Spring
Naughty Goats who staged a prison break.
Sadly, these photos are a little behind the times now. I have been having blog issues and difficulties which is why I have not been posting. I hope to get it all worked out and functional before too long. If I am brutally honest, I hate computers. I know how to type and that is really about it. Beyond that I have exactly 0 ability to aide them or understand them in their functions. So when they get problemy, it means they get fixed on Dr. Farmer Moomin’s schedule, which can take time. So bear with me.
Today, I smelled the earth outside, and cut grass for the first time this year. I saw some of these lovely things I had photographed had already burst into bloom. Though they are just the early spring creeping in. In this region, spring happens like nowhere else in the world that I have ever been. (And I have been a lot and I do mean a lot of places.) Here, spring starts with just a tiny trickle. Then it reaches a point where you can feel it building all around you. Then suddenly the earth just explodes in full fledged spring and it is so very glorious and so very sudden.
The first blooms of spring.
Everything is becoming full of buds, from Tess, the maple tree, to the fruit trees and even the lilacs and Wisteria.
Tess The Maple Tree All Budded Out
Lilacs By The House
The goats are restless on the hill. They keep busting out of goatcatraz. The dogs too, can’t wait to get things going outside now that the snow has melted. I have already started hanging the laundry outside. All life, is waking up as Lady Spring, comes closer and closer… I can hear her approach in the birds singing, I can smell it in the forsythia along the edge of the property. I can taste it in the warming air, and I see it everywhere I look. Any moment, the dear Lady of the spring time will jump out of the the forest and everything will spring to life with her.
Pussy Willows
Easter, has come and gone. Now we prepare the yard for the coming return of life to this entire region. We get it ready to be at it’s best. Soon it will be time again to plant the gardens.
There is something you find inside yourself when you return to a way of life so heavily dependent on the cycles of nature. It’s like you come back into balance with the earth around you as now you are subject to Gaia’s moods, as you are supposed to be as a living thing on this planet. There is a peace in that. It is unshakable, and complete.
Tags: airbnb, Airbnb New England, B&B, Central Massachusetts, early spring, farm, farm blog, farm wife, farm wife blog, farmer, farming, farming in spring time, farmstead, Herbalism, herbalist's blog, homestead, homestead blog, homestead farm, homestead wife, homestead wife blog, homesteader, homesteading, housewife, housewife blog, inn keeper's blog, inn keeping, living simply, massachusetts, nature on the homestead, new england, old fashioned farming, old fashioned homesteading, seasonal travel, seasons on a farm, self sufficiency farming, self sufficiency homesteading, self sufficient, simple living, spring, spring farm, spring on the farm, spring time, Spring time farm, spring time in New England, spring time self sufficiency, The turning of the wheel, travel, Wildflower Farm in Spring
Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.
My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.
Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.
Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.
Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.
We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.
We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.
This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.
We welcome you on this journey with us.
Add Comment