I love it here on The Little Half Acre in late spring and early summer. Everything is fresh and green and the “jungle” hasn’t yet overtaken the property. The garden beds are starting to fill out and everything seems neat and tidy:
BUT…. in winter it’s a different story. Why? Cause after a busy farmer’s market and CSA season, the Happy Homesteader is usually too tired to tidy up after any projects so “stuff” accumulates everywhere — plastic plant pots, tools, etc. The garden beds are full of dead vines and plants, the bare trellises look pitiful, the wood chip mulch needs replacing, the grass is brown and tufted and the moles play havoc all over the place with their little tunnels and red clay hills that stick up out of the dirt.
Add to that a few piles of frost blanket for the garden beds that are being overwintered along with the PVC and plastic that form the low tunnels, the dead brush that lines the creek bank and voila! Instant ugly mess:
It’s hard enough to keep up with general maintenance when what is really needed here on the homestead is a helper to 1) cut back the Japanese honeysuckle that grows by several feet each year, 2) ditto on the Ailanthus trees that WILL NOT DIE, 3) ditto on the wild roses that also grow with happy abandon, 4) chip up the branches that should get cut down each year, 5) fix all the things that broke and/or went wrong over the season and 6) perform the endless hours of weekly weed eating that’s required thanks to all the rocks, garden beds, food forests and other goodies that can’t be simply mowed over. So, any volunteers out there??? No? Didn’t think so but one can dream!
It’s backbreaking enough, at my tender age of 67, to get everything planted, watered, weeded, harvested, washed, packaged and delivered during the spring, summer and fall. Then the Winter CSA continues from November through whatever date the produce and the Happy Homesteader finally say ‘Enough!’ After all that, there’s just no energy for the clean up that’s desperately needed. I’m sure my neighbors understand though. I’m sure they’re absolutely delighted to have our messy little homestead right next to their nicely landscaped homes. Right? Uhhhh, right???
