Hope Springs Eternal

Indomitable spirit.  That was one of the 5 tenets of taekwando on a paper my brother gave me back in my early twenties (Courtesy, Integrity, Perserverence and Self Control are the other 4).  He knew how I liked to paper my home office with inspirational quotes.  I've had to overcome quite a few difficulties to get to the difficulties I face today.  Many times it would have been easier to give up or give in.  But the spirit was not crushed and it was these trials that made it stronger.  Challenge becomes the norm and you begin to embrace it - to take it on willingly.

Starting over with a small farm really isn't daunting.  I have some practice.  I've made many of the mistakes and hopefully learned from them.  It may be that starting out is the funnest part.  So many possibilities.  The future is bright and the common drudgery of carrying things out season to season hasn't figured into the equation yet.

As long ago as I can remember if you would have asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have told you I wanted to be a farmer and an author.  After a lot of twists and turns I finally got down to starting in 2005 (see grandprairiefood.blogspot.com) and at age 44 I'm still trying.

In 2015 I picked up an old building in town (the former local Knights of Pythias Castle - that's just the name, it's not a castle, its a two story vinyl sided box).  In the small backyard I have been growing a small garden of my own and a small crop of garlic to increase for planting stock.  Last year a friend bought us thousands of flower bulbs and I expanded to the "community garden", some unused village land in the floodplain, in spite of being told explicitly by the village board president that I could not use any village land.  I planted some of my garlic there again this fall.

I've also begun to branch out on a friend's country land in a place called Rolling Ground.  Just tiny beds so far.  In my experience, commuting to a garden means a neglected garden so if I commit to growing there on a larger scale I will want to relocate.  I'm in a bit of a transition anyway right now with the impending closing of my thrift store after 5+ years in its current location.  In fact, I began a dug-in greenhouse at Rolling Ground this fall so you might say I've committed.

In 2004 I adopted intentional poverty.  I have my reasons and I'll try to explain them elsewhere.  When I first encountered the concept of intentional poverty I thought it was silly and not for me.  I rolled that idea around in my mind for many years before I came around to it.  A good dose of state oppression, no doubt, helped polish it for me.  I knew that growing food on a small scale with no machinery would not make me rich and I really felt it was a practice I wanted to experiment with and demonstrate. Now after a few years of doing other work, I'm coming back to it. (This was a draft from this winter. Other than the last sentence, it is going out the way I wrote it then although the publish date is April)