743 days
It’s been 743 days since I last sat down to write in this space…
And almost that long since the world shut down and all of our lives slid into wildly unprecedented times.
The truth is, I can’t imagine any one of us had a real read on what what to come as we watched two weeks shift into months and… now years of countless unknowns.
But here we are!
Forever changed, surely, but here none-the-less…
And grateful for every minute.
And now, with the newness and hope of Spring upon us once again, I’m finding myself reinspired to not only push seeds into the welcoming soil, but to also write about it…
To connect with you…
To re-learn this platform and wonder if blogging (in it’s original word, photo, and community based form) is dead… or very much alive and longing for connection beyond social media and the quickest of sound bytes?
And maybe, just maybe, to inspire and be inspired again as we grow and stretch into whatever this new world might bring us next?
Ever learning…
Ever hopeful…
Ever growing.
Wanna come along?
I sure do hope so!
I mean, no one wants to scream into the abyss, do they?
I surely don’t.
And who doesn’t love the promise of plant sprouts, the magic of colorful eggs, the fluff of baby chick butts, or the hilarity of kid antics?
I know I do.
Still. And always.
And so, instead of trying to catch you up on two full years of farm life in one fell swoop, I’ll share a few tidbits you might be interested to know:
- We are still caretaking the same 10 acres/heirloom orchard/berry patch in addition to our own small-scale crops and a large Kitchen Garden and are slowly moving the upper property to no-till
- Our goats, pigs, chickens, and ducks still help us steward the land as gently as possible while adding copious amounts of fertilizer to the soil
- Akuna has perfected her Livestock Guardian status and Barley has grown into a massive, cuddly Mastiff.
- We lost our beloved husky, Mika, last summer as well as both of our barn cats (Ben & Jerry)
- And, like so many others, we acquired a Pandemic Puppy, a pug named Willow, who is Ember’s BFF and constant Homeschool Companion (yes, that’s happening now, too)
- We’ve never been more grateful for the space around us or the ability to grow (some) of our own food, and I don’t believe we’ve ever been more inspired to continue on this homestead journey
With that all said, I’ll aim to share relevant learnings/reflections and profound happenings in the coming weeks and months ahead as I write each new post. While a lot is still very much the same, our transformations (within and without) have been profound…
I trust yours have been, too.
Still here?
Thank goodness and thank YOU!
I’d love it if you said HELLO and let me know how you’re doing in the comments.
Are you inspired by the change of seasons? Making big plans? Taking it all day by day? All or none of the above?
However these words find you, I hope you are well and that you know how much I’ve missed you.
xoxo,
M
It’s been good to catch up with your smallholding story a little. I’ll look forward to seeing your updates a bit more often than every two years! My own blogging story has been on hold for just a couple of months – first the weather, then a dysfunctional camera – but I hope to get back to chronicling the changing seasons in this corner of Northumberland soon. Today’s project is getting the doors onto our new polytunnel!
Oh I’m so glad you intend to blog again and have only had a couple of hiccups! It’s always something, isn’t it?! You’ve only had a short lapse though so I don’t doubt you’ll fall right back into your groove 🙂 I do hope your polytunnel project turned out just as you intended and that you have a lovely week ahead!
Melissa, it’s great to have you back with us and that you’ve rekindled your blogging mojo. The last two years have been tough, strange and yet in other ways liberating and quite productive. My husband has been working from home for the last two years and we’ve been able to spend more time together, he’s been able to work on the house, and help out more with driving our teenaged kids around. I hope you have a great week.
Best wishes,
Rowena
Rowena, it’s so nice to be back! I’m so happy to learn you are all doing well and that your husband being home has been positive for you all! My wife has also been home for most of the last two years and it’s blessed and challenged us in unexpected ways 🙂 Small homes can pose big challenges with everyone home all.the.time but we wouldn’t have it any other way! I’m looking forward to staying in touch!
That is an inspiring story you have! My goal is to one day be as self sufficient as possible. I did not know that New Mexico could be that green, like in the photo with the cows! What type pf crops are you growing? I love gardening, at the moment I live in a city and only have a container garden, but it’s still fun and it keeps my dream alive. I have tomatoes in my window (that you may have noticed when you visited may coffee share,) that are going outside in a month or so. I currently have red currant bushes, figs, herbs, and different types of salad greens at my balcony. Looking forward to follow the happenings on your farm.
/Maria
Hi Maria! Thanks for popping over! I did see your beautiful tomatoes on your windowsill and *love that you are container gardening! We started off the same (in the city with a few pots to start) and have just grown and grown since then! You are right to think NM isn’t usually as green as you saw in some of my photos. Being in the high desert of northern NM we have very dry conditions and a short growing season, but during the spring and summer rains is greens up nicely. We’ve also be very lucky to live on a couple of properties on the river with water rights. Our largest crops are the fruits on our current property (orchard fruit + raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries) but we also grow blue corn, green chile, a variety of winter squash, a large kitchen garden, and a small herb garden. It’s all a lot of work (and a definitive *lifestyle) but we love knowing where the bulk of our food comes from 🙂 I look forward to getting to know more about you as the weeks pass. Hope you have a great day!
What a blessing that we didn’t know what was to come!! That would have been terrible!
I don’t think I’ve seen you in the blogosphere before and it’s nice to find you and your blog! For a while I thought real blogging was dead but then I found these link-ups and have found lots of good people and I really enjoy the chats in the comment sections. I believe that real blogging could just be hidden, not dead. Google (and most other search engines) don’t show people personal blogs but only content they have decided they want people to see. I also think as long as there are tools for it for ordinary people, blogging will live.. more and more people move away from social media for what it has become (first and foremost marketing platforms), so maybe blogging will come back. Time will tell. In the meantime, I hope we can continue to enjoy the community of the bloggers that are still out there. I’m looking forward to reading more from you!
Hi Susanne! Thank you for popping over! So lovely to meet you! Up until my hiatus two years ago, I’d blogged consistently since 2011, participating in the coffee share posts from ~2015-2019. I hit the blogging world a bit late, just as everyone was monetizing and trying to make the big bucks through their websites…which wasn’t my intention at all, but began feeling necessary despite my want to simply write and share our back-to-the-land story. When 2020 hit, I just…stopped. There were too many other things pulling on me to even form a cohesive sentence 😉 And so here we are now and I am *so very excited* to jump back in, find my groove, make some new friends (and reconnect with old ones), and enjoy the community aspect of it all again! I look forward to getting to know you and the newest coffee share community 🙂
I’m the same in regards to being late to the game, I started in 2010 and it took me a while to realise that people were making money from it, I was annoyed that all other blogs were so commercial and only did reviews and giveaways and no “real” content.
In my early days I tried to find a balance in it all. The time I spent participating in giveaways and doing my best to produce evergreen content were honestly the most exhausting. I fully understand that some want to turn this into an income stream, and some have, successfully, but it’s never really sat right with me *for me. So here we are…a decade down the road and still learning, growing 🙂 I’m excited to write again and have found my Blog Brain is, in fact, not dead, as I’m composing posts throughout the day in my imagination while I putter around. I look forward to diving back in and building a new, solid foundation from which to explore my voice and this community. Hope you have a great week ahead!
Hi Melis,
I dropped you a note in response to your liking one of my Coffee Share articles for this week, but I wanted to know more about you.
It seems that we have some similar goals and pleasures.
Me: I write to be read and I blog to connect. I find that bloggers are generally nicer folk to spend time with even if the medium sometimes gets in the way. On the other hand, I love that I can as easily connect with someone from (relatively) near by NM as I can with new friends from Australia.
I left you a couple of links that should help you check me out and (if I’m lucky) attract you to both connecting and reading some of my story creation hobby.
It sounds like you are living your dream.
Hi Gary! Thank you so much for popping over! I’m so excited to reconnect here in Blog Land as I’ve dearly missed the writing process *and the community! You’re so right about connecting here in the US as well as around the world, a couple of my very favorite people (who I met blogging way back in 2011) are in Ireland. I’ll pop over to your site and check out the links you left me now 🙂 I’m still getting my Blog Legs back under me and so appreciate the warm welcome. Have a lovely weekend!
Nice to see you back after a couple of odd years. Glad you are keeping up with your little farm and all of the life, and, unfortunately, death, that goes with it. It’s beginning to look like spring up here in New England as well. Hope to see you around in the comign weeks 🙂
Thanks, Trent! Good to see you’re still around! I look forward to catching up! 😊