Onward into the season!

Very productive evening and I even managed to get in some photos just as the sun was going down.

Will post more with details later.

Hoo boy, how did it get to Wednesday morning already? I meant to tell you about the seeds I finally started on Sunday, but I must have fallen down the rabbit hole again.

Lots on my mind right now as we wait for the family who thinks they might want to do a land contract with us to finish crunching their numbers and make up their minds. Chris is having lunch with the guy on Friday to talk dollar and time details. In the meantime, I’m in a heavy research and development mode. I need a plan. Let me tell you all what’s going on, it’ll help me to organize my thoughts and maybe some of you will have some suggestions for how I can move forward.

I think I’ve made it pretty clear around here how much I dislike spending the majority of my available time on this earth sitting in a beige/gray cubicle, under fluorescent lights, in front of a giant computer screen, doing mind-numbing, soul-sucking work that makes someone else rich and just helps me keep one nostril above water. I don’t really need to tell you any more about that. So I’ve been putting steps in place to hopefully transfer out of that debtors prison and into a more rewarding life of working from home. I’ve had a chance to work on some pretty cool projects, and I’ll be able to point you to them soon, they’re almost live.

But one thing has come crystal clear in this period of intense work at work and work at home in the evenings. I don’t want to sit in front of a computer all day, every day. And I need to stop distracting myself from the hard work of achieving my very real goals with all of this computer work. Part-time, yes. But all day? No. No. And no.

So what do I want to do? Food, garden, community. Grow food, teach people how to garden and build community. And I want to do it right here.

I’ve mentioned the acreage out back, right? The housing development that’s come to a screeching halt as the economy tanks and developers run out of money? Well, there are still five empty acres, starting behind my MILs property (where some of my garden beds are). It’s the land that the house we live in used to sit on before the owner sold off the greenhouse/nursery business and had the house moved to this location. There’s this gorgeous, old red maple and lots of perennials growing in the overgrown field. It’s a mess back there—dirt piles and boulders and downed trees—all going back to forest. It’s amazing how fast it grows up.

I’ve been thinking about that land since the day we looked at this house. I stood in my MIL’s back yard and looked out over the acres and pictured a whole lot of people busy growing food. I saw chicken tractors and kids and old folks and a little barn. Over the last two years (next month is 2 years from when we looked) I’ve wondered how to go about it all, but never spoken with anyone about it. The job keeps me so busy and jeeze oh man, it’s so much work just trying to build up our little homesteading act here.

But food prices are going through the roof and the land is just sitting there. I wonder. So I’ve started talking to people. And a whole lot of folks around here would be interested in a cooperative CSA program. We just need the land and some cash. No small order, that. We’re waiting to hear what the lot price is, but also found out that next week there’s a city meeting about the property. Another developer is hoping to put in either senior housing or apartments for students at the university, which is right over the hill.

I’ll be going to that meeting and I’m going to make an appointment to speak with one of the city council members who is a neighbor and has one of the most gorgeous urban gardens I’ve ever seen. I’m flying blind with my ideas and need to focus and take fast action.

If that land is not available, then maybe if it’s going to be a senior housing situation, the developer might be interested in donating part of the land, an acre or so, to a program that pairs the seniors with children in our community, growing food, flowers, herbs and relationships.

Since I began saying all of this out loud two weeks ago, my inbox has been inundated with articles about CSAs, urban farm and garden programs, sustainable food practices, food security and community. People have brought up wanting a CSA (the only 2 around here are full, with massive waiting lists). More and more people ask me what it takes to grow a garden in their yard and what they should focus on planting.

If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Please bear with me as I figure out all of this stuff.