Give Peas a Chance

Even if you have to do it scared- just do the thing.
~Jessica Sowards (more or less)

Yesterday was mild in temperature here in Upstate South Carolina, but the brief sun woke many thoughts and quite a bit of self-doubt.

I worked for a bit in the morning, Noel was home with the boys for the school holiday. After a few hours in the office, I brought home lunch, we had some friends over, hung out, and played in the garden. The remainder of last year’s plants were pulled, cold hardy weeds plucked from their advantageous homes, and mushroom compost spread over the in-ground beds. Some cardboard was laid down with mulch over the top in hopes to avoid at least some of the grass that plagued us last year. Many huge earth
worms were evicted from the warm pile of mulch, but don’t worry… My young friend consoled each one she found, offered some advice and words of wisdom, then gently decanted them into the freshly turned earth.
The calendar looks mild for a while, so I decided to take a chance and let her plant some peas. I rifled thru my seeds and had her choose- this day Baker Creek Tall Telephone peas and Ferry Morse Early Perfection won the honor of the long cattle panel trellis.
Little round green promises of dainty pink blossoms, grabby and demanding tendrils, and pods of sweet spring peas were tucked in with their worm friends and asked to grow and do their best for us.

Much in the same way I would like to grow and do my best for you. I have a pull in my soul for Golden Afternoon Homestead. This project has become a heartbeat for me. I registered my LLC and did a few more official paperwork steps… But I keep asking myself why? Why do I want to put ourselves out there? Why do I want to do this? I am sacrificing my privacy and quiet, dangling myself out there and practically asking for some shark to take a bite of me. I feel vulnerable, mostly because I absolutely do
not know what I am doing. I know what I want to accomplish, yes. I want to be as self-sustainable as possible, but why do I want to do this in a public way? There are so many content creators out there, why am I naive enough to think I could possibly be of additional help to anyone?

Then a moment of dawning when my youngest son bounded across the pool deck above the garden, Nerf gun in hand, beckoning play from my guest helper and a snack from me that he is perfectly capable of finding on his own… Many homesteaders ‘out there’ on youtube and in other social media have so much to offer and I have learned and applied so much of their wisdom to our own adventure… but very few (if any) ‘look like’ us.

Noel and I both work a full time job, we have two adolescent boys, one eleven and one eight. They are active and we’re often busy. We have very little family close by- we have a small ‘village’ of chosen family, but it’s small in comparison. We just don’t have much time in the day to dedicate to homestead tasks. We also live on not quite two acres inside ‘city’ limits with many current restrictions on how land is used. We have a pool taking a good chunk of space, a camper to maneuver into its spot, and much of
our front yard is unusable because of a severe slope. All these limitations, but self sufficiency is still important to us. Like-minded community is important to us. With our economy and social situation going the way it is… I know there must be so many other busy families in the trenches with school age and younger children who are trying to figure out how to just do this. So many other adults going into the grocery store and seeing shelves of product cleared and produce managers exasperated with their
inability to offer goods at prices that families can afford. How many other husbands are sent to the store to grab a bag of carrots to be told that the only full-size ones available were SINGLE organic giant carrots at $4.28 each. Yes. A single carrot. There must be more families out there who look like mine who are afraid of just taking the jump. So many who are even more unsure of how to just get started than I was two years ago.

I’ll take the jump with you. If I can do this- you can too. Every step you make in the direction of being self sufficient is a positive one- even when you have to face the challenges of working out of the home or shuffling children to activities. If I can convince just one of you that you have what it takes to live your homesteading dream in the place you are now- then just you wait. Just you watch. We might be scared-
but we can do this together. Let’s grab our gloves and roll up our sleeves.

Enjoy your Golden Afternoon.
With love,
Angela