People

I was going to be taking a summer student out into the bush, maybe for the first time, today. Instead he's off sick and I can go or not as I please. Before I decide I'm going to steal a couple minutes to actually write.

Last night I was out in the garden. I came in and mom was on the phone in the livingroom, the kind of phone conversation where even though it's theoretically not on the speakerphone I could hear both sides. I puttered in the kitchen a moment, went up to the loft to mess with my door, and I could still hear the conversation. They were talking about me. The guy on the other side kept referring to me as "your daughter" to mom. He was talking about how farming was a lot of work and didn't make a lot of sense to do, something like that, and mom was agreeing: "I don't know where she got it from, we did it a bit when she was a kid and you'd think she'd have learned" and "probably for a few more years before she gives up, it's a lot of work" were fragments I heard.

I said, "I can hear both sides of that conversation, just so you know" and they shifted topics a bit and talked about the pigs and more details some. But.

Two things. That's when I realized just how unknown I am to mom. We do not talk about our feelings - she was the main policer of my feelings as a kid, particularly she tried to shut down my meltdowns when my emotions just got really big, so I know not to take my emotions to her from that experience even though our roles now are so different. Further, and I guess possibly because of that, she doesn't know that I love this. I describe the garden to her but I don't tell her-- you know, I think most of my people understand, when I describe the garden, that I love it; they know the detail and the knowledge and the attention I give it are my way of loving things. I don't think mom knows that I get fulfillment and completion out of what I do here. I don't know why she thinks I do it.

I think it would be good for her to know? Reassuring? But she might not be able to understand it. If I got married to a person, or-- I don't even know, what are the typical markers of success that are supposed to be happiness? Maybe she'd understand that. I think she was glad of the possible A&E thing, even though I don't think she understood it. I don't know.

So there's that. And there's also Tucker, who I'm honestly too tired to write about I guess. Mostly, when I'm done dating someone in an intense, full-time way, I end to take a break for a year or two to reset. This doesn't mean no communication but it does mean not much, nothing that can pull me back into the old patterns of behaviour. It lets me get free to reshape my life without them; then they can be added back in when those habits are broken and replaced by something else.

He's-- you know, always right after a breakup you think things might change, someone might use that as a wake-up call and start doing what you needed from them. Sometimes they even do it a little, around the edges, for awhile. But my way of relating to him is the same as it's always been, which is definitely no surprise but also definitely not great for me. He's not going to plan the shape of his future to make this easier for me or more likely to continue, he is going to do short term things to make it easier, and at some point he'll get frustrated and burnt out on those short term things and become resentful. Long-term planning would make those higher-effort short term things easier but that's not his way.

We're still talking sometimes, on the phone, in the evening. A couple nights like that in a row and it feels like before: it feels like the kind of connection I'd be expecting someone to make time and space for me, and where I make time and space for it. That can't stand, it just kicks this ball down the road some. I can probably skip across it like a stone over a lake: when I feel that connection I can pull back, stay away a few days, then dip back in. I can set some structure to ensure it doesn't happen, like maybe I'll only talk to him on weekends, or on weeknights, or on Tuesdays, and only if we're both free.

I go and see him this weekend and I honestly don't know what it'll be like. My expectation is we'll argue a bunch at the end, like we did at the end of the last visit, because I'm shit at sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending everything is the same, and he is hurt by overt acknowledgement of relationship change. It's also possible it will be fine. I really do not know, but I will most certainly see. It'll probably be good information to decide if how soon we'll do something like this again.

Gift Unwrapped

Last night I took most of the floating row cover off the garden. I left it on the new gaspe, on the montana morado/gaspe, on one patch of early riser/gaspe, and on the oaxacan green/gaspe beds: they still had young gaspe in them and I wanted them to be safe.

On the other hand, I took it off of my bouchard peas (interplanted with a brassica I'd forgotten about... maybe turnip? I don't think radish?) and they're looking nice in there, short (my other soup peas are a couple feet tall, these are a couple inches, but they're a dwarf variety so they never get that tall in the end). The turnips or whatever they are have some pest damage but the peas themselves are pristine.

I uncovered the painted mountain and it is gorgeous. There are two beds (actually three, but I didn't give my deep attention to the third) and they were both crow-picked and interplanted. They're on a south slope but they get some midafternoon shade for a bit and they are big and fast and robust. The seeds I added have grown in quickly. The surviving original plants are beautiful, and especially the seed from glorious organics produced very robust stalks.

Magic manna had poor germination, perhaps as expected, but some of the plants are tillering nicely.

I also planted a bunch of seed last night. I tossed some mixed brassica seed in with open oak party corn. I put in rows of a lettuce mix: lettuce, some mixed chicories, a little arugula, and a couple diakon seeds. I put in amarant cabbage seed which will hopefully head up over frost, it's supposed to be aphid resistant. I put in napa king F1 seed, just a few, for kimchi. I also should put in some more beets and turnips, another cabbage, some more napa cabbage, the orach I was given, and maybe some fall peas?

Up on the horizon I should figure out when to plant my barley, oats, and favas. I'd also like to fall seed tomatoes, brassicas, parsley, and just see how they'll do.

The benefit of growing my own seed is that seed is no longer a scarcity. I can put a couple thousand tomato seeds in the ground in fall and still have plenty left for spring sowing indoors in the traditional way. I can plant some favas to overwinter and if the plants don't make it, well, I can replant in spring without it costing a million dollars in wasted seed. It's a relief; money is tight right now and will be in the forseeable future.

The acorns I planted are not yet up, a couple may be peeking through the soil a little. I planted them a little deeper than acorns naturally grow, normally they fall on the ground, get covered by a couple leaves, and send their roots down from there. These I actually put in the soil to keep them a little away from squirrels, so it may be a bit before they come up.

There are zestar apple trees in town - a kind I've wanted for awhile - but I'm out of money. I've been hoping they'll be marked down but I suspect they'll instead go into the garbage. That makes me sad.

Still not within my budget but a little less time-sensitive, I've been looking at fruit seeds: sea buckthorn, buffalo berry, crossed sour cherries, mongolian cherry, maybe some interestingly-bred saskatoon, linden, and ash (I know, not fruit, but useful). Those can be fall planted with my apple seeds and they should pop up in spring.

Progress

I can hear a colleague on the phone behind me wrapping their head around "how do you manage for something we don't have words for, that you can't put on a map" and trying to integrate that idea with a system that might allow management for it. It's an audible run at decolonization.

I suspect one thing they are missing is the objective of, "leave it intact, and tell the story that goes with it to everyone, so everyone knows the story when they see the feature" with a measureable result of "does everyone who works in the area know the story and think of it". Our western forestry right now is a lot of trying to cram intangibles into specific, measurable, time-and-space-bound objectives (maybe if we have x number of moose, or old trees, the system will do what we want it to do) because if we can't measure what we're doing, how do we know we're doing it? Our minds, thoughts, and feelings are supposed to be divorced from the process, though many of us love the forest very much that's supposed to be objectivity that biases our decisions.

As far as I can tell, indigenous management is often based on relationship, and as with any relationship contact and intimacy are a part of that. It's observant and can correct more quickly and subtly, as well as can accept that sometimes things we plan just are outside of our control.

The project of the last fifteen years and of the next decades is to integrate those somehow. Ideally we take the best of each. I'm very interested to see how it goes. These conversations are happening now and it's changing people, as it should. I'm glad for that.

Devotions

It gets easier, like a muscle, I guess.

Mom asked me if she could paint my fence today, instead of just doing it. Finally? I don't know. Is she doing all this stuff to feel loved? I want her to feel loved anyhow, not for the stuff. Either way it's a relief and a ...validation? equalization of power? anyhow, it's important that she's asked first.

I was gifted three super beautiful apple trees to plant in my yard. When I got them the cashier called them "your babies" and I felt seen.

A hatch of muscovies was laid in a dog crate, and I caught it just as the babies were hatching and before they got off the nest so mom and I carried the crate to the quail shed before the birds had a chance to scatter and need to be herded to safety. Here's to peace and safety of my animals.

The three piglets are huge now, their mum is obviously producing a bunch of milk. And mom can help me castrate. What a relief, and they're so cute and I love them.

I'm beginning to tap into the feeling of growth again, not just of death and of holding the line with the tips of my fingernails. It's time.

I could... have dinner parties if I wanted to? The dogs would need wrangling but it could be done.

I'm hyperaware of my hands tonight, of how much they've done over my lifetime, of the huge range of service they've provided from heavy work to loving touch to careful information gathering to precise creation and healing. They're good hands and I'm grateful for them and their experiences.

I'm grateful for the door for my bedroom I found at the dump. Even unhung it matches the painting Josh sent me and makes my life a little easier.

I'm grateful to be in bed early finally, and to be able to read a few minutes before exhaustion pulls me down again.