- Years ago, I nursed an escape fantasy about the kind of person I could be if I only traded my Washington, D.C. lifestyle — and its accompanying commutes and hassles — for life in northern Colorado, home to the bluest sky I'd ever seen. I would become more patient, I thought. I'd be a better mother. I'd be hardworking, hardy, determined, no longer status-obsessed. I'd definitely be more spiritual. Armed with dozens of back-issues of Mother Earth News, I imagined the plentiful gardens and orchards I would soon tend, and the goats and cows from whose milk I would craft kefir, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. I saw my fields bordered by berry bushes and mushroom caps. The new me, homesteader extraordinaire, took shape in my mind. She hummed softly and wore curiously clean overalls with a flower tucked behind her ear. She liked canning, fermenting, fixing, darning, and knitting. She kept bees and homeschooled her children.
Sure, I had never so much as grown a tomato on the balcony. But I believed that the ancestral knowledge of how to make a living from the land must reside somewhere within me; the challenge of calling it forward quickened my pulse. How hard can the simple life really be? I asked myself while staring out the window of our D.C. condo overlooking a chain grocery store. I conveniently answered my own question: Why — not hard at all! See, I was already adopting the speech of a country dweller, instead of someone who had grown up in suburban Honolulu and whose previous idea of roughing it had been renting a vacation cabin out of pizza delivery range.
I completely understand where she's coming from, from the yearning for a simpler life, hopes for personal development, etc. Heck, I've talked about how every now and again, I think about starting a goat farm (ironically, I'd have to fall face first into a pile of cash to be able to make that work first). Even then though, I don't think I'd ever go all in on something like she did, at least not without a lot of knowledge first or a group of partners that can support me and show me the way.
The closest Dala and I ever get to anything like she's attempted is take our dog on long walks in the park, hang out in the backyard, and try our best to grow vegetables like tomatoes and peppers. I heard a saying recently, I can't remember where, that went something along the lines of "You don't have to be self sustainable in everything, a few things is more than enough." There's probably some pretty good wisdom to that.
- Even then though, I don't think I'd ever go all in on something like she did, at least not without a lot of knowledge first or a group of partners that can support me and show me the way.
I've described my life process as hopping from lily pad to lily pad while also being aware of the next three hops from any pad.
"Yoga instructor in DC" to "Homesteading 4 acres at 7,000 feet" is far too many lily pads for one hop.
I turned 1/4 of my back yard into a vegetable garden and that already takes up a lot of time. Running a farm is a full time job I get it between the growing processing and preserving it’s actually crazy how cheap food is. She should have bought a quarter acre in the burbs and tried it out first.