I am so grateful for the amazing people God brings into my life, some in real life, some via books and my newest best friend and life coach is Charlotte Smith in her podcasts. She is a farming coach. Yup, they exist. She has changed my life. I already wrote about one of her podcasts on the River of Misery. I just listened to another one on how to deal with farming catastrophes and interruptions. Game changing stuff, I tell you. I'll explain.
Basically 100 years ago we all had the amazing gift of fear or anxiety. It moved our forefathers to make serious decisions to save our lives. For example, the potato famine in Ireland had fathers uproot entire families to the New World in the name of saving their lives. Or, 100 years ago, you would run for your life from the bear in the woods while you were building your new farmhouse in the pioneering days. Fear for your life caused you to act fast and seriously. Nowadays, we have this same gift of fear, but it comes from the cell phone, a text or email that freaks us out. However, the difference is.....we aren't going to die. But we get the same level of fear and anxiety, but it just isn't life or death. This is ridiculous she says. We cannot survive and live happy lives with all that fear and anxiety when no one is dying! So what to do. In one little podcast, she explained it. It's so simple.
It came down to this. The anxiety will come. It always does. We get texts and emails all day long. Sometimes they have bad news. So when it comes, don't deny it. Just acknowledge it, accept it and then stop. The next set of feelings that come are our choice. For example, I recently discovered certain things aren't growing the best in the garden. This moves me to fear and dare I say, panic. The next set of thoughts are my choice. I can choose to spiral out of control which helps no one OR I source out more vegetables from somewhere else if necessary because, unlike our forefathers, if I don't grow vegetables, I'm not going to die. I just have to find another place to get them to fill the boxes, but that isn't a life-threatening situation. So, that's what I chose to do - I chose to not panic, though at first I was filled with anxiety, but then once we assessed the situation, we came up with a plan and then the anxiety was gone. Reality doesn't change. I change. Super helpful in not just gardening but life.
One of the amazing things that happened when I realized maybe my garden wasn't going to produce all that I needed was I started to realize how I was surrounded by experts, I just needed to ask them. So I have called on two vegetable experts in my area, both just down the street, and I asked them both for help. I met with one of them for just a few minutes and toured her farm. She gave me lots of great tips. Then I reached out to another guy and he actually came to my farm this week and walked through every row giving me more good ideas and that was also helpful. I don't think all is lost, I just have a lot of work to do.
I had this lofty idea that I'd be making a killing on this garden. That is not the way things are going to go I don't think. Instead, I think what has happened is that we have invested in a garden that is teaching me lots about gardening and it keeps us all very busy. Most people are tired just listening to all that is going on.
On Tuesday we celebrated my husband's birthday and one of the things I prayed for was that he would be blessed in some way, but specifically, I prayed about the last license he needs to start selling wine. The next day he got a call from the inspector who comes to inspect the facility and he said he would come today! Yikes, we had a lot of work to do. We all got on board and cleaned up like crazy. I don't know if it was enough but we are praying for a successful day! Deadlines always make us move. If we pass the inspection then we are bottling, corking, labelling and then selling.
So these are our days - often in the garden, mostly weeding and always planting more plants as the idea is succession planting all the time. That was something I hadn't bargained on, so I'm busy.
I'm still going to the clinic every single day for my back, but it's my little routine and I kind of enjoy it and hanging out with the nurses each day. They give me pep talks all the time.
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