The Not So Great Escape
Most days are tolerable but last Friday I had a day when all the potential for hazard made itself known at the same time. The sheep escaped, the electric net fence twisted itself into an insoluble puzzle, the pony got sick of waiting, charged her own electric fence and made a run for it and meanwhile a hundred meters away the ducks, who as it turns out were also just fed up of waiting, started squawking like Fox had come to visit.
To add to the joy, we have a goat with some kind of weird eye infection that neither we nor the vet can figure out or cure, the barn is semi permanently under water, we’ve run out of grass, and the flood in the barn managed to reach the bottom of the £50 large bale of hay which was on a platform of pallets to prevent that happening. It’s been a lot.
My word for this year is Present. At the time, it didn’t feel like a good choice.
Present, Present, Present.
I chose ‘present’ because I feel so strongly that I need to slow the pace, hold my moments, feel my days, and live in ‘the present.’
It’s also about being present. Being in everything that I do, in its entirety, completely, committed, so that I can in fact concentrate on ‘the present’. Being present, in the present.
Thirdly, it’s about reminding myself of the old chestnut that it’s called the present because it’s a gift. It really is. I struggle with health anxiety and a complicated mental relationship with ageing, but in so many other places and almost all foregoing times, I would not be this old. I would not have made it. Every single day is truly a gift, a present.
I was very present on Friday afternoon, which as it turned out, went on for about three weeks. Which made me think.
Off the Shelf Solution?
As 2024 begins, as I am alarmingly two years from state pension age (we were robbed, but that’s another story) I am seeing our whole situation - our home, our land, and all that we do to live a simple, contented life in less than ideal circumstances - as a sort of flat pack unit, which has been carelessly assembled, propped against a wall when we were younger, more energetic, and less concerned with saving time, energy, or money.
It’s worked, in a way. There’s stuff on it (and some that’s tipped off) and all the bits are still there, but it’s not standing on its own feet. It needs repairing, reconstructing (possibly with the instructions to hand), and repurposing.
We should all take care to reassess our holistic purpose regularly. It’s far too easy to go along assuming that what you’ve done for the last decade has worked pretty well (apart from the times it’s been an out and out disaster) and avoiding the inevitable truth that deconstructing it and making life work for you now is just horribly messy and complicated. We are there.
We can see some of our commitments and choices are tiring and draining now, and not really serving any purpose. How heavy are they going to be to carry in another five years’ time? And will they become any easier to disentangle? Like the horrendous mess my sheep netting got into on Friday, there is no shortcut. You have to twist and turn and thread the metaphorical posts through the analogous wire squares. Forever. Or until it all comes straight.
There’s no reason why, God willing and health permitting, we should not continue to grow our capacity for self sufficiency, quiet contentment, productivity and peace for another decade or more, but that won’t happen if we continue to look the other way and refuse to make the tough choices that lie ahead.
Observe and Interact
As a permaculture designer in my not so spare time, I come to this with a design perspective, and our first job is to survey the situation, ask ourselves questions, and then use the resulting answers to analyse and design a solution.
Fellow permies will recognise this design framework as SADIM or SADIMET. Honestly, I think most design frameworks are variants of SADIMET.
Survey
Analyse
Design
Implement
Maintain
Evaluate
Tweak
My first job is to find out what I need to find out! What is causing us to spend undue time and effort on tasks which don’t ‘reward’ us? What makes us feel overwhelmed? What happens if one of us gets sick? What would we need to change to make it possible for us to have time off?
Ma’s Made Marmalade
It’s January so of course, I made marmalade. Every year I make a LOT of marmalade, much of which is donated to my daughters and other friends. I’m technically still diabetic, despite having managed to push my numbers down into the remission zone, so I eat precious little of my monster output. Neil does love it though, and so do the girls.
I’ve completed round one, and have another lot to go. It’s the stickiest job ever and quite impossible to keep cleaned up until the jars are sealed and put away - then you can de-stick the kitchen!
I will share a recipe at some point - maybe in Notes? I’m assured you can make marmalade at any time of the year with any oranges, but I am an old stick-in-the-mud and make mine in January when the elusive Seville oranges appear.
Behind the Scenes
I’ve tried to make this update a bit more patchwork, as our made up smallholding life is.
I’m trying to think of a new name for this place, because I do think Smallholder Journal is in fact a bit misleading. Both of us still work in the most un-farmlike of ways - Neil full time in his own business, and me part time in mine. I never want to give anyone the impression that I live in some rustic abode, surrounded by gently sloping fields, with a stable door spilling light from the kitchen and warmth from the Aga into a cotswold stone stable yard.
Far from it! It’s extremely important to me to be clear that our mid terrace new build on a housing estate two miles from our rented swamp field could not be further from this Pollyanna Pickering picture! But - as we spend some of this year re-evaluating how we make our make believe homestead future proof and (gasp!) pensioner friendly I do hope I give you hope that you can do this self sufficient smallholding stuff in the most unlikely of places, from the most unpromising of beginnings.
It’s never too late to get un-stuck! Pick a word, make a plan, or make some marmalade?!