Dear Friend of Half-Acre Homestead,

Fall is always a busy time, with all of the food to harvest and prepare at the end of the season. I first saved a draft of this post a month ago, and have been so busy that I just came back to it tonight. Here are a few things that are drying around the cabin today. My friend shared her Gingko leaves with me, and here is the last of my nettle leaves drying:

Just this week, I made some fermented salsa with the last of my tomatoes from the garden. I collected all of the green ones before our hard frost. I just love the fresh flavour of fermented salsa. This is the latest I have ever been able to make a batch:

I am working on some projects that can’t be completed once the snow flies, so these outdoor projects have needed to be my priorities.

I polished my 12 year old headlights. Here is before:

And here is after:

I also did some bodywork on my wonderful car, Lucky. There were two rust spots on the back part of the trunk:

Three coats of primer, three coats of paint and three coats of clear coat later, I had a result I was quite pleased with! I intentionally built up the rust areas with a thicker layer of fibreglass so that they would be more protected.

I think my biggest project this fall is my grading project, where I am digging around my slab foundation and creating a proper drainage plain to direct water away from the concrete slab. Not only is this an important project in terms of protecting my eco-cabin from frost heave and foundation damage, but it is the last project I need to complete to have my final inspection and close my build permit.

I would really like to get this project done! The most important place where water drains is where it drips off the back of the monoslope roof. Here is a photo of what it looked like back there before I got started. Yes, it got pretty wild back there!

Note that above, the pink rigid styrofoam insulation left by the slab constructor was sloped towards the foundation and was just wide enough to collect water from the roof drips above! Water was sitting on this surface and growing moss/algae. This all needed to be cut back to allow the metal flashing to drop into place and direct water away from the concrete slab. Here’s how it looks today. Not quite finished, but much better.

Tasks still to be completed include reinforcing the plastic sheeting on the slope with an extra sheet underneath it. This has already been degraded and some of it was cut while I cut away the insulation. I also plan to seal any joints in the metal flashing with a tar style putty. Then I will lay down the sloped styrofoam sheets that protect the slab from the cold and frost heave. One entire side of the eco-cabin still needs to be cut and dug back.

Here’s what the eco-cabin looks like these days. I love the steel siding!

This leads me to my harvest of wisdom. For so many years, I really only have been focussing on what I was getting done and how many items I was able to check off on my list each day. I have finally realized that there is something else. It is not the “what” I do: it is “how” I do it.

I am enjoying this fall in a way that I am not sure I ever have. This grading project is daunting in its size, but I am enjoying it with a relish that is new for me. Sure, part of that enjoyment does have to do with the fact that there are no bugs out this time of year! But seriously, this insight about how I do something is having an impact.

It all started with the challenges I have faced this year with my health; for many months of this year, I was uncertain whether I would ever shovel again, never mind be able to work on this project. There is something so precious about every wheelbarrow of dirt that I am able to move myself. I am cherishing this project as someone who knows now it won’t last forever, and it can be gone in an instant.

In this, I don’t think I am unusual; this is part of life. There are ups and downs for everyone. For me, it has been a year of injury, then illness, then a recent and tragic loss in my family that has affected me deeply. To be honest, I haven’t had a year with this many health challenges for over a decade. I hope I don’t see a year like this for a long time!

However, there has been something in the depth of the difficulty. Facing my worst fear of being forced to give up my work on the farm due to injury. Somehow surviving that and slowly working towards building my work as a writer. Cherishing my recovery, which I am certain was supported by herbs recommended by the outstanding herbalist and teacher, Jim McDonald (https://www.herbcraft.org/).

In the midst of all of that chaos, uncertainty, and fear, I have found that something let go. Something that I was clinging to. And somewhere in that, I realized that all of it would feel better if I were just a bit kinder to myself, just a bit more patient with the process of such a huge project, and if I saw that “how” I was living on a moment to moment basis was as important that “what” I was getting done.

No, even more than that. For me, “how” I am doing things is more important than what I’m getting done. Much more.

Here I am. I made it through. I’m healing, not 100%, but I’m working outside with my shovel again. If I’m sensible and pace what I do, I can do what I now think are amazing things.

And maybe the grading project will get done…if the ground doesn’t freeze too soon, and if the contractor whose help I need with the door thresholds shows up…if if if….

And maybe it won’t get done….And I will be fine either way. And it will still be there in the spring.

But in the meantime, I’ll be out in the crisp air, enjoying the beauty of fall. Maybe wearing a sweater and a cozy hat. I’ll be shovelling and perhaps singing an old Irish sean nós song to myself. And I’ll be right there, in the moment, enjoying the grace of this healing and my chance to experience it.

After a little while, I’ll head in to take a break. Maybe have a cup of tea.

The photo for this post is a beautiful Monarch butterfly that visited my cut flower garden this year. Both the photo above and the on one below are of the same butterfly. Zoom in a little closer, and you can see that its left wing had been terribly damaged somehow. Yet, it had healed. And there it was, fluttering along in its beauty.

I’m now glad I had this year. Would I have chosen it? Heck, no! Did it somehow help teach me how to let go and be kinder to myself? Yes, it did. So, this year, I learned that the harvest of wisdom may require difficult times. What has been remarkable for me is how my own difficult harvest has made my day to day life even sweeter. I have newly deepened gratitude for what I can do each day physically. I am kinder to myself in how I do things, which adds a great deal of joy and peace to my life.

I wish you a wonderful autumn with a harvest of joy, the friendship of kind and caring people, and good health.

Thank you so much for reading this and for your interest in my activities on my Half-Acre Homestead.