The opening

I have lived a bell curve in my adult life. I moved from my family home into a home with friends and eventually to a home with my first husband. We teetered along a very bumpy path never really getting above the poverty line. We divorced after nine years and three children.

For a couple of years the children and I maintained a bumpy path but with more direction. Then I began dating a man of humble background but more financial stability. We married and for the first time in my life I was not living below the poverty line. We eventually became affluent, though it never felt rich. Money was no longer something I sweated bullets about every week. We had three more children and were doing gardening and chicken experiments. We, thankfully, didn’t have to rely on our efforts to survive at this stage. We owned 20 acres broken up into woods, two flat pasture-like areas and hill and field back to small woods. The land had been sucked dry by the previous owner. My husband bought the property about 5 years before we met. It had sat fallow for those 5 years recovering slowly from the abuse it had endured. We didn’t have knowledge or awareness of permaculture when we decided to build on this piece of land. So we made mistakes. We are working to make adjustments to those and move on. The first thing to learn is to forgive yourself for the ignorance. We had much forgiveness to slog through.

When you realize life is a journey and you are constantly moving to more knowledgeable place, you can more easily forgive the missteps and rest stops along the way.

We took rest stops when things didn’t work. Like when it felt like all we could grow was potatoes and squash – summer types. Nothing else lived or even came up. Some things were eaten by animals, some things just never sprouted and others died of drought or lack of care.

We started and stopped raising chickens several times. As a result we have many funny chicken stories. We learned what we did and did not want in a chicken. A very valuable thing to know. A good reason to encourage – just start – somewhere ! – it doesn’t matter where.

I am much more secure in my journey down the bell curve. What I hope we can do is teach enough people so that others can travel a smoother road down the world’s bell curve. My hope is that by telling our story we may ease you past or comfort you in those rest stops that happen along the way.

Long time - very busy summer

Hi
I am sure that you are stunned to see something new here. I had plans many times to come post. They just never seemed to coordinate with making sure that I brought appropriate pictures. I have decided to just write and post pictures at some future time when that all falls into place.
We have had a very busy summer. Our CSA filled and we have been feeding ten couples for the past four months. We have four more weeks to go! It has been hard for the dh to watch all that food walk off the farm, so next year we are growing food just for us. He has been planning it out for several months. How much we need to grow to meet all of our caloric needs. It is a lot of food!
We have transformed some areas on our farm. Those are the pictures that I kept wanting to bring and post and it just doesn't seem to be getting coordinated. I will try to do it next week. I may have some time at a computer that has internet long enough to work it all out.

Along with growing food, I have been knitting furiously. I created a shawl for my niece's wedding and have finished five pairs of socks. I am learning techniques that work well for me. I like knitting two socks at a time and I discovered a way to do that doesn't create too much of a gap on the sides. I have read MANY knitting books over the summer. I am learning intrelac. It is a lot easier than it looks and people are so impressed because it looks so hard.
I have also been learning more about how to take care of my fleece and how to dye things. I am going to try this weekend to dye some yarn and fleece. I am very excited and can't wait to try. The book "Harvesting Color: How to find Plants and Make Natural Dyes" has great easy to follow recipes. This book is going on my wish list! It is well written and she goes through and discusses how to harvest and find things in your neck of the woods. I will try to keep you posted on how this experiment is going.
I will also be processing my own wool this year. I think I know how to clean it but I don't have the other equipment yet to process it further than a wash. Working on that too - I am thinking this will be a weekend of wet fun. I need to get it done before it gets too cold.

I will work harder at picking a day and posting so that you don't think I fell off the edge again. LOL

One more thing- I will be teaching a class "Living Well on Less". I will try to let you know how this goes too. See why I haven't posted in months? So busy!
Our next step is to figure out how to make money (grow it on trees?? ha, ha) on the farm so that I don't need to leave the farm to work. May need to leave the farm to promote and advertise. This is a long term goal that is creeping up on us due to vehicle with over 200,00 miles.

Take care!

Kate

Talking with Trees

When I married my farmer, I didn't think that he would one day be conversing with apple trees. About two months ago, that is what he was doing. He needed to shape our apple trees. Something we hadn't done since planting them. We have come a very LONG way from those first years. We have become more proactive about caring for our small plot of Green Acres.
When we first planted our trees we took care how we planted them but thought once planted our work was done. Twelve years later with no real edible fruit appearing we decided to change tactics. This winter we read a book, as a family, about some children who took over the care and maintenance of an orchard. The story did a good job of explaining the hard work that they had to do. It also explained ways to save on cost and sowed realistically the type of profit to be made.
After reading this story, my farmer checked out some books on orchards and discovered some new good information. We made the decision to follow some of the advice recommended. This is how my farmer ended up standing in our front orchard asking the trees to show him their shape.
As farmers, we learn more each year, month, and day. Tis the nature of the work. The plants, trees, and animals have much to teach. it is up to us to stand still and listen.