Back Porch Farm

This past week was an emotional roller coaster: “Do we? Don’t we?” “Can I? Can’t I?” Like a dog in front of 2 hydrants, I deliberated my 2 choices – and both great choices to be sure! Do we send our daughter to the Waldorf school (which will mean I go back to work to afford the tuition) or do I commit to a new Waldorf-inspired homeschooling coop with a handful of other interested moms. My husband finally gave me the slam I needed: “Sweetie, I KNOW you. You will take on the homeschooling cooperative like it was your newest cross to bear. You will lose sleep thinking up craft projects and over-organize every class. The other moms will feel the pressure your out-of-proportion enthusiasm will surely exude, and you will feel like it is your sole responsibility and the other mom’s have deserted you. And of course, THEY are the ones who will be trying to do it at a reasonable level. YOU will treat it like it was a med school university! You will over-do it and get sick. Believe me.”

It it sometimes a curse and sometimes a blessing when some one knows you so well. Sigh, well, the simple fact is – he is right. This aspect of my personality is also a curse and a blessing. I have big dreams and high hopes and when I make up my mind to DO something, I am pretty obsessive/compulsive about it! The up side is… things get DONE! My partner may kick and scream as I crack the whip over his sweating back, but after the toil is done, and we sit on our cool, shady back porch, sipping iced mint tea and watching the hummers fight for the feeder, he feels content and satisfied at his accomplishment – as do I. The environmentally unethical sod, our expanded veggie garden, the raised beds, the drip irrigation, the extended range area for our flock of 12 hens and 7 chicks, the additional saplings to our 18 tree orchard…. hard work. But my god, it’s DONE! And we are reaping the benefits now: more eggs, more veggies, less labor to irrigate, soft sod for our sweet pea to run barefoot in.

But the down side is how my project fever effects my heath. After 22 years of living with Chronic Lyme Disease, one might think I would have learned. But NOOOOOOO! After all, that is how I contracted the Lyme to begin with! Sure it took that one little unseen, unnoticed tick bite to inject the spirochete into my blood stream, but it also took my over-training as a bike racer to leave me with a overtaxed immune system, susceptible and vulnerable, quick to lose the battle against this tricky invader. Since that fateful moment in 1989, I have had the initial infection who’s symptoms showed up too late for antibiotic therapy, and laid me out in bed, an invalid for 6 months, and 5 subsequent lesser relapses. It wasn’t until 2000 that I finally found an alternative clinic who properly diagnosed me with my first partner for life. And my second partner for life is right – I always over do it.

So, with a sense of great relief, we chose to become a family of our local Waldorf community. We are extremely blessed to have this little school with it’s biodaynamic farm and gentle, holistic approach to teaching children. We are excited to meet other Waldorf families and learn from this rich resource. Isla, our wee 2 year and 3 month bairn, will begin school in a couple of weeks. Although she has never left my arms for the surrogacy of day-care, she already knows the school well and is VERY excited. I came home from the information meeting last evening feeling finally at peace. Papa said Isla stood on the dogfood bin (her step stool to the the south side of our world) in front of the window and announced I was driving up the road to the house. “I love Mama so much and I’m ready to go to Taos Waldorf School!” she exclaimed!

And so we step into the next phase of our lives.

A few pictures of the 2 yr manifestation from 2 acres of sage brush to the beginnings of an urban homestead farm:

Hard at work tilling up the existing "Razor Grass"

The rolls wait for no one... especially when it's in the 90's.

Isla and One-eyed Murphy enjoy the new sod with a long draught at the watering hole.

A few of the girls...

Our borrowed broody hen, Dani, set on 16 of our eggs and hatched out 5 little chicks.

Raised bed construction in progress.

3 little tree hole fairies (Isla, Vera and Avery) help prepare for the planting of another apple tree.

The raised beds in action.

When I walk through our garden gate I can't help but think of Little Shop of Horrors.