Going with It.

Finally. The fat-encrusted sky finally turns from dirt to drizzle at 11pm.

Sunrise promised gentle conditions for the encyclopedic list of work I hoped to set in motion around the yard.

(Oh yeah - I now have a yard. You can't hold me, son.)

Queue bird-chirping and flute music.

After puppies were fed, mama had her coffee, and seed starts had their drinks of water, the sun somehow still hadn't made an appearance. After a trip to the hardware store, and yet more coffee... still no sun. About the time I was gathering string and shovel to head to the wheel barrow and start excavating 400 square feet of garden, in it came. The Wind. A miles-wide cloud of dirt not yet root-bound to the ground was raptured toward the heavens, where it caught a 60mph straight-line gust straight to my face.

(Aforementioned fat-encrusted sky obliterating view of previously sunrise-lit mountains. Boooo.)

A funny thing has happened since moving to the Land - I've begun to yield to forces of nature. Once in a while. Acknowledging that lungs full of clay-dust may (MAY) not exert the best kind of energy for the kind of day I had planned is new to me. I may not set aside fifteen minutes for myself to ease into each morning with the meditation I know is so important to my health. But durned if I didn't use a bit of common sense and stay indoors today.

Which means my late afternoons and weekends now promise endless entertainment. (editor's note: I may sound sarcastic, but I am really, sincerely bursting with excitement about the following projects, to be completed within the next month or two)

On tap:

- Frame and skirt trailer with found wood*
- *Find wood.
- Deck trailer.
- Stain fence and wood.
- Relocate fire pit.
- Build portal/ open-sided shed and outfit for water harvesting.
- Dig up and replant trees from horse pasture.
- Spread compost and soil to plant native grass yard.
- Line out and double-dig garden.
- Build outhouse.
- Poly-pipe to trailer and to solar shower*
- *Wall off solar shower and line shower pit with rock behind trailer.
-  Gather manure from pasture for compost.
- Set up straw bale cold frame and straw bale/pallet compost area.*
- *Get straw bales and pallets.
-  Dig grey water reservoir and trench to passively water compost and plants; line with gravel.
- Drive posts and fence garden.
- Plant garden and build hoop house.
- Develop outdoor refrigeration and food storage.
- Drive posts and build gate for yard.
- Purchase small solar set up to get started.
- Build doggie cubby.

One accomplishment:

Re-seated puppy-shredded chairs: Check. (note sand in air)

And after today, I'm thinking.... Buy and install small wind turbine. Dear God.

This all kicked off yesterday, when my landlords were so kind as to spend two hours with me re-leveling the Airstream and putting it on official, real, solid cement blocks. The feeling I had when that bubble floated (roughly) to the center of the level and pushing on the tongue did nothing to sway my hovering home - was complete elation.

Somehow, something in me was finally allowed to believe I had a home. A semi-stable place to start improving and gleaning from the land around me is ...finally... firmly underneath my feet.

It's a funny thing that the one thing that calls me is putting down roots and intertwining them into a localized, self-perpetuating system of life. Funny, because my life's premise has been a mobile one. My home on wheels can be on a mountaintop or beach-side all in the same week and inside it you'd feel mostly unchanged. But the land asks you to invest in it. When it puts forth food for us, it does so only once we've committed to months or years of its care. Day in. Day out. In sickness and in health, on vacation and on 16-hour workdays.

And, like committing to caring for puppies and taking on responsibilities for consistent training and play time, the time it requires of me does what I would never do for myself - stop. The quintagulojillion plans and ideas and mental notes and obsessions have no choice but to wait on the sideline while our nurturing routine walks me through a sort of meditation each morning. And rather than fight the flow of puppy motherhood, homesteading discipline, and forces of nature... I submit.

I think in life the things that most dramatically change and grow us are those that happen to us - outside of the plans and dreams we built for ourselves. Creating a life is beautiful; yielding to life is sacred.

Role models.