2020! Yep, it was. The last time I posted here was literally a year ago. And, in that space of time, everything has changed.. both at a micro level for me and my family and at the grand larger scale. And, before I promise to be here more this year (I will not as I have learnt how little plans are dependable in this time!), I wanted to share a little recap of my life in one of the most tumultous years of our lifetimes.
More than anything it left me with a deep gratitude for my life, our way of life and our very, very fortunate ability to create and stay in a bubble. We are still in a bubble. It gave me perspective, insight into people and the ability to view things from a distance both a luxury and a necessity.
It was a year defined by closeness, smallness and family. In the absence of a social calendar, we spent our time with each other - both to solidarity and its detriment :). The absence of a social calendar was frankly liberating and at the same time allowed us to focus on projects around the house that not only gave us much fulfillment but also really needed to get done. We basically got a lot of jobs done!
The year was marked by my spending as much time as possible with TF before the arrival of TF2. We had three safe places that we visited EVERY WEEK! The Beach, The Farm and The Nursery. The beach was a solace and a veritable playground. The farm our sustenance and access to other living beings, cows and hens really. The nursery a place of joy and pleasure for both of us and a team that created a beautiful landscape in our backyard too.
Food was mostly simple. Obviously mostly home cooked. I made the most of all the bounty that the garden offered us and we thoroughly relished the work from home option in having healthier and more balanced meals. It was not a year of experiments in the kitchen but I had plenty going on elsewhere to keep my creativity flowing!
I spent a lot of time planning and creating my gardens - an annual flower patch, a vegetable garden and an herb garden.
We created a new flower garden space by the side of the house. It was a lot more work than we expected - clearing a lot of weeds, tilling the hard packed soil, laying down a gravel pathway and then fertilizing, seeding and watering! But oh it felt amazing both to do the gritty work but also the rewards of the blooming flowers!
The vegetable and herb gardens were a joyous bounty. We built the raised beds for the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants and filled them with soil from a local farm. The plants were a mix of bought seedlings and ones I grew from seed. The butternut squash and canteloupe seeded directly in ground were from a seed saved from a store bought fruit. How they flourished! We fenced in this garden to protect from deer and other big critters. We did share with the little critters, squirrels and chipmunks; but there was so much that we felt even relieved to share the bounty. The lone butternut squash provided us with 6 gorgeous fruit! The parsley in the herb garden was a life source for the swallowtails and it created a full circle of sustaining life and creating more vegetables for us.
I co-planted some sunflowers and bee balm which pulled in the pollinators. As well as the flower garden overflowing with sunflowers, zinnias and salvias were a butterfly and bee magnet. And over the course of the season, we hosted so many, many beautiful creatures of nature - hummingbirds, golden finches, swallowtail butterflies, even monarchs and a variety of bees, moths and wasps. Whenever I walked the path, I always spotted so many drunken bees, it was hilarious. TF simply loved the variety of life that thrived literally around us and I was so gratified to be able to create that experience.
There were also fails that i learned from - not to plant zucchini in a raised bed. not to try grow watermelon in the New England clime, definitely learn to pick fruits at the right time. I also learnt about water logging and sun ray angle and success (or not) in growing radishes and carrots. To realize that the heights of plants grown from seed are a vague suggestion and definitely not dependable!
I think one of the coolest adventures of the year was our RV trip up to Maine! Given all the travel trauma and our own impending addition, we wanted to play very very safe and continue to stay in our bubble and yet try a new experience. The RV was suggested by the other half and it was both exciting and sensible! So we decided to a week long journey up to Acadia National Park. The long and short of it is that it was a very repeatable experience although it did not go as smoothly as we had hoped for, largely for inexperience with both RV life as well as parenting! It was definitely a week of much learning. Yet, we all loved it and look forward to doing more family road trips when the littles are little less little! :)
Bass Harbor Lighthouse
Finally, it was the year of crafts - small and big. I did so many little things with TF and that brought us so much closer. I discovered I genuinely loved doing things with her and she with me. There is no purer joy as a parent than to share a hobby with your kid!
