Utah

I got lost in the weeds

It’s really been almost two months since my last writing. We’ve all been outside a whole lot (hallelujah!). I’ve been business planning, stumbling, tripping, getting stuck in fear and perfectionism, but I’m aware of that now and ready to step into action again.

I opened my planning notebook and the last day I took any business actions was the end of April. Then I allowed myself to get distracted by all the things; chickens, gardening, my dad’s things, my kid’s things. And on and on. It’s a destructive pattern that I can’t catch myself doing until I pause and recalibrate. Yesterday I plucked a box full of weeds from all over the yard. Last year when we got here there was little weeding to do – it was mostly dry and desolate, making the weeds very manageable and visible. The weeds I’m going after are brambly, all over the place, and once dry will become prickly goat heads. Bike tire killers, annoying to both people and dog feet everywhere. So I’m getting at them while they’re easy to pluck and soft enough to snag bare handed. But while I’m hunting I’m also thinking, (probably too much). About the state of our world, about the precariousness of starting a new business, about borrowing money for that business, about paperwork I still need to do for my dad’s needs, about driving all over the county for the next six weeks for Camden’s baseball, about Natalie starting some jobs this summer and how to shuffle cars for it all to work, about doctor and dentist appointments needing to be researched and scheduled. Like I said, all. the. things.

I got to the weeds for a few minutes this morning again but then had to stop. This goal of eradicating this specific weed in this moment is really keeping me from the work I need to do in pursuit of MY goals. Yes, it’s important, but I need not let it consume large swaths of my day. I need not exhaust my body first thing and then have nothing left in the tank for writing or planning later.

I’ve never been much for the write and schedule block in a planner, but maybe I need to change my mind on this. The things I put in the calendar rarely coincide with my own needs or goals. I have large chunks of day that I largely mismanage in service to the house or someone else. Do all mothers do this? Do all women do this? I thought I was more aware than I am.

The other thing that keeps coming up for my is the cynic who says that all of this effort is pointless so why even try. There are such huge societal issues playing out before our very eyes. We as a country are so sick and obsessed with weapons, more concerned with party over principle, completely numb to the horrors we hear of every single day. It’s exhausting to just be alive. What difference can a little store in the middle of nowhere (somewhere?) make? I could really use some encouragement in this area. The isolation of these thoughts keeps me stuck too. I feel powerless. So tell me reader, what you do to keep moving forward when we are the ones we have been waiting for.

Embracing Becoming a Generalist

It’s been a few weeks since sitting down to capture some thoughts. This podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mind-body-and-soil/id1615122217?i=1000604087792 … always gets my writing juices flowing so here I am again after a good listen. As for the title of this post, a more self deprecating phrase we’ve said as generalists over the years is “Jack of all trades, master of none”.

I’m very much in a similar rut of what I posted last month. I’ve come to embrace it as my mud season. More metaphor, but hang with me. A fellow writer I’ve recently started following http://jamesapearson.com…describes it as the gap between winter and spring where there is no clear path and every step feels heavy and uncertain. We are here both physically and theoretically as we trudge through the literal shit (manure) we’re trying to spread through the backyard to build soil, and emotionally as I do the deeper work of inner healing and connecting with my younger selves. Do not do this work alone, you’ll lose your muck boots in the depths of the sludge. I’m grateful for a support network helping me to navigate my own traumas and explore my forgotten childhood as well.

Manure that will help us build soil
Waiting for it to dry out is a test in patience

Back to the generalist idea though. We’re in a pre-spring kind of whack-a-mole place with our homesteading and store plans. I announced the thing but am currently stuck in the mire of all the details. I can see where I want to be months or even years from now, but there is not a clear path and my inner compass is skewed because I haven’t been to this place before.

Homesteading requires a highly sustainable level of DIY and I’m still a novice in a lot of the areas needing my attention. Earlier this week for example, I had an ongoing text and phone thread with a soil guy about cover crop and testing soil samples, got a new internet router installed but was not able to connect (fortunately Zach was the generalist here and got us online when he got home), I mopped the muddy floors almost everyday, sent a customer service email, was supposed to apply for a grant with a deadline of Wednesday but due to the no Wi-Fi issue went ahead and skipped that round, took the dog to training class, on the way picked up a gallon of milk from our raw milk lady, grocery shopped up north, went to the chiropractor, attended a coaching call and a webinar, and there’s a whole other running list in my head of things to do, research, cook, clean, prepare, that doesn’t even touch the business side of things.

I know we all do this everyday, every month, etc. but the question I had to stop and ask today is the same as last writing. Where is it in service to my goals? What is my next right step? When we were living on the road this was always at the forefront of my mind, next right step was usually pretty clear and we became very intuitive and knowing where to go and when to make a move. Living inside dulls that intuition to some extent. But I don’t want to have dull instincts so I have to get in the mud and feel around for my footing.

Here’s an example of where I think we are (maybe) getting it right. We want chickens, always have, and have been around enough urban farms or even friends backyards to know having them is a great farming segue and low entry barrier project. We even have a dilapidated barn behind our house that housed some foul at some point. When we moved in last summer the kids started clearing out that space. When we circled back around to the research end of having chickens there was a lot of debate about building a new coop or using the existing one and just making improvements to it. Next right step (and next right available thing) meant that improving the existing structure is more viable for now. We already had the lumber at the ready to do the work. The boys made great headway last weekend and we’ll be getting some chicks in early April after our spring break. Same goes for the garden, we have seeds, at least some workable ground, and a separate barn space for getting some seeds started indoors. We all have to start somewhere with what we have and this is what we have for now. And it is enough.

🐣 coming soon!
Other birds are not going to like these holes patched
Camden built a nesting box all on his own!

The mud season is messy but it can be full of fun challenges if we’re willing to look at it that way. I still grumble a lot on the cloudy and cold days but the temps are ever so slightly starting to climb and signs of spring are slowly making their selves known. I see it in the greening up of things and the return of more bird species to the area on my daily walks. Sometimes there’s even a clear blue sky to appreciate and if we’re really lucky no wind. Today is not such a day, but I can knock a few more things off my list from inside while I wait for another glimpse of the sun and for the mud to dry up.

Today is January 439

Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, but this month is just forever long. It’s still dark and it’s still cold, ALL. THE. TIME.

And it’s doing its number on me.

I had a bit of a breakdown earlier in the week with tears and ugly crying as a result of a podcast (amongst other recent soul work), jotted some things down and called my sponsor. I feel a lot better today, less anxious and more grounded.

I had enough clarity after all of that to finish getting the business registration paperwork filed. I have articles of incorporation and an EIN and I feel like I just summited one of many mountains on this next business journey. There’s been part of my brain that couldn’t fathom doing this work until I knew my dad’s situation was a little more solid (I’m STILL waiting on Medicaid to kick in here, 4 months and 3 attempts at applying later), it’s no wonder I’m adverse to any government agency/process. It’s all just so many broken systems one after the other. Perhaps the focus on my own thing was just what has been needed to ease my anxiety about the other thing. Let’s hope that proves to be the case.

I thought I’d have more profound things to say, but as the hard week unfolded news-wise my thoughts diminished. I’m just so sad that we are so sick a country that we STILL glorify guns and police abuse of power over actual human lives.

I’m powerless over these systems that are working exactly how they were designed. The part I can do is offer comfort and support to those who are suffering. I can keep being a voice of reason and hope. I can look around my tiny community and see more in common rather than other. And with that, I heal and hopefully that healing feeds into those whose lives intersect with ours.

Sunsets after 5pm also give me hope

On food security and sourcing local

The memes making the rounds on the price of eggs has me laughing it up. Probably my favorite is this one:

It’s funny because it’s embarrassingly true. Just ask my sister or myself about the one time a friend’s dad caught us in the act and came running out of his house with nunchucks as we scurried away terrified! 🫣💀

But when I started thinking about this “crisis”at a deeper level, and level setting it to my reality here’s where I landed.

I will pay anywhere between $4-8 for a dozen cage free or pasture raised eggs (depending on where I’m picking them up and availability). I’m currently able to get two dozen for about $6 at Costco and that feels like a steal! Is there really a crisis, or has the bottom fallen out on an unstable model from big egg producers?

The once cheaper variety of eggs we are seeing depleted from grocery store shelves (and also currently price gouged) are grown in an unsustainable manner.

My county has a lot of large poultry operations, growing for Tyson, or…I’d like to list another but I think they’re a monopoly. Same goes for eggs. There may be tens of thousands of producers around the country but those farmers are growing their chickens and eggs to a standard that is not sustainable for the bird, the farmer, or the environment. All for a huge corporation that is demanding more and more for a lower bottom line. That way they can get a dozen eggs in the grocery store cooler for $1.88/dozen.

What happens when a chicken gets sick? Or how about a pandemic like avian flu moving through those enormous cramped coops that kill off the majority of the flock? That is what we are currently experiencing at the large scale level.

Your neighbor who raises their own chickens? Likely not affected, although egg production naturally decreases during winter months so the timing of all this makes a lot of sense. Support them if you are able to, but also look into organic or cage free or best of all pasture raised eggs. This level setting is happening everywhere in the food supply chain and I hope it’s opening more folks’s eyes to the problems that relying solely or heavily on centralized food systems creates. We were never intended to depend on ten or less huge corporations feeding an entire country. And look at what happens when we do, we are watching that system collapse.

Quick caveat: I’m writing from my personal perspective, which is a place of privilege that I can afford eggs at pretty much any price. If you rely on food stamps or affording eggs means sacrificing something else, please know I have absolutely been there. Where choices were not so abundant and we went without a lot of things due to their price. Eggs are a high-quality, low cost protein and there is a lot of food insecurity that touches people on the margins even more so when something like this happens. We are doing our best with broken systems all around us, no judgement or shade for how you go about putting food on the table for your family. This is a criticism of the industrial food system and not of people who need food subsidized.

On that long and rambling note, I’m opening a store!

I’ve been eluding to this basically since before we moved here, two weeks ago I filed the initial paperwork with the Secretary of State for my business name, and now things are starting to roll along.

Depending on how things go with funding and grants, I hope to open The Fayette Merc sometime in the spring.

Look, I can’t fix a broken system. None of us can do that individually but I can and do notice ways where I can make a positive shift in the direction that better serves my family and my community. If we all choose to notice and do things in our own small way, over time, these systems will rectify.

What I am writing is not new or revolutionary. It is doing my part in sharing the collective wisdom I’ve witnessed and experienced over the years from people doing good in this arena.

Now send me some good juju as I become a grant writer!

Yes, there will be bread

Merry Happy Everything, here’s our “card“

Today, Christmas Eve looks a lot different than in past years. We are going it solo for maybe only the second time in our adult lives. While we miss our Colorado family and friends terribly, choosing home this year was a very intentional decision, making this year mostly about our rootedness and new traditions in one place. (And the timing of that polar vortex proved that we made the right decision, yikes!)

Today has been spent baking my little heart out with sourdough gifts for our neighbors. Tomorrow we’ll eat yummy food, open presents, and since it’s been so nice out these past few days, spend some extended time in nature.

It’s sweet and simple and what we hope for all of you. Thank you for the cards, treats, FaceTime calls, and continued words of encouragement from near and far. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus, and to all a goodnight.

Much love, The Mashek’s