Cultivating Abundance

Photo: www.organicveggiestarts.com

I read an article a couple of days ago about a Vermont family who farms with Fjord horses. I couldn't help but think "Wow, what a great life that must be". It has been buzzing around my noggin ever since. As always, the question "what if?" kept rolling around my head as it so often does and it's lead me to a strange and seemingly random thought: What if I wanted to do organic farming with horses? On the surface, the idea seems a bit crazy. But the more I think about it, the less crazy it appears. I know that part of this train of thought (and the randomness of my new obsession HAS hit me a bit like a train) is that my daughter and I struggle to eat healthy. The healthier we eat, the more we struggle with bills and we STILL aren't eating the way we would like to. Poor diet has damaged us both, though not yet irreversibly: I have type 2 diabetes and my daughter is pretty severely iron deficient. NOT cool. The problem isn't knowledge or portion control. The problem isn't that we like to eat crap--we don't. The problem for us has been the cost of healthy food. I know that's pretty ridiculous in this country, but food insecurity is a very real problem for many families and getting worse all the time.

And that's not the only problem. I'm feeling more and more scared and paranoid about where our food is actually coming from. Monsanto continues to do what it does, despite the mounting evidence that GMOs can and do cause significant health problems. Unfortunately for the majority of folks in this country (myself included) the farm subsidies that this agricultural giant continues to enjoy mean that they are the only affordable option. Not cool.

I have had little gardens in the past (though I can't here in my fourth-floor apartment!) and have really enjoyed and appreciated being able to go pick myself a fresh salad whenever I felt like it. I have grown everything I like at one time or another (thanks to my grandparents who turned me on to gardening) and there's something very satisfying about the work. It's kind of funny, really. I'm germ-phobic and bugs freak me out, but I have no problem at all with getting my hands garden-dirty and picking bugs off plants. It's like I go into a zone. It's very similar to the kind of zone I went into when I was cleaning stalls: I (and my friend Autumn) called the flashes of brilliance that occurred during stall-cleaning "Muck-piphanies" and well, I kind of miss them. I tried to replicate the same sort of conditions with walking, but there are just way too many people around to really get 'in the zone' and I ended up doing this to myself (oddly enough, I have cleaned stalls with lots of people around too, and it wasn't at all bothersome. Horse people are different: We would either all be in a zone, or engaged in easy, pleasant conversation). Add to that the weird limbo-like disconnect that I've been struggling with; it makes the idea of getting up with outdoor, physical work to do every morning sound especially appealing.

When I moved to town, I thought I would appreciate how easy things were. I thought I would like to have the chance to sleep in, to not have the constant pull of things needing to be done. I thought that the time and space would help my writing, and that the proximity to people would provide me with a sense of security that I felt I lacked in the boonies. Financially, I NEEDED to do this and the financial pressure was significantly relieved for awhile. But this isn't who I am. All I've done since I've lived here is fantasized about having horses again, getting my hands dirty and seeing stars unencumbered by the lights from town. I miss hearing the friggin' crickets and frogs. I will admit that I did feel a bit more secure for awhile, but then my neighbors started selling drugs and shooting at each other and that tiny bit of security that I felt disappeared. My writing didn't flourish (though I did finish a book and start another): I struggle like crazy with focus--a problem I didn't have when I had fresh air and physical work to do. And do you know that I haven't really 'slept in' once? I guess I'm just not wired that way.

Initially, I tried to talk myself out of even thinking about this. It would require major life-changes and quite a learning curve. I know how to work with horses, though not for farming. I know how to grow vegetables, but not what is involved in growing certified organic vegetables on even a small commercial scale. Perhaps the biggest obstacle appears to be start-up costs. I did a quickie internet search with this in mind, and found an obscene number of grants and resources available for organic farm start-ups. It lead me to do a quick market analysis which indicated a HUGE demand that appears to be an upward-moving trend.  What if?

What if I were able to procure a grant and buy a small farm? What if I rented part of it to a farmer committed to humanely raising grass-fed beef? What if this farming-partner was willing to do the things I really hate about farm life (haying and mowing) and all I had to worry about was growing great vegetables? What if I decided to add raspberries and blueberries? Maybe some eggs? What if I could use my horses and land to sustain myself and feed others?

I am very well-aware of my tendency to chase rainbows. I also know that I continue to chase them because doing so has been reinforced by varying degrees of success. I have learned a lot this way, and am ready and willing to learn more. Right now, I'm going to sit with this for a bit and treat it like a research project. Maybe the research will turn into a business plan, and maybe it won't. In the meantime though, it is certainly an interesting idea:-)

The Poop Faerie

   The crazier this gets, the more fun it is. I have to get with my friend Autumn for some of her awesome artwork:-)

   I have yet another character for you guys:  The ever-elusive Poop Faerie. She has actually been around for a long time, but only in fantasy and lore. Even so, it would seem there are plenty of folks who maintain an unwavering faith in her existence. She is the one that cleans up all the dog poop left behind by owners who can't be bothered. More recently, she has been enlisted to clean up the many piles of bagged poop left behind as well. As this is a relatively new development, she has had to develop new strategies, but as a magical creature she's catching up fast.

   She's a godsend, really, to everyone who has always felt that they were too good to clean up after their dog. She cleans up the piles left on the sides of paths (because if the dog doesn't actually poop on the path, it's like it doesn't count, right?), and she cleans up that hard to reach poop too (though I suspect if it were a 20-spot and not dog poop, owners would find a way to reach it;-). The Poop Faery is the one who most often cleans up after small dogs too. For some reason that I can't quite understand, they seem to be her most frequent customers in my area. Maybe it doesn't count because it's so small? Or because the same folks who like small, fuzzy dogs are too delicate to clean poop? Who knows. It doesn't matter, because fortunately, the Poop Faerie has got your back;-)

   I go out for my morning walk and see colorful bags filled with poop lining the path. I smile knowingly to myself, because I have faith that the Poop Faerie will soon be along to collect the bags. How nice that dog-owners thought to at least bag it up. Why do more when there's a Poop Faerie to do the rest, after all. And we all know it's MUCH better to step in small-dog poop than big-dog poop. That's just a big 'duh'! And if it's hard to reach or you happen to be looking in the opposite direction when your dog 'does it's business', well, you can't be held responsible for that, right? If you didn't see it happen, it doesn't end up in the groundwater. EVERYBODY knows that. And if you go through the trouble of bagging it up and throwing it in the general direction of a dumpster, it doesn't really matter if it ends up inside it or not. Near it is close enough; why take the extra five steps to make sure the bag gets put into the trash? And what does it matter when the Poop Faery is out doing such an efficient job cleaning up after dogs everywhere? It's not like it's the owner's responsibility to clean up after their dog. That would just be ridiculous.

   It would seem the Poop Faerie is the most active in the spring when the snow melts. It's as though the dog-owning public collectively decided that if it can be buried in snow, it doesn't need to be picked up. Snow is forever, after all, and if nobody saw you bury it, it never really happened. So many rules to remember! But as always, the Poop Faerie swoops in to save the day from what could have been a really nasty mess. Phew!

   What would the world be like without the Poop Faerie? What a mess that would be! All those bags of poo left by the side of the path would just stay there indefinitely; piles of dog poop would create mine fields and end up on the bottoms of shoes. We would all have to smell it on a warm day. Conscientious dog-owners who pick up after their own dogs (crazy!) would have to deal with the consequences of an angry community fed up with the folks who won't clean up. What a horrible scene that would be!

Thank goodness for the Poop Faerie!

It's not easy being a green germaphobe

   As I stumble through my life accidentally on purpose, I can't help but notice some of the opposing forces that influence me. No wonder I spend so much of my time being confused. For starters I have a strange fascination with chickens; I just love them. I don't know why. Maybe it's their little feathered bodies or the adorable noises they make. Maybe it's the way they are so small, but they strut about like they own the place. At the same time, I feed my dog a natural raw diet with chicken as a primary food source (with other things to balance it appropriately, of course). My need to feed my predator a species appropriate diet is constantly at war with my love for chickens. In fact, I am an animal lover to my core, but I don't think I could live long-term as a vegetarian. I am so conflicted.

   The easier solution (and one that would placate me and assuage some of my guilt) would be to become an organic localvore. I would be exceptionally happy and at peace to know that the meat in my diet was well-cared for and respected (my dog eats free-range chicken parts from a local farm), and that everything was hormone and chemical-free. I could call my nutrition-minded friend Maureen (It's All Connected) and ask her to help me put together something healthy. That is the goal. When I can afford it, that is. Until then the dog eats better than I do and I live with the guilt. But this is only the 'diet' stuff.

   See, I'm kind of a germaphobe. I had to learn that I don't need to bleach everything all the time, and I did so because of the toxicity of bleach. It was even effecting my breathing. It was hard, but I learned. I have worked very hard to be mindful of the toxicity of cleaning products, and the amount of water and  paper products I use, even though my most base instincts tell me to wash everything in poison to kill germs and wipe them down with paper towels to not spread germs and to do that a LOT. I control my impulses by reminding myself that I had a healthy upbringing with my hands covered in dirt from gardening. I loved that feeling. And I've always lived with and around animals, which for some reason just don't register with me as 'dirty'. Sure I've brushed caked mud off horses more times that I can count and I've mucked a stall or two (million) but I never felt repulsed, even when my dog licks himself THERE (okay, maybe that's a little repulsive). But now I live in an apartment building that feels to me a little like living in a big petri dish. Every time I take the dog out I remind myself constantly not to touch my face until I get back to my apartment and wash my hands. I can only imagine how many people have touched the door handles, the elevator buttons, etc. I know, I have a problem.

   So I wash my hands a lot, and then wipe them on a clean towel set aside just for that purpose. It's a learning curve. I have hand sanitizer (by the gallon), but I try to use it sparingly. Some germs are good, right? And what do we do to our immune systems if we don't give them a little somethin' somethin' to work on once in awhile? I always question my admittedly compulsive mind-set, and then I'll see somebody's child (petri dishes on LEGS) sneezing openly on the button-panel in the elevator, or running around the hallways emitting open-mouthed coughs into the air wherever they go. It makes me want to walk around with a can of Lysol, but I don't. I gave up Lysol. I thought it might take a 12 step program, but it didn't. Barely.

   I think more than anything, in order to stave off my germaphobic tendencies, I need to be living my life; not just one that allows me to survive but one that's a reflection of my values and interests. That would mean NOT living in an apartment building, but being surrounded by healthy, dirty things like gardens and horses, and possibly chickens. I'm working on it; I'm working on it REALLY hard. Until then I'll do the best I can to balance the needs of the Earth with my compulsions:-)