You may have noticed that the last installment of this blog didn’t post. No, it wasn’t a technological glitch. More like a situational necessity as we dealt with some drama at home.

Out of the blue, a little over two weeks ago, our beloved dog, Sadie, got violently ill. We still don’t know what caused it, but she was sick for 4 days and wouldn’t eat and barely drank… it was a nightmare. She’s just 2 1/2 years old and has never been sick before, so this was an absolute shock. My husband and I took many trips to the emergency vet after our regular vet couldn’t see us; apparently the veterinary world is imploding after all the pandemic-pet adoptions. We camped out in the parking lot of the emergency room for 4-5 hours at a time, waiting for Sadie to get seen and then waiting for updates, wringing our hands. Finally, after a few visits that proved fruitless and tests that all came back negative, they admitted her overnight. We’d been sleeping on the sofa bed downstairs at our house to keep an eye on her, and slept there again that night, as if by silent understanding that we were keeping vigil. The next morning there was still no change, so I asked the vet if I could at least come to visit. My worry was that since Sadie had never slept away from home before (only at our place with trusted sitters), she think we’d abandoned her and would give up trying to get better.

I saw poor little Sadie in the hospital with an IV in her paw and a cone around her head, looking 10 years older and hair coming out in clumps when I pet her. And I don’t think I’ve ever willed something so hard before. I secretly prayed to anyone watching over that she make it through. And as I pet her as much as she’d let me, I kept my voice calm and positive and actually got her to eat a little bit. I also asked her to please not leave me. The vet came in soon after and was really encouraged that she’d eaten, so we agreed to keep Sadie under supervision for a few hours more, to make sure she kept the food down. And she did!! They released her to us that night, and even though her paw was shaved and scabbed and she still looked older and ragged, I could sense that she was taking a turn for the better.

My husband drove home while I sat in the backseat with her and she pressed her entire body against mine, like she could meld us together. And I cried (of course), and thanked modern medicine and whoever had watched over for letting Sadie stay with us. That night we all slept on the sofa bed again, and we watched her every move for the next few days. But I’m thrilled to report that she’s made a full recovery and life in our Happy House has resumed its happy pace.

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It was in the midst of all this that I was scheduled to write my blog. Oh, and my band was in town for our latest gig and my sister also had a baby (who I was supposed fly to SC to meet but then had to reschedule). So I hope you’ll understand why I allowed myself to skip a cycle. I frankly did not have the bandwidth to write. But since then I’ve had a lot of time to process some of the things that came up.

I realized that basically since the pandemic began I’ve been holding my breath. Covid was this invisible hunter and I braced myself every day for news of a loved one getting sick or for the virus to strike our own household. Even since moving upstate, away from city crowds and after getting vaccinated, I’ve been struggling with a specific kind of anxiety. I’m often hit with a wave of fear that this happy little family we’ve created will be taken away from me. There’s not much I can do to manage this fear, except to cherish my husband, my dog, our house and land (and ducks!), as often as I’m conscious of the thought. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t toss and turn at 3 am trying to push the thought away that I could lose them, and then I kick myself when during day I get impatient with Sadie or snap at my husband.

It occurs to me that this is the double-edged sword of love. The bitter to the sweetest things I’ve ever had. There’s so much at stake now. So I guess along with learning how to be a better farmer and homesteader (and housekeeper), I’ve also got to learn how to stand being in love, in spite of fear.

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Now for life outside our four walls!

We have, as a friend recently told us, more garden plots than they’d ever seen at one house. I guess this is what’s called “too much of a good thing,” as I can’t quite keep up! Especially being an absolute nube at gardening. Don’t get me wrong; I love and appreciate each new bloom that opens and I doubt I would have had the inspiration to create these floral patterns throughout the property. But I’ve hit a wall. We managed to eradicate most of the really invasive vines in the beginning of the Spring, and have kept on top of the recognizable weeds that have appeared since. (Except for the stone pathway in front of the house. Don’t even get me started. I hand weeded the whole thing TWICE and put down layers of wood chips, and those pesky plants are still coming back with a vengeance.) I’m finding that my motivation to go out and orchestrate the gardens’ progress is waning as the weeks go on. Sadie crashes through them whenever she sees a bunny or a chipmunk and leaves dozens of broken stems in her wake. The thinning and mulching that took me weeks to accomplish seems to have made only a small impact. The crab grass is already coming back and the plants themselves are crowding each other out. And this is just in the “main” garden that we’ve spent most of our time on! What in early Spring looked like modest, spread-out plants, now looks like a bit of a jungle that I don’t know how to tame.

It’s at times like these that I wish someone would just come tell me what to do. (Yes, I know there are landscapers and professional gardeners, but having hired both this year, I know that the level of help I need is beyond my budget.) When I go for walks or drives through our neighborhood, I try to take note of what I like in other people’s gardens, and why. I do at least know that I’m not excited by immaculately tended flower beds that hardly look natural for their uniformity. The gardens that catch my eye tend to be a little freer, more organic-looking, and somehow whimsical. We have all three in spades, but maybe a bit too much. I think it would have been different if we’d moved to a property of just grass, where we could build and develop the gardens from scratch, adding a new element each year as we felt comfortable. But then I guess I wouldn’t have been forced into the deep end and learned as much as I have in just a few months. Needs must, and all that…

Thankfully, I don’t have to do this totally alone. I have a partner that listens when I spiral and helps me to sort through my anxieties to find a solution. We’ve been talking about our “embarrassment of riches” in the backyard and came up with an initial plan. For now we’ll focus our maintenance on the “main” garden. It brings us a lot of happiness and is more than enough to keep us occupied, especially for something that’s ornamental. It’s got a variety of flowers and colors throughout the year (and we don’t even know what’s in store for later this Summer!), and provides us with a beautiful view through the back windows. And it keeps us in cut flowers scattered throughout the house! And then later this year, we’ll slowly start “rearranging” the other gardens. There are a few really interesting plants that I’d like to keep, like the globe thistle which are so cool and a big favorite of the bees. But other things, like the beach roses that are spreading across an entire garden, we’ll try to “rehome” via Craigslist. I appreciate their beauty but we have so many other plants that are lovely to look at. I’m more interested in edible gardens so I’d like to gradually turn some of these gardens into orchards, or even vegetable patches. The veggies and herbs that are growing on the deck are coming along SO WELL! Even with the weeks of endless rain (silver lining: we haven’t had to water anything since the first week of July), it all seems to be thriving and ripening. We continue to add fresh herbs, tomatoes, and jalapeños to almost every dinner, and my afternoon smoothies have gone to the next level with our home-grown kale and mint.

We also have a delicious weekly share of vegetables from our local CSA, so between that and our backyard harvest, I’m dreading having to buy produce from the grocery store ever again. I’ve never been a big fan of green beans, but discovered that I LOVE them when they’re pickled! We kept getting bags of them in our CSA and I hated to waste them, so started fermentation experimentation (lol). I had some lids from when we made our dandelion wine and bought a few glass weights to put inside the jars during the fermentation process (this keeps the food below the liquid level; anything sticking out above that can collect bacteria). All in all it was a pretty easy and very delicious experiment and now I wish for green beans in every weekly box! I also attempted some pickled beets (yum!), and cucumber. The latter did not turn out well, despite the name “pickles” referring to cucumbers! They just smelled and tasted a little funny, so I didn’t take my chances and tossed that batch. I’ll do some more research and see if there’s something I’m doing wrong, because what could be better than your own homemade pickled cucumbers? (Oh wait. Your own homemade pickled green beans…)

The farm usually also supplies us with a few kinds of lettuces each week, and we’ve been sharing it with the ducks for their daily “pool salad.” They eat this like candy! They’re still skeptical of other typical duck-favorites like berries and corn. But between their Manna Pro duck pellets, pool salad, and their evening forage for insects, they seem pretty content with their diet. The weeds in their run are getting high, almost as tall as the ducks themselves, which apparently makes for a great big buffet. My husband and I still love to sit in our two chairs out there with them and watch them forage over an evening cocktail. The girls still don’t love to be touched but they do yell for us to come visit them from time to time, and seem to really like when we sit in there for an extended time. Patty, the “golden” variation (she’s shades of brown as opposed to her sisters who have a tint of purplish-blue on their wings), seems to also have a little super power. Twice now my husband has seen her literally fly the coop: she gets airborne over the 2-foot fence inside their shed and lands on the other side! She seems as surprised about it as we do, so I hope she’s not going to get any ideas and try to teach her sisters her new skill.

As much fun as the ducks are, I realized something recently. Now that they’re in a good groove and we know what we’re doing (hope I didn’t just jinx myself), I’m…looking for the Next Big Thing. I mentioned this to my husband and he said, “Oh yeah. I can tell you’re getting bored.” Ha! Here I thought I was going to take things slow and only do one new challenge a year, but apparently I’m itching for my next fix. We know we want goats and are now thinking that’ll happen next year (fencing and more research need to be done), but something more manageable in the meantime could be… geese! I’d had a moment of thinking about getting a couple turkeys, but since these would most likely be for Thanksgiving dinner and November is only a few months away, I wanted to invest in something more long-term. I’ve read a lot about geese as companions and guardians for ducks and I don’t have any traumatic childhood experiences with them like some people do! We have the space, both inside and outside the coop, so it looks like this will be our next farm addition. I’ve narrowed it down to 2 breeds (Pilgrim and Sebastapol: photos linked). So now I’ve got some reading to do about their diet and other requirements, and we have a few modifications to make to the coop. (The door is sized to accommodate the small ducks- geese won’t fit!) And we have to decide whether to get goslings (the better to bond with but messy to brood), or full grown geese (less mess to start but less likely to be friendly).

My husband reminds me that we only moved 6 1/2 months ago. We’re still so new to this! Who do I think I am, anyway? Buying seeds left and right, letting my own plants go to seed so I can harvest them for next year, researching poultry feed and illnesses, checking Tractor Supply for deals on fencing and feed bins, scouting Craigslist farm and garden for any animal or implement that strikes my fancy… Last December I was in Brooklyn, worrying I wouldn’t find a purpose outside of the city that housed my career. Now I’m worried the coop door is too small for geese. Well, that and my husband or dog getting snatched away from me. Man, love hurts! But you sow your seeds, tend what grows, and reap the bounty with gratitude.