It’s the End of the Season

It’s the end of the season and the harvest is being brought in.
It has taken a few years of living on this homestead for me to start to recognize and remember the months and what they mean in the cycle of the seasons. I don’t feel very observant in many ways so figuring out these things is exciting to me. It gives me a sense of being grounded.

This world is changing in ways I can’t fathom. It leaves me feeling insecure and breathless. At the same time I am slowly discovering new things about nature and the cycles of life. When I know what to expect in June (strawberries!) and in Sept (winter squash!), I feel like I can handle the other unsure things in life.
I can because next June I will be enjoying strawberries again.

The farm forces me to be practical and frankly so does my Mom.
Grandma is the gardener and farmer here. I have said it many times and I will say it again – without her hard work the garden wouldn’t be alive.
But where does that leave me?
She won’t be here forever and I am facing her deterioration every day. Not only do I think of how I will have to spend more time in the garden to get the produce we have so far, but I worry that I won’t do it. I am lazy and nature really doesn’t treat laziness too kindly.

So for now I am doing it my way. I’m building up my internal clock that is connected to the seasons. It affects what we eat and our activities. It helps me look forward to projects and completion. I like that! It’s different then the arbitrary calendar of schools and holidays.
It is a different kind of pressure. Less failure and more re-birth.

We face our own season of change as we age too. I’m watching my Mom change and I wonder what I will be doing at her age.
Sometimes it takes the lightness out of me and I wish it wouldn’t. Sometimes the season’s unforgiving changes give me a sense of loss.
Time moves on. If you didn’t get more beets planted the season moves toward the destination of harvest time and your hopes are left behind.
All the unsaid things, all the undone things get left behind like a dry dusty plot that hasn’t been amended with compost and watered.
I am left wondering if I am amending the right soil and watering where I should. Is it my garden I’m in or am I pouring my efforts into a landfill of garbage hoping for some growth?
As an activist for liberty, a caregiver for my mother, a homeschool mom, homestead gardener, homemaker, entrepreneur at home  and wife I often find I am neither watering nor amending the many plots that I need to tend. Instead I am commenting on the weeds or barren ground.

But seasons ground me in the “next thing”. Time grinds away but seasons come in chunks. I can deal with sections of my life easier then the feeling of always loosing something as the sands in an hourglass slips away. Time never returns but seasons do.
We have the chance to try again. It is really what new life is all about – letting all the failures of the past go and starting fresh in the spring.

I am going to remember to say little words of kindness and give gifts of service to those closest to me. I want a better world and my real circle of influence is where I can make the most difference.
Each season is another reminder to move past the projects you messed up on and to refocus on the ones that really matter.

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