Topsy Turvy: Update from Feb. 2021

Closeup of greens I started in my sunroom.  

2020 came and went without an entry from me here, and 2019 wasn't much better.  A lot happened in 2020 and 2019, and I'm still not sure what to say about it all, so I haven't said anything much to anyone about it all.  Here's a synopsis:

At the end of 2018, I found out my mom had lung cancer that had metastasized to her brain.  While I was in Maine caring for her and cleaning out her apartment in December of 2018, my dog got sick and almost died back at home in New Mexico.  We figured out that he had diabetes and he was started on insulin.  Though his blood sugar eventually stabilized on a very high dosage of insulin, he never fully recovered to his old self. My mom died in hospice in Maine, in January of 2019, less than two months after I learned that she was sick.  

She and I had a long troubled relationship, and we were able to become much closer around the time of her death.  I'm thankful for that.  Still, 2019 was a rough one. I found myself struggling with lots of unresolved issues, and I worked with a therapist for most of the year.  I started making art again.  I lost focus on the garden and homesteading, and spent most of my time painting and sketching and writing.

Not long after 2020 started, the coronavirus broke out, and things shut down across the country.  And then, over the next six months in a completely unexpected turn of events, my marriage ended.  

I had plans to travel and boondock in my little trailer to warmer climates during the winter of 2020-2021. But the virus changed that.  Just a few weeks before I planned to hit the road at the end of October, I decided that it would be best to postpone.  I'm immuno-compromised and at high risk of complications if I get the virus.  Plus, I didn't want to be a burden on hospitals in areas I was planning to travel to--they were already being overrun with own sick residents.  So, since the end of February of 2020, I've been home-bound, with the exception of trips to the grocery store.  

I have lots of projects in progress.  I've converted my sunroom, which used to be a place where I stashed all the detritus from the kitchen, into a place where I can grow greens throughout the winter.  The shutdowns and supply line problems really revealed to me the weak spots in my disaster preparedness:  While it's possible to stock up on toilet paper and beans and rice and firewood, it's difficult to stock up on perishable things like lettuce and greens, that I eat every day.  My new housemate (in itself a major change!) and I are also working on a walipini, an earth-sheltered greenhouse.  The hole was dug out last spring, and he has been moving dirt to bank up the northern and western sides while giving better exposure to the south and east. 

It has been a challenge since moving here to figure out how to grow food.  I've failed a lot over the last four years.  I've been growing food and working with plants since my teen years; I'd become used to growing things with ease.  The failures have been discouraging.  But this year made the challenge of growing food in the high desert more urgent, so I've been trying to set aside my discouragement and to work in new directions.  I realize that through failure, I've learned a lot about growing in this environment.  

Maybe I can generalize that?  Through failures, I've learned a lot?