One Year (plus a couple weeks) on the Homestead

I was having all these nostalgic feelings as the one year mark approached from when we moved here, but then we got into business and camping planning so my writing as of late once again has been thwarted. Nevertheless, the date came and went (6/19), so here I am posting in July. You, dear reader, probably didn’t notice and that is absolutely fine.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed here physically is that since we’ve been slowly improving the soil, when it rains we don’t get as many mud puddles or standing water. We’ll keep composting and adding inputs that improve the soil health, we have a fledgling little garden, and I have to keep my expectations low for much production this season. I’ll keep weeding and stay faithful, we’ve heard it could take up to five years to get the land to do what you want it to. Slow and steady is a saying for a reason. Also of note, while we’ve gardened plenty in the past it was always at rented property or on our school’s community garden plot. This is a whole new level starting from scratch, knowing what should go where, companion planting, shade patterns, etc.

We got 15 baby chicks in April and are babysitting a couple of sheep for the summer. Cats or something got into the coop while we were away last week so we are at 13 chickens now. I thought I’d be terrified of them since I’m not a huge fan of any foul but these ladies (and maybe a male or two, too early to tell) are really winning me over. The sheep are mowing our back pasture and there appears to be no more traces of thistle or bindweed, so yay them! Their manure is a great fertilizer as well. No plans for that area yet in terms of growing things but at least the mitigation is helping to clear out the negative so the native plants can thrive. Check out the milkweed!

Hummingbird moth on the milkweed

Indoors, not much has needed alteration. Just your run of the mill repairs and upkeep (today being the swamp cooler, just in time! Spring was good to us but now it’s HOT.) Our biggest projects have been getting water and electricity from the front of the property to the middle so that our two outbuildings can have power and we’ll eventually build a drip irrigation system for the garden so we have the infrastructure up to make that easier when we’re ready. Fence work is an ongoing project as it is for any farm. The big old trees will likely be getting some major trim work in the fall. They are great for their shade but they are Siberian Elms and they drop seeds and branches and ooze some gross liquid constantly. We’ll be pulling up their shoots for the remainder of our or their lives here.

The biggest upcoming news is that we got funding to start The Merc and will be opening a grocery store in the coming month or so. The business plan writing and projecting costs on financial worksheets were a huge mental hurdle and I’m so glad it all came together with help from friends, mentors, the SBDC, our business banker, and the Utah Microloan Program. I can’t wait to get to the physical work of transforming this blank canvas of a storefront into an actual business. Stay tuned for more, and if you’re a local reading this let me know what you’d love to see in this little local store. Think farmer’s market and kitchen staples.

Three years ago we left Denver for a nine month nomad excursion. That trip twisted and turned in so many unknown directions that make up the body of this blog. The first stop on that trip was a visit to our friend’s newly acquired hemp farm in Paonia, Colorado. Three years later we were able to return to their farm for their annual Summer Solstice party. Camping for a week on the western slope of the state we left has given me fresh perspective.

We’ve just returned full circle so to speak from that starting point. Seeing their vision come to fruition in three short years gives me great hope and inspiration for what we can also achieve. We saw their starts and have seen their work pay off in the way of a diverse community and successful business. We didn’t know where we were headed all those years ago, but we have a pretty good idea now. This was also the first camping trip we’d taken in a good long time where we were all actually excited to get back to our regular lives. It was refreshing to get away and is always sweet to see friends, but we are thriving in what we are creating here. Grow where you’re planted.

When Helping Hurts

This blog title comes from a book that was semi-required reading prior to any mission trip travels at my prior church. It is a helpful framework in traveling to developing countries on how to interact, how to level set our expectations, and basically how to not try to impose our ways of doing things or beliefs or values onto others. I think a lot of us get this cerebrally but in practice it is a lot harder.

The past two months we (but I mostly since I facilitated and brought all of this on) temporarily housed someone in our trailer and now that it’s done I have a lot of insight and also, like the title says, helping hurts. It was hard. There were some big missteps and misunderstandings. And frankly I invested way too much of my emotional bandwidth that left me weary and cynical.

The intentions here never wavered. When we were living on the road we were extended extreme kindness from several strangers as well as a church in Farmington, NM. Complete strangers allowed us to park our circus on their property for swaths of time that then allowed us to rest and plan and prepare for the next stop. It was a chaotic time but always grace filled. We were always grateful even if the circumstances weren’t perfect. And we always EXPRESSED that gratitude to our hosts, before during and after the experience. I knew I wanted to pay that hospitality forward when and where I could when the opportunity presented itself.

The opportunity presented itself with this traveler. But I abandoned a level setting of expectations that I should have expressed from the beginning. I’m terrible at setting boundaries and clear plans, so when those are lacking I quickly abandon my sense of serenity, be that around a relationship or a situation. This was the case and it became clear over a month ago that this wasn’t going to be as smooth sailing as we all thought it would be when we first went in. Fortunately, I have a team of friends and sponsor who can help me reason things out. I set a boundary and a deadline for this temporary housing situation to end. The past few weeks have been awkward but honest and we all survived. She left yesterday, the trailer is clean and she was respectful of our space. But I’m sad and disappointed because there was no thank you or real goodbye. Aside from a few conversations between her and I early on about gratitude, there was nothing else. I feel like a sucker who was taken advantage of for showing kindness. I see why people harden themselves off to doing these kind of gestures because we’re all just experiencing life with our hurts trailing behind us and not a lot of tools for collective healing or self reflection.

Would I do it again? Funnily, yes. So I’m not so disheartened or jaded from the experience that I’ve shut my heart to another possible opportunity to help. But I’m not an expert or a social worker so I’d do things vastly different if something like this came up again. Starting with agreeing to clear terms be that exchange of services or rent payments or what have you. I’ll also be more ready with what I can offer more clearly. When we stayed with our farmer friend Roger in Pagosa Springs, we had an hour long phone interview followed by a two hour sit down interview with him as a family to get really clear on boundaries and expectations. Gosh, Roger sure is wise. I can apply new wisdom too while keeping an open heart.

To the traveler, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not having clear boundaries or expectations. I’m sorry for the fluctuations in temperatures as that trailer is not set up for long term living unless you know all of her ins and outs like we do. I thought that since we did it for so long, others could as well, and that turned out not to be the case and it’s on me for not communicating that very clearly from the very beginning. I’m sorry the shower was broken and that the wind blew out the pilot light so many times. So many things in that trailer in the elements are out of my control and every time something happened I felt terribly responsible. Also, thank you with the garden and chicken help during this early spring season. You clearly have knowledge and skills in those realms and i hope you get to keep applying those skills to new situations in your next place. If we ever cross paths again I want you to know we want the best for you and wish you all the good things you deserve. I hope you find the people and things you need to heal. It’s all possible and available. Happy trails to you.

Now onto our actual summer with travel and camping plans and zero drama.

Grief and My (Longest) Season of Uncertainty

It’s been almost one year since my dad got sick with encephalitis and subsequently was diagnosed with dementia. One year since coming back to Denver for the first time and putting our lives, goals, and dreams on hold. One year of survival, mental breakdowns, experiencing some of the deepest levels of anxiety and depression, churning family dynamics, grief, housing insecurity, and complete uncertainty.

Yes, it’s been a destabilizing year for most of us, but when I put my losses into words I can see their magnitude and feel the full weight of it all. I put this post down and pick it up again weeks apart because it’s hard to look at. Maybe you’ve lost some things too, welcome. There is space for all of us to hold each other’s grief.

I didn’t want to quantify my grief this way, but it was a suggestion from my sponsor. See, grief and I have this tricky past, culminating with the loss of my mom over ten years ago. When I went into that depression I had very few tools or knowledge of how to get out. The trauma of that experience has made it hard for me to want to get reacquainted with grief this time around. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been reading a lot of sad memoirs and I think it’s a way for me to get adjacent to grief without going to the deep end.

I think I’m done camping out adjacent to and am finally able to dive into my own grief experience. (Also, if you’re not into this sort of sad stuff or if it triggers you in any way, skip past this post – I promise I’ll eventually get back happier times in my writing, this too shall pass)

So in no particular order, here are my Covid losses:

Community, leaving Denver by choice but then getting stuck in this sort of nomad hell with no lifeline or way out. Loss of income about six months ago that complicated things immensely and made our lives get really small. It’s dehumanizing and demoralizing. It makes people uncomfortable so my community got smaller.

Loss of a dream, a life in Guatemala, other dreams on hold, loss of the capacity to dream because sometimes that is just too tiring to think of. Loss of creative energy or the ability to “figure it out” on the fly like I once did.

Loss of a business and a business partner, I did not get a say in this matter and that still stings a lot.

Loss of a parent. Yes my dad is still here and I am making the best of it, no I can’t call him up and say what I sometimes need to say to my father. I’ve gained a toddler in some respects with regard to his mental capacity. (Fun AND challenging)

Loss of autonomy. Choices got whittled down, decisions were made from a perspective of loss and lack. While I’m so grateful to have the closest circle to fall on and hold me back up, I also want to be able to make my own decisions again, have my own space again, sleep in my own bed again, do things my quirky way without needing an explanation.

Loss of sanity, security, health, stress weight and hair, I’m putting it all down so yeah, hair gets listed too.

This is another one of those posts that can’t get wrapped up with a bow. Grief is messy, unfolding, sometimes all encompassing. I will say that I’m getting a lot of support from the following; therapy, being outside and walking everyday (even when it’s dark and cold and I don’t want to), from daily CBD use, from moving my body with Pilates and with toddlers (real ones, not my dad), drinking water, making dinner, and asking for what I need from my people. I’m not done with my grief, but saying it out loud and sharing it like this helps me move through it, explore it in a less scary way. Thanks for coming along with me.

Some of my sad reads for the year so far. Maybe I’ll pick up some light fiction in the coming months…

The Unglamorous Trek from Survival to Sustainable

Less writing, more reading. Less outputs, more inputs. I go through seasons and years of these yin-yang opposites and for some reason am just putting it together that life generally has swings like that.

Right now I’m doing some very part time contract work that’s getting us out of survival mode. I work four days a week at two different places and that is good enough for now. I reserved Friday’s and weekends for appointments and family time and am grateful that I get the choice to do that. While I’m working one my jobs I get to listen to podcasts or audiobooks and am loving that auditory stimulation. While we were nomads I rarely was listening to anything besides our family conversations and nature. It was good for a long while, but eventually I found myself craving the alone time that listening to something on my own affords me. I didn’t have the bandwidth to be both fully engaged with nomad life and listen to other voices.

Zach got a new job! He starts working in Orem, Utah next week. And this job will ideally be shifting us from survival to sustainable. We haven’t made plans to move there yet and he’s going to rent a relatively affordable Airbnb for the first month, then we’ll assess from there. The kids and I will remain in Denver with our friend at least through February so I can keep working and as to not upset the stability we’ve built on since coming here in crisis mode in mid-November.

Since coming, we’ve all had Dr. visits, dental and orthodontist visits, mental health visits (and some still to come), and this taking care of myself first shift has been very healthy and, here’s that word again, sustainable. Thanks to Medicaid for making all this possible. I darkly joke that we were finally poor enough to afford these long put off visits. Yes, we had care in the past but since Zach worked for such a small company the out of pocket expenses were astronomical. The kids would get their yearly dr. visits for a copay but dental and braces was all out of pocket. Any emergencies required years of paying on hospital and medical bills since we’d never meet the very high deductible. Tell me why again we have insurance tied to employment? I have zero complaints about Medicaid and have been able to resume care with doctors who know us and have long established records of our past care.

Coming out of survival has made the mundane much more appealing to me. The yin-yang here is that yes, I like spontaneity, but I also crave structure (more than i realized). It’s a Both/and like so many things. I’ll take my free spirit flexibility in smaller doses if I can have a few more foundational needs met thank you very much. It’s less sexy but also far more stable for the long road ahead.

In the dry and dead there is also life teeming underneath the surface. I’m fallow for awhile so that whatever is lying deeper can patiently arise to the surface come spring.

Today is January 1, 2022

I cried when I heard Betty White died. It was the collective grief-filled end to a hard year for a lot of us. I’ve lamented here and in other places plenty, but also reflected on the good parts. And I think that’s what makes this week in the year such a unique one. The introspection and hope of looking forward coupled with the reminiscing of the past.

The trick for me is to not get too caught up in either the past or the future, so I’m also hyper focused on what am I doing in this day.

I’m usually much more eloquent in my writing about what I’ve been mulling over lately, but I’m still in a tired and depressed state that isn’t allowing for much creativity. I’m also working a little and looking for more long term jobs that align with the values and lifestyle we dream of creating, which is a huge time undertaking.

It’s definitely getting better little by little, so long as I keep putting my oxygen mask on first and prioritize my program and well being before trying to do anything else for anyone else. (Gosh that still sounds so selfish, chalk it partially up on being raised by a martyr.) I’m also trying hard not to project or plan too far into the future because addressing our current and immediate needs is enough for now. Is this how you do it? Live in the now? I’ve spent so little time here these past two years. But when I practice in the now, even when the now is not all that glamorous, I find my way back to the flow. And that is also what I call God.