Still Learning

When I was a kid, my folks seemed so boringly typical of most of the adults I knew: my dad went to work, my mom stayed at home. They each had a few simple interests outside of their daily routines, but nothing they seemed to pursue with any great vigor. It seemed a simple, slow, and humdrum existence to my young eyes.

Now, it seems, nearly everyone I know has nearly more irons in the fire than they can count. Especially among urban homesteaders who farm on a small scale, or growers who have horticultural pursuits beyond a simple garden, it’s an almost-universal necessity to have an “outside” job or two. I’m squarely in that camp with two part-time outside jobs, and sharing some of the duties of the family coffee roasting business. Of course, the farm and gardens are where my heart lies, along with spending time with my family and friends. The saying “there aren’t enough hours in the day!” pretty accurately describes life for me.

All too often, I feel like I am trying to do too much and not doing anything very well – that’s a familiar feeling for many people, but especially for us ADD folks. Life for us is SO full of fascinating pursuits! SO many interesting things to experience! It’s easy to feel swamped in no time at all, to find that you've eagerly bitten off perhaps more than you can chew.

Of late, I’ve been pondering the role of efficiency. Most particularly, it was on my mind this morning as I was once again shoveling a path to the chicken coop. Uphill. About two hundred feet. A path situated on the north side of a hill, a path that turns into an icy luge run about this time of year that’ll pull your feet right out from under you before you realize what’s happening.

Why, I wondered, did we build the coop up there? Each winter I spend an inordinate amount of time shoveling up a hill too steep for our snow blower, hauling food and water up to the hens, then gingerly creeping back down. We dug into the side of another hill to build our greenhouse, creating drainage problems and difficulties in clearing the snow that slides off the roof into great piles. It’s partially due to the layout of our property, seemingly situated for maximum inefficiency, and partially because of our own inexperience and lack of foresight.

When I began farming eight years ago, it surprised me to find that successful (read: profitable) farming demanded a much higher level of efficiency than I possessed. It’s not a trait that comes naturally to me (which will not be news to anyone who has been in my home), but it’s something that I’ve come to admire in those who are wired that way. Recently I discovered Organizing Solutions for People with ADD by Susan C. Pinsky – and it really did feel like a capital-d Discovery. Here was someone who seems to understand why this stuff is so challenging for some of us, and her ability to work with ADD tendencies is brilliant. Geared to the household, her book lays out strategies and solutions to streamline and simplify some aspects of life and to make them more efficient. Easier. Less time-consuming. Did I say brilliant?

I wish I could say that it totally changed my life … but it has made a difference. There are parts of the house, at least, that have been purged and made more efficient and pleasing. And I can look at things differently now. As spring draws closer, I’m thinking about bringing these new approaches to the greenhouse, barn, nursery, and growing fields. But I think I’ll need to reread that book – at least once or twice a year.

All Cooped Up

There seems to be nothing a Bernese Mountain Dog likes better than snow, and so our two beasts are in their element this winter. They roll in it, eat it, lie down in it, stick their faces as far as they can into snowbanks; lethargic in summer, our male is now running and romping and acting like a puppy. A two-foot snowfall doesn’t faze him in the least; he just pushes through it, chest-first, like a snowplow, leaving long winding trails all over the yard.

But the rest of us? – not loving it so much. Even the cats are grumpy from being indoors all the time, hissing and swatting at each other a few times a day before skulking off to their respective corners.

And then there’s the chickens. Yes, cabin fever strikes them as well – coop fever, maybe? – as they are as reluctant as the cats to stick their feet into snow, and stay (mostly) indoors for months at a time, by their own choice. Fortunately, our little flock of 18 doesn’t come close to filling the coop, so they have plenty of scratching room. But they get bored, and bored chickens get, well, peckish. And with nothing to peck but each other, some will eventually look a little worse for the wear.

So at this time of year, a weekly cabbage tetherball game is just the ticket. Keeps ‘em occupied and happy for a day or so, and adds more greens to their diet. Given these weekly snowstorms, though, we may have to start buying cabbage by the case.
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In the Hindsight Department: next time we build a greenhouse, we will make sure that there is room to run a snowblower all around the sides -- as opposed to having one side tucked up against a steep hill, and piles of rocks along the far end. Repeated heavy snowstorms mean that snow piles up and up and up along the sides as it slides off the roof; eventually it can't slide any more, and starts weighing down the entire structure. Shoveling it out the old-fashioned way is decidedly tedious and time-consuming, but necessary, in our case. Live and learn ...