T’is The Last Rose Of Summer
December Rose
It is cold enough today, that I am running two of my three wood stoves… The house once again smells like a fir forest. Outside, it smells of snow, and the grey sky appears to be waiting to dump white stuff on us. The trees stand guard seriously, against the umbra. I am not sure there is much of anything they can do when the sky decides to open and spill snow to protect us. The blanket of dead leaves on the ground lay there, sometimes blown a little by a small gust of wind. The winter silence is creeping in like an invasive vine that climbs a tree from the forest floor to gradually choke the life out of it.
This has been a warm winter thus far. Shockingly warm. So warm in fact, that even though I can feel the snow coming probably later today… From the look of the sky. (All proper New Englanders can read a sky, myself included. We are too close to the ocean here to get requitable information about the weather from the media. So we learn young how to read the sky.) Today, it says snow with it’s grey bleakness.
Yet somehow, outside in the grey bleak… Due to all the warmer weather we have been having this winter… By some strange black climate magic, my rose bushes are blooming again. It is shocking to see against the grey of the sky and the browning grass. The flowers are sounding the climate change alarm. This is what I mean when I say, living on a homestead farm, we see the climate breaking down these days all around us. This is just the latest example. Things are changing and changing fast. Soon, this way of life will no longer be possible if change doesn’t happen. Roses should not be blooming in December. I love this way of life so close to nature. I don’t want to give it up. But when flowers bloom in December, it isn’t beautiful. It isn’t pretty. it doesn’t cause joy to see. It fills me with dread. It shows how imperative it is that we change the way we live in this world and that we do it very very quickly.
Thank you for reading.
Please be part of the climate solution.
Amanda of Wildflower Farm
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.
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