- Heart & Soil Newsletter
- Posts
- Growing Mondays: Coming back to ourselves
Growing Mondays: Coming back to ourselves
All that is holding us together [is] stories and compassion
Jo Hunter Adams
January 26, 2026
Hi! I'm Jo, writing from Heart & Soil homestead, a 1-acre homestead in the Far South of Cape Town, South Africa. Every week I share inspiration and education for your growing journey. Thanks so much for reading!
Welcome to Growing Mondays, where I talk about growing- vegetables, fruits, animals and people.
Miracle duck loves tummy scratches. A duck that knows how to love and be loved. Which is to say that I suppose all ducks must have this capacity.
The one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems [is] that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our tendency to aggression and hypocrisy.
This time of year, like clockwork, I get tense and irritable. Ok, I’m always a little tense but this time of year it… intensifies. The irrigation is inadequate, I don’t have time to hand water, I’ve overestimated the breadth of things I can give attention to (every.single.year), we have too many baby chickens/ducks/turkeys, the hawks are circling (literally and figuratively), the rats are out in force, there are raging fires and smoke, and if it’s windy, well… then I really don’t know what to do with myself. Whew.
I’m not tense. I’m just very, very alert
Ok, so the babies (and the mothers) are extremely precious.
I clearly do not have the beginning of the year figured out.
But, since I get to write to you about growing every Monday, I’m going to offer myself some advice which will hopefully help you also.
Some basil, black cherry tomatoes, lemons and veg from this weekend…
This email serves as an anchor point in my week, and it’s these anchor points that bring me back to the small steps, bring me back to values. Even in raging-wind-and-brackish-water-mid summer-fire-season, maybe we can all create anchor points to keep us growing.
We only ever have to keep growing and stay open. That’s more manageable, right?
If we can do something small to help someone else grow, again and again, it becomes easier to stay open and not worry about the big world beyond our control. If my focus is on my own success or competence as a grower, this time of year will always floor me. But if I can shift the focus towards our ultimate goal: to keep at it, and to help other people grow, then the rats are less evidence of my own incompetence, and more just another challenge to share with community and overcome together. Maybe there are times where we’re improving, and other times when we’re just standing firm in a raging wind.
Our growing never needs to be about our superior time management, our mastery of our environment, or our clever dietary plans. In just a moment we can return to connection, and coping a tiny bit more cheerfully with all the things we cannot control.
So here’s to you, as you grow this week. May you eat something delicious and nourishing today!
Workshops
This Sunday 1 Feb 9-10:30 Cheesemaking |
If you are enjoying our newsletter, consider forwarding on to someone in your community. If you received this from a friend, you can sign up here
Reply