Technically it's summer, but here on the hill it feels like it's just become spring. Last night I lit the house fire again, which isn't unusual for this time of year. It's the place my 'almost father in law' once said, has the worst weather he's ever experienced. It is pretty challenging weather here, dare I say, at times it's rather shithouse. But with a little perseverance mixed with patience, I still manage to grow food here.
I watch as online friends munch on early spring broccoli, proudly devour broad beans and peas while I'm still eating eggs and kale (insert teenage style moan "boring"). But I laugh in the face of adversity. Ha Ha Ha. Look, I finally ate my broccoli! Ha Ha Ha (more adversity face laughing). In fact I've now been eating it for a week, and it's bloody delicious. I never used to cook or eat broccoli in my former life. But now, every year, its a late Spring treat that sets the ball rolling for a long period of dining on mostly vegetables.
I watered my garden this morning, the warmth of the sun on my back, the chirp and buzz of busy birds and panicked insects filling the air. The pleasant aroma of basil, and tomato in the humid poly-tunnel and the chooks making their pretty noises scratching for food in the chicken pen. It's a bid rad.
When I'm watering the plants I look over them and think about which crops will replace the current, and whether I need to plant more of one plant or harvest some of another. There is so much going on in this small space. It all happens independently yet together. It's a beautiful system. It's really just a micro version of how nature all over the world works. Living organisms growing, surviving and dying. One of the greatest things about being a dude that grows food, is that I can see this system, thus understand the basics of ecology. The biodiversity is right there in front of you, it's as obvious as a bee sting.
Like a well oiled machine. The plants, the animals and the innate elements of soil, water and sunlight. It's not magic, it's nature. And without we're buggered. And this is why I give a shit. This is why I left my previous lifestyle. It hasn't meant leaving society or not contributing, it's just meant that I've become reacquainted with the nature stuff that ultimately keeps us kicking.