It was just past lunch, and the air felt so thick that I could cut it with a knife. My leather gloves were soaked, and I hadn’t even been outside that long. The sweat seemed to make my clothes 5 pounds heavier, and there wasn’t anything I could do.
It was August in Ohio, and Mother Nature seemed to be going through menopause with yet another hot flash.
I don’t know how else to explain the erratic fluctuations in weather. But as soon as we made it through a few days of a hot flash — the last of the season I hope — it dropped to near-freezing temperatures at night. Here we go again, I thought; another cold flash.
As much as I look forward to the shifting temperatures to end, it’s just one of the problems that we must contend with on a regular basis. The wild temperature swings of the spring cut our maple syrup season short, again. But it dried the ground up early, allowing me to build a dirt road and lime the garden. And all of this happened before the flooding rains of spring really hit, which caused some problems with our septic.
Recently, I had to wade through mile-high amaranth and other weeds in the garden to pick the last of the green tomatoes to ripen indoors, fearing they would be lost in the cold night temperatures. But the weeds in the garden were nothing compared to when we were harvesting potatoes, and the plow was getting stuck ripping through the intricate root system of some of the weeds.
While some people have gardens that are featured in magazines, it’s just not very pragmatic. Furthermore, if the weeds can flourish in crooked rows, so can the rest of my plants. It’s not like I tried to plant them wishy-washy; it just sort of happens. And it happens to me every year.
Once the growing season is over, I like to articulate the problems and search for solutions. Unfortunately, we can’t implement them until next year. And solutions aren’t always as miraculous as they’re purported to be. Sometimes, more problems develop. Sometimes, the resulting problems are worse than the original problem. I think it’s this vicious cycle that proves problematic for homesteaders.
I recently listened to Joel Salatin say that the average turnover rate is five years for a homesteader.
If you’re looking for a farm that resembles anything on the pastoral farming that marketing materials show in the grocery store, then you might be disappointed. Everywhere you turn, there is something broken, something not growing, something rotting because there was no time to harvest it.
It’s a problem and life is full of them. No matter how big or how small, the problems must be dealt with. Attempting to resolve the most detrimental problem first is an ideal I can hardly keep up with.
Instead, I seem to toss problems from one hand to the other, until I look like a clown juggling in some wild circus. Instead of makeup and a fancy costume, all I have is my sweat-drenched clothes, overzealous ambitions and a unique perspective — that it’s hard to count your blessings when you’re looking at your problems.
