Wildflower In The Mist
Wildflower Farm House in the mist.
The mist has once again come to visit, it is playing in the forest with the trees. It rolled in with the wet and cold as if it were a team of wild horses dragging the mist with them rather than a cart. The smell of cold wind and wet surround me outside.
A deep freeze is coming. I can feel it in my bones. I taste it in the well water as I drink it during this season… The ground has hardened and the earth is dead beneath the blanketing New England fog. Not a peep comes from the wildflowers, who have vacated making room for the snow, which never came this year, leaving us all deeply troubled when we read it was 65 degrees F in Antarctica… Maybe the earth thinks covering us in fog will make New Englanders complacent while the earth herself dies due to the pollution we have wreaked upon her, choking her gradually to death.
She under estimates us. We are New Englanders. We have yet to see a fight that we wont take on. The fight for our planet is one we can’t afford to lose… Even when staying indoors is preferable.
I farm. So I understand, all food and all life stem first and foremost from our soil. Or our mother earth. With her gone, there will be no one to end the great extinction event we presently find ourselves in. All life is dying.
Mist takes many forms, sometimes the form of sleazy orange on our tv screen rolling back protections for our water, and for our planet Earth. Don’t let it cloud our view of the future, or cheat us right out of a future leaving all of us dead like the wildflowers that make way for winter. Because for us, there is no longer a guarantee that spring will come and we will bounce back.
I survey my little farm fifedom and feel grateful for today and demoralized and deeply troubled by the nightmare that tomorrow will inevitably bring.
We came to this place 6 years ago, to set up a small functional farm, a project we are still slowly working and building at. We came here, because we understood, we must change how we live or we won’t live much longer.
Buried by the mist sitting in my little wooden house, I realize on days like today, this is not just a farm, but if we as a society don’t make changes to how we live one day it will be a coffin. Then I think about our fantastical cities…. And I realize like the Maya, we built them for the still living dead… Covered in New England, by fog rather than by the over grown jungle….
There is still time to save the world. All I can do, is live my best life here on my farm trying to be sustainable and environmental. Thus far, we as a society haven’t begun to fight. We still can. We must… Or we will cease to be, and our great cities and great accomplishments, will be for naught… I am terrified. But like all New Englanders, I cloak my fear in fog and pick up my axe and run screaming like a viking berserker, head first into a way of life I know nothing about to try to fight, for you. For me for all of us. This is just the New England way. We have never seen a mountain we won’t climb. Or an ocean we fear or a ‘stawm’ we worry will level us, (except on Plum Island where it seems every year at least one mansion gets carried off by a raging sea.) We settled this country. We have the power to change it.
Change is critical to survival. Wildflower, now offers 25% off to any person that photographs themselves doing something good for the environment. The world is ending. Money, doesn’t matter now. Survival is everything. And so long as no storm destroys us and we have not frozen in the New England wicked cold winter, we will be here for those that wander doing good for our planet. Out here, we see Mother Earth’s suffering very acutely. The lack of snow…. It is frightening.
Even if you have no intention or desire to ever stay here at Wildflower, do something environmental today, and lets lift the mist of ending that is falling upon our planet as a stage curtain closing. Days like today, I listen to one of my favorite songs, called Fight Song. Here at Wildflower, in our small ways we do what we can to fight for tomorrow.
This isn’t a political issue. It is a farmer’s issue. We are up against it every day.
Here at Wildflower, we recycle prolifically, we live simply, compost, eventually we hope to change over to solar power. Even for our guests, we use environmental sheets made from sustainable high quality material, breakfast is local fair, so again, we cut down on carbon to transport it. We take a number of steps to try to be part of the solution rather than the problem. And we are always open to suggestions and ideas about how to do this even better.
Thank you for reading
Amanda of Wildflower Farm
Tags: agriculture, agro, airbnb, B&B, bed and breakfast, BnB, clean earth, earth, environmentalism, farm, farm life, farm wife, farm wife blog, farmer, farming, farmstead, green living, homestead, homestead farm, homestead wife, homestead wife blog, homesteader, homesteading, housewife, inn keeper, inn keeper's blog, life style, lifestyle blog, lodging, nature, new england farm, new england farming, new england homestead farm, old fashioned house wife, stay home wife, Tourism, wildflower farm, wildflower farm acres, Wildflower Farmstead
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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