Covid 19 and the return to all that matters

Over the last month, all of us have seen the world change. No one is untouched. No country unharmed.
This little group of islands is taking a proper battering. As I come back to my online home, I suppose for comfort, and familiarity, our Prime Minister is in Intensive Care with the virus which is ripping apart the world.
We live in a kind of stilled, empty space, and yet time races on. We are nearly a third of the way through yet another year, the weeks pass at a terrifying rate, and yet nothing happens, to us anyway - which is really good. Because all the stuff that is happening is pretty bad.
We stand on the promises of God. Both girls work from home, Neil, with no work at all for his business, works all day on our land, and I - I go out every day and work in a care home. Thankfully not just any care home, but the light on the hill, a place hedged around with prayer, and upheld by the prayers of the righteous, which availeth much. We just go on.

Everything begins 'if we get through this...' which I believe we will, or 'when things get back to normal...', which I pray they won't.  This is an extraordinary time. A time like no other in history. A world suspended.  Let's never, never, got back to normal.

Two decades ago, we were led to come here, led to the land, led to work on it.  We're a bit off message, to tell the truth, it's all gone a bit awry.  But, per force, Neil is now working, working to put back together the resource we were blessed with, and we have time, time and more time to work out whats next.

We have an opportunity to learn to live on half what we were earning, a bright hope that we can get out of debt come what may, and that we will be in a place where we can follow that calling and just see where it leads. Too long we've waited to know where the road is going, before we set out. Now we must just, like Christian, set forth on our pilgrimage - and find out where it leads.

If we get through this (we will) and when things get back to normal (I pray they won't) the world will have changed forever. Our frugal ways and plain and simple days will be ... what? ... the new normal? An aspiration? A place of faith?

And yet, I came home here, to write that down.

A Bit More Structure

We have a lot of plans.
We're living in incredibly turbulent times, not just globally and politically (although ...) but also in our house.
As Boo has just turned 18 and August races ahead of us, the time is coming closer when the house will be a lot quieter, a lot more echoey, and I will be dealing with an 'empty nest'.
Our loose plan is to get right clear of debt, put a roof over our heads (shared ownership house? co-housing? long term lease of land? buy land?) , move to building more of our own income streams (hubby is already successfully self employed, I need to move that way before I am too elderly!) and making more of them land based, increase our self sufficiency, and hang on to our smallholding, where ever we need to take it to keep it, as it were. Ultimately to live a plain and simple life, "living simply that others might simply live."
The key word here is 'loose'.
In some ways, it's good to keep plans loose because, to be honest, we don't know what opportunities for housing will come up, or what possibilities will strike us as income streams, and we need to be adaptable.
However how we finish off our debt, and save for our future, should probably be just a little more detailed!
We need more structure, more accountability, more tick lists and target dates - more detailed execution, more feedback loops.
I'm looking for some good frugal challenges to join, and I need to reorganise my time to make better use of what little spare time I do have.
What's your top time management tip?

We, Who Have Compromised?

I wanted to attend a screening of We The Uncivilised - A Life Story, before it was released as a download, but never quite got the opportunity.
We live in social economy black spot. No one believes us until they look at the map of just about any membership organisation and go 'oh there's a big hole, right there'. From beekeepers to WWOOF hosts, goat societies to smallholder co-ops,  calculate the biggest gap between willing participants, and we'll be smack bang in the centre.
Anyway tonight we downloaded and watched the film.
Motivating myself with this as the payoff, I closed out April's budget with a will of iron. Then started May's. I am, in one sense, happy to report that all our corporate and entreprenuerial diligance is making a difference. We will soon be closing the gap.

On another level, how hopelessly sold out and useless do I feel?

If you haven't seen the film (- do -) it's made by a  young couple desperately seeking place, community, sustainability, responsibility ... and they talk to many of our friends and heroes : Sarah Pugh, friend, hero, innovator, people lover, trainer, teacher, inspiration. Mike Feingold, the Royate Hill pixie, such a genius of a man, and so kind. Neil's guiding light, Simon Fairlie ... and above all, they talked to Patrick. Not long before he died, they captured his closing remarks, his legacy, his extraordinary funeral, his wife, Cathy's, poems, I will not lie, there were tears in our sitting room, and they weren't all mine.

On an unbelievably cold day, in February 2002, Patrick came to see our land. He walked it with us, talked to us about it, drew up some plans, and gave us some advice. Thereafter he never failed to support us, love us, have faith in us, and help us. He often gave us things because, he said, 'he believed in what we were doing'.

Tonight, I wailed, 'But we're not now, are we? We've let him down.'

'Not yet, we haven't' Neil replied grimly. I think that's  the man version of my response.

Patrick Whitefield 1949 - 2015

Onward!

The world changed for a lot of us in the small hours of Friday morning.
I have seen and heard since then such bile and hatred as I thought never to witness in our gentle, polite country.
But regardless of how we voted, regardless of the rights and wrongs, now is our time.
Those of us who for years, for no reason we could discern, have been frugal, backyard, part time farmers were put here - like Queen Esther - for such a time as this.
Fellow Frugals. Part Time Farmers, Growers, Steaders, Make do and Menders - the time is now.

Straighten your wellies and square your shoulders.

Come on, Britain. Follow us!

Days of Small Things

Of two non office days this week, one was completely wiped out by fetching and carrying, so today was all I had left.
It was sorely tempting to cancel a coffee date with my sister, but I gave myself a talking to. I can be am anti social, and reclusive, and I haven't seen my sister, who lives half an hour away, in a year. Neither of us is getting any younger, and I need to learn to value people, and time with them, and stop nittering on about the weeds and the washing as an excuse not to actually visit.
So we met for an hour over coffee at a local garden centre, and it was good to see her - she's looking well despite her health problems, and we had a bit of a catch up. We're not naturally on the same wavelength, but that's another thing. I need to just accept that people are different, we can and do still love them.

Trays and trays of seedlings in the polytunnel

It was a beautiful sunny day, so I did also get some washing on the line, which is a particular joy of mine. I also pricked out some seedlings, had a bit of a sort out in the polytunnel, and cleared a bed in the veg garden ready for planting.

The salad mix which has kept us going over late winter is still going strong, but boy does it have a kick!

Meanwhile, a particularly cocky farmer's son from the north of our beloved county has been messing me about for days about buying our sheep. He's faffed and messed and changed his  mind that many times, on Tuesday Neil had actually offered them to him for rock bottom price but he decided to delay again.
This morning he had the nerve to message me again (tip: for any wannabe negotiators. If you constantly avoid having an actual phone conversation, and do all your haggling via a facebook message, we do know that you are twelve.) to say " Have you had any other interest?"

I saw red, and told him I'd decided to advertise them elsewhere. 'OK' he messaged back. "I'll bring you *rock bottom price minus £100* on Sunday."

As you can imagine my answer was: No you won't.

Please, however big you think your britches are:

• Be a man of your word. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no
• Negotiate by all means, but play fair. Don't try to screw people.
• Don't play silly beggar games with grown ups
• Be nice to people on the way up. You may bump into them again on the way down.

Chickweed Salve

First, gather your chickweed.

Chop it roughly into a jar

then add just a ziz of apple cider vinegar. My home made version is on the dark side, but smells good.

Let sleeping dogs lie. Add oil to cover. (Make tea.)

Place on a sunny window sill

This will steep for two weeks or so, shaken daily, before being made into a salve for sore and itchy skin.

Chickweed

and later, what I did with it!

Off Griddedness

Last week, in the middle of the night, Neil was suddenly, inexplicably stricken with the worst headache he'd ever had. It was instant onset, and followed by vomiting.  For this reason, he was rushed into hospital, but it never came to much and they decided he was ok, without so much as a scan.

Like my own health scare a few months back, this has made us think and talk, which can only be a good thing.

It has always been our hearts' desire, and our honest understanding of God's call on our life, to live simply, to the point of off grid if necessary. To hold space for the land, to honour a covenant.

We have turned our dreams into chores, and thus have we marched upon them in muddy boots, but they are our dreams, and on dreams, as we all know, we should tread softly.

The time now is to take joy.  In an instant, one evening, while hurriedly doing the chore of shutting up these darlings ...

... we suddenly decided to turn it into the great joy of spending time together, at dusk on a summers evening, enjoying the company of our beloved goats. Everything lifted.

We can do this. We can take the mundane and make it a hymn of praise. We can delight in our hours, how ever many, however few.

Today, at lunchtime, I rapidly peeled down a courgette from the polytunnel into 'courgette pasta' and steamed it in butter with a fresh egg from the rescued hens. It was sublime.

as I work, during the day, I pluck tomatoes and munch on them, their sun warmed sweetness, makes me smile.

I am blessed beyond measure that all of these things, we can share, in love, regardless of the outside world. We could live off grid if we needed to. To that end, we have decided to redouble our efforts to fit out the caravan at the field, in order that on long summer days, and inhospitable winter nights, we will have a safe shelter where we belong.

No Money in Poetry

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”
Robert Graves

There's no money in farming either. Not the hard, peasant way that we do it.

But like poetry, farming is a calling, it's in your blood, and that can be a bit of a turn up for the books when you didn't get born on a farm.  Oh well, call me a throwback, I've been called worse.

We have been so  beset by the getting done and the not getting done, the wasted grass and the growing list of jobs undone, that it has all become a bit now or never.

So it is now.

Or almost now.  When a certain financial constellation comes together, we must take a leap into the unknown. This constellation? It' s not Ursa Major, OK? It's not even Orion. It's like, Cassiopeia, at best.

So we won't be in any way safe. It will be borderline possible.

Meanwhile, we will be managing expectations - quoting from the excellent post from The Henhouse :

And at the end of the day, we pray that our priorities and expectations line up with God’s call on our life and the life of our family.  In a culture that is consumed with more more more, it is hard to diverge from that busy road and say, “No,” I am going to do less.  I am going to spend less time working so I can spend more time enjoying.  Slowing down, really seeing, truly listening . . . these are the things we are practicing.

Not so much in our case working less, as working more within our calling. As it stands, Neil has to earn the money, mostly by working off site. So to me, falls the job of farmer. But that's OK. It's the only job I've ever wanted.

Today's list is : Things I Cannot Do and (Column Two) Why  

Because ' I cannot build the goat house because I can't lift the pieces' is real, and needs for Neil to come in on the job, but 'I cannot take sheep to market because I cannot reverse the trailer' has a fix. It is probably long hours in the bottom field with an empty trailer and full swear box, but there is a fix.

It's time to step up to the plate.  Your prayers are all appreciated!

Sage flowers at nightfall, all beautiful, sweet scented, and useful to the bees. 

Is it a bird? Is it a cloud?

No, it's a soft, clean, hand fluffed pile of lovely luscious Jacobs wool, ready to make a cushion for an order. (I'm getting there, Katie!)

I am so excited to be making these cushions. I love our sheep so much, any and everything that helps to make them sustainable and viable is good by me.

They don't all have names - they are a proper flock! - but some of them do.

Bertha and Brenda, the old milk sheep crosses we got when we first bought the flock, must be 10 if they are a day.

Charlotte, who was an orphan, and who was born the day Charlotte du Jardin won Olympic Gold in London - and spent the afternoon on my lap watching the dressage!

But all of them are dear, and belong so on our little plot of land. It's my heart's desire to improve that flock, to move towards them being registered, and recognised.

Mel at Wuthering Heights Farm suggests cat toys. They could very well be next. How do you feel about a spicily scented Christmas decoration, filled with real Jacob wool? (There were sheep at the nativity, after all, and Jacobs sheep get their name from the Old Testament.)

Suddenly, I have a million ideas.