Walden Effect enters its 8th year
I'm very ashamed to
say that I missed celebrating our farm's birthday this year ---
sorry, farm! This is much worse than forgetting
my marriage anniversary because Mark and I have an understanding that we don't do
anniversaries and don't give each other gifts on holidays.
The farm and I, on the other hand, have an agreement that she will
feed me and make me happy and I will notice her at least once a
year.
Our seventh year on
the farm was rough in certain ways, but delightful in
others. The rough patches weren't really blog material,
consisting primarily of Mark hurting his back last fall and not
being able to sleep right for a couple of months, plus the
heartbreak we felt when our
community-building project went south this spring. On
the other hand, those problems were counteracted by the
awesomeness of Kayla
and by a huge influx of homegrown fruit (my favorite food group).
Looking back at the post I made on the
farm's last birthday, it's astonishing to see how much progress we've made in
twelve short months. (Well, nearly thirteen now.) The
composting
toilet and front
porch have vastly increased our standard of living, and Mark
has enjoyed his ATV
(even though I'm concerned by the amount of damage it's done in
the driveway during a very wet year --- we'll have to attack that
issue soon). My first
paperback hit bookstores and Mark invented a completely
new chicken waterer. And, of course, we kept adding
new perennials to the garden, building soil, and increasing our
pasture area.
And despite the angst I mentioned previously, our tranquility
levels have remained pretty high, perhaps due the ponds
I played with building this summer, but mostly due to Mark's even
keel. I am eternally thankful that my original dream of
sharing my life with a piece of land didn't materialize as
planned, instead turning into a threesome --- me, Mark, and the
farm.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Mark and Anna, Very happy 8th year anniversary. It's good that you reflect on how far you've come and continue to be excited about the road ahead. It dawned on me that we moved on our 4 1/2 acres in Sept. 2006, after spending a month working to clean up our 1600 sq. ft. home. How cool is that!! We feel very fortunate and blessed.
Like the new picture, by the way.:)