A bit of heaven? Ha.

Life is a tricky thing, isn't it? I've had an interesting year and at the turn of the half way point, I admit I've wanted to wave a white flag and give up several times! Typically, I am an optimist. I struggle to stay in a place of stuck - in fact, I'm rather the opposite and I just "unstick" myself and charge my way through the mess. It's both incredibly freeing to have that ability and extremely tricky to not seem calloused or uncaring.

Some time ago I was feeling stuck - I can recall a morning I sat in the middle of the health and welfare office with my tiny children and I felt worthless. Interesting, but true. I had failed somehow to protect myself, my children and my home from being "needy". Oh man was that a loaded statement - one that I no longer believe - but the lies I had conjured up in my head were yucky indeed. I sat there and vowed I would never be helpless again. Something as basic as growing a damn tomato plant every year would empower me. I would be a giver. I would learn a new skill. I would DO something about my situation.

I planted my first garden that year. I lived in a rental, I had never grown a thing in my life and I was totally clueless. I was blissfully clueless - because I dove in clueless - I also lost nearly everything in that garden because our lease was up in August and we ripped out most of it to lay sod back down. It was certainly a learning experience! Sweat, hard work, tears, curse words - those are the foundations to an excellent garden grown by me. I'm sure that others would say soil nutrients, water retention of the soil, drainage, compost, bugs, worms, blah blah blah.... I am inclined to admit I know absolutely NOTHING about that stuff.

I'm not even kidding. Some people need to know that stuff. Some people amaze me with facts. Me? I feel gardening in the marrow of my bones. So, a couple houses later, several more children and a whole lot of sweat, hard work, tears and curse words later - I find myself thinking about all I accomplish on this tiny acre in the middle of subdivisions. What a different sort of year it's been for my home. Certainly it's been full of unexpected complications.... Surprise pregnancy? Sure. Subchronic hemorrhage? Um, I guess it's cool to randomly wake up in a murder scene? A ligament trying to kill me from the inside and make me useless to my family? Well, why not?!

So, while the unexpected punches kept rolling in - I cut everything from my schedule and life that wasn't absolutely a must-do. Even some of my must-dos meant I was slower while I worked through complications. I'm so incredibly grateful to be in a better place after some trial and error this pregnancy. PHEW.

So, flash back to that scene in H&W with my two tots and my helplessness? Yea... So, you can understand why producing food is a non-negotiable for me. Not only is it great therapy, it's incredibly hard sometimes and it feels good to know you can do hard things! Things are full swing around here...




When we left in June, I was so sad to miss the beginning of my raspberries. I prayed that enough would make it when we came back and God must have been listening because we're harvesting more than a pint EVERY DAY! And given how many flowers and green little berries are loaded on these plants, I'm inclined to say this crop is going to be beautiful all summer long. Right now, Kalani's favorite thing to do is go out and harvest everything she can. She comes in with her shirt full of eggs and red juices all over her face.

Blackberries are just beginning to come on and goodness they are delish! Not a single one is making it inside the house because they are eaten fresh off the vine. I am so excited that we chose to plant an entire 120 feet of blackberries as our front fence (in addition to our 65' of raspberries!). I see jams, pies, sharing with neighbors, and so many many meals of fresh picked berries in our future! Sometimes though, it's really really hard to imagine what it's going to be like in the future.... I'm sure from the outside, it looks like weeds and more weeds... if only they could see what I see.

I see hope... Well, most of the time.

Unlike our garden area, that is suppose to be grass/clover mix. And it was, lush and soft and fabulous. Until a family of gophers decided to move in and ruin everything. Seriously, what are these things!? MUTANTS! Jerks. Destroyers of all our hard work! I was out hanging clothes on my line and totally fell over and rolled my ankle on one of these bastard mounds. Grr!! Even more frustrating is they continually (read: DAILY) fill up our sprinkler control box with dirt. Instead of my shopvac living happily in my kitchen like usual, it's in the barn so we can battle back the control valves to keep the grass alive. And their tunnels? They are following the sprinkler lines so trying to dig up their tunnels punctures our sprinkler lines. It's a nightmare. I'm a wee bit over them living here and would appreciate them choosing to go to the moon instead. Overwhelming. Seriously.

Something simple and keeping me present is hanging clothes on the line. In fact, I haven't ran my dryer all summer, and most of the spring! It feels amazing to just focus on the here and now. I find myself far too distracted with the outside world honestly - and doing little things like washing clothes and line drying them slows me down and keeps me in the moment. I find myself in tune with what my kids seem to wear every day. I notice what they never wear too. I notice the weather too. It's pretty fabulous to slow down..... And why the heck do we use so many towels!?!?!?!?




Those of you not on Facebook might have missed our really eventful weekend with our bacon seed project that started on Saturday with escapees. As our pigs have gotten older, their personalities are shining. Our boy is a jerk. He's constantly ramming into the girl and tries to do things like keep her from food and if she's trying to get a drink, he suddenly needs one.... well, he decided to test the cattle panels/t-post set up. He found a weak point in it and she followed him. Luckily, I had just walked outside to hang clothes on the line, my husband was home, and I saw them literally leaving their pen. I ran inside yelling like the place was on fire and came out to find them in the middle of the freaking road.

We live on the busy road. Not a rural, middle of no where road - but in city limits, drive 40 mph, stop light hundred feet from our yard kind of road! So, ya know at the fair when they have a couple pigs and they grease them up, throw in some people trying to earn some prizes and say "CATCH THEM"... Well, I always found that seriously amusing. I had never been near a pig closely before buying a couple of course, but I always laughed at how hard it seemed for people to catch pigs.

I will never, ever, ever laugh again. First off, they are fast. They are bull dozer strong and they don't give a hoot if they aren't suppose to be in the middle of Cherry Lane with traffic - they do what they want. Further, when people are running after them, they aren't dumb - they run faster and not toward you! We had people yell at us. We had people laughing at us. We had one gloriously nice couple stop and offer help.

So, I'm in full panic mode watching my idiot bacon seeds run around like loons and Damon is staring at me and saying "What do you need? How do we get them back?"

Enter crickets in my brain. I shit you not, I have never owned livestock before what I currently do. I didn't grow up on a farm. In fact, I hated the farm section of the fair as a kid and always thought it was smelly. I am the least farming-farmer you have ever met.... So, what did I need? I needed a farmer. Ya know, someone who could actually know what to do!!!! Mid-hyperventilating and nearly on the brink of tears, I asked for rope to turn into a lasso. In my brain, I could see how they roped calves at the rodeo and thought I could probably figure that out.

I did. Once I got the rope around them, we tied legs and got them into their pen as quickly as possible. Now, unlike calf roping - pigs SCREAM BLOODY MURDER. They are loud, strong, and I felt like the worst pig owner in the history of man. To top it off, I was able to lift the first pig (girl) but upon trying to get the boy pig, felt a ripping searing pain in my ligament... I had injured myself and could do no more. I absolutely burst into tears, while holding down a screaming pissed off animal, and Damon is yelling at me to DO SOMETHING... It wasn't our greatest moments as homesteaders I tell ya. But it was reality. It was us learning.

Now, we both came out of the event with a firm "We can't do that again" trauma. Both of us scratched, a bit bloody, bruised, dirty and exhausted. So, at 9 am on Sunday morning, we found ourselves at D&B shelling out an ungodly amount of money for all the supplies we needed for electric fencing. The weather was cool and it was a bit rainy. Rain in Idaho isn't really an issue. We get something like 11 inches year round in Boise - and it's JULY. So, we assumed it'd be a bit wet but we're born and raise pacific northwest kids, we adore rain!

So, Sunday is rained RECORD AMOUNTS. 

Now, I could have smiled and tried but really, I was soaked 4 layers down and was in fairly excruciating pain from the wrestling the evening before. I was exhausted, I didn't have a clue about how in the world an electric fence goes together (thank God for my husband!) and I was at my whits end. Most of the day was actually OK. We worked together. We laughed, we talked. We accomplished our task.... It would have been absolutely horrific to do alone, but Damon and I literally slogged through the mud, newbie farmers, together.

So, we accomplished getting the electric fence working.... After several trouble shooting issues, we finally got it on - praise the lord, we'd be ok now right? Ha. Well, pigs are bull dozers and when scared, they run FORWARD. So, suddenly being zapped by their fencing? They plowed through it, through the cattle panels and escaped, terrified.

Again, we got them back in their pen and I lost my carefully controlled emotions. I sobbed. I was done. I was in so much pain and if the electric fence wasn't going to be the answer, I was listing them on Craigslist immediately. So, of course, Damon and I had to argue. In wet clothes, exhausted and neither of us experienced farmers - we were pretty done and burnt out. We were humans.

I think parts of this life is totally a bit of heaven. It demands courage and heart I didn't know I needed in life. It is simple and satisfying. It is awful and breaks your heart. It really demands everything from you.

We still don't have a pig solution. If they get out again and I'm solo, I have no plan. I have no safety net. I am vulnerable and know it. It feels pretty awful.

But I haven't given up on my little bit of heaven.

Yet.



Onward and upward, seeking to be my best version of a Proverbs 31 woman :)