This past week or so has been the usual frenzy involved with the impending planting season.  The past two weekends really set me back as we had snow storms that made the outdoor projects impossible.  You can see in past posts that we had an urban farm at our place in town.  I had 24 raised beds all with their own little hoop greenhouses attached to them.  Now that the greenhouse is up I don’t need that garden any longer.  Frankly, to have that one, the greenhouse and it’s surrounding beds along with the half acre food storage garden, it was way too much work for me.  After all, my wife and I also work full time.  I get to work at home, but I am on the road a lot going to client appointments.  So I began to dismantle that garden.  It entailed pulling up rebar, cutting off plastic, and dis-assembling the PVC frames for all of those beds.  Our aim is to smooth all of the dirt out and plant it full of perennials that will attract and help out the bees, much like we did when we landscaped the front of the house.

After the wagon loads up to the truck it was off to the dump.  Why does everything I do have to be so damned heavy?  My back was pretty spent.  When I came out to the farm yesterday I started work on the watering system for the greenhouse.  So today, my body said “ENOUGH”!  I had every intention of getting back after it but my body had other plans.  Now the moral of this story is that even when you “don’t get anything done” on the farm, you still get things done.  By the time we reached this point in the day when I’m currently typing (4:30 pm),  I have cooked breakfast, gotten the solar oven out and heating up to make dinner, been to two local feed stores to get ready for the new chickens coming next week, ordered a semi-load of planting soil to fill the remaining beds in and around the greenhouse, contacted a local pig breeder to get two new “weaners” (pigs that have been weaned from their momma and are being sold to be raised for food), taken alfalfa out to the chickens, moved some of the plants from the seedling room to the greenhouse, unloaded the truck, fed the pigs and did the real job thing.  In the next week we will have 90 chickens and 4 pigs to take care of.  My mom and sister get to play FarmVille for real when they come to visit in the next month!

May is insane.  Everything comes to a head at once.  The trick we have found, is to just keep showing up.  Do one thing at a time.  Rest, drink water, do something else.  If you hurt, stop and sit down.  It’s not a race and virtually everyone I know is not doing this, nor could they keep up if they came to help. The only person who cares if it gets done on some kind of time frame is yourself.  Remember, its a hobby.  Its a hobby that feeds you but it is still a hobby!  If you are slave driver to yourself you will only kill yourself.  The MAJOR projects are done. The ongoing upkeep and planting and daily chores on a farm don’t require a starting gun (Roosters crowing are good enough!). Nor are you trying to best your previous times.  It’s OK to sit when tired, drink when thirsty, sleep when fatigued and never, ever care what others think.  If someone is a critic who hasn’t got skin in the game, they matter not one iota.  Homesteaders – be good to yourself. You know it will get done eventually…. even if it snows a foot.

Check out the Sun Oven and the Lazy Porkers: