Wintering

Compassion is needed most in winter - especially if your are snowed in for days on end. A record snow year has made travel dicey and the workload for CalTrans “plow jockeys” heavy. We Eastern Sierra locals joke that all this shoveling has been a free gym workout, but I’m pretty tired of carving tunnels through snow to get to the wood shed for kindling.

I long for the green hills of our homestead and the smell of the redwood forest and blossoms on the new peach trees. It’s still amazing to me that we have 44 acres to protect and live peacefully with all of life that exists here. I just can’t say the words that we own the land, even though that is the American legal term. We work with this land and relish in the latest adventures of Homesteading the Hollows.

Joey visited our place over President’s weekend while I attended a writer’s conference in San Diego. The heavy rains created a multitude of obstacles from landslides to a 40ft Douglas fir tree that fell across the road. He called upon our neighbor Mike who brought his brother to clear the roads. I love that we have found another community where neighbors help neighbors. It really makes me wonder how we think we can thrive without each other. The wisest among us know that we are meant to lean in towards each other and lean on each other to share the load.

Joey bought and planted two peach trees and two nectarine trees in the existing orchard among a smattering of century-old pear, apple, olive, and fig trees. I am so excited to visit my new trees and be there for the harvest of the trees that have been growing on this land since the 1800s. On another adventure of mushroom hunting, Joey found edible black trumpet mushrooms and the water bottle I had abandoned along the trail we traveled through the redwood forest three months ago.

The pictures of the herb garden and spiral to the firepit almost break my heart with longing for my herbal allies. The garlic in the raised beds that Joey and Kobe made are sprouting. The poppies lining the spiral walk are coming up. Maybe when I next drive down into the Hollows, the poppies will be a field of brightest orange over the leach lines, aka our sewer system.

I miss the hollows because being off grid reinforces my connection and awareness to the web of life. We have a battery storage that shows us how much energy we use. The toaster takes an amazing amount of power - a lot more than charging the phone. If the clouds cover is heavy and the sun can’t power our solar panels, then we conserve our energy and light the candles instead of turning on the string of overhead lights. I like being conscious of and responsible with the energy I take for my daily life.

Buffered by the suburban life in pleasant southern California climate for most of my life, I never knew of my true footprint on the environment or nature’s potential impact upon me. That disconnect never sat well with me. Unfortunately, I have harshly judged the arrogance in thinking we can beat or make nature submissive; obedient to human progress.

I live my life by the adage from the Course in Miracles: “The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.” I crave going to the Hollows because it grounds me, injects compassion for “not knowing” and teaches me how to drop into a deeper, ever evolving connection to all of life. Meanwhile, my SoulCollage cards told me I could calm my heart by chanting “Namo Guan Shi Yin Pusa” meaning “Everyone is born with a pure heart.” I am learning how to be patient with others who are not striving to be sustainable or are blatantly toxic to Mother Earth. I am still learning. We all are.