Time to focus inwards

I love the end of the year, because we start to turn inwards and focus on our growing, and on uncovering the layers of junk and general chaos of the first 10 months of the year. We’re back down to 6 goats from the high of 23 a couple of months ago, we don’t have another set of eggs in the incubator just yet, (although the turkeys and silkies did hatch some babies), and we’re trying really hard to finish up projects.

While all the work of the first three quarters of the year happened and then kept happening, the work of the fourth quarter is about noticing, appreciating, consolidating. Or about the attempt, at least. While riding the wave of actual food and the skills needed to grow, process, sell, and eat.

I notice this time of year is that it’s really hard to focus both inwards and outwards. At least for me. When I’m focused on what we need to teach about the farm it’s quite hard to also do the core work of subsistence. When I’m focused on making sure our farm is solvent, it’s hard to also focus on enjoying interesting meals of food we’ve grown or raised.

BUT, as we teach year after year, and growing, harvesting and selling assumes a rhythm. The evidence built of past years becomes the foundation to venture out from. Time emerges: to set down the outward looking, and focus on seeing what is to be seen. In this consolidation, I notice that I can prep our bread a little more easily than last year. I can make our cheese without a thermometer or stress. The animals are healthy and happy. Our trees are maturing (thanks in large part to my dad and Taka). Our veg is growing and it’s easier for me to notice catastrophe early on. We are growing.

Prepping for community

And also, when I look inward, if I’m not careful, I’m filled with a sense of existential dread. Eugene told me recently about the super rich being black holes, sucking all good work into them in their wake, and growing exponentially richer. Between this, AI, and the impacts of climate change, it all feels catastrophic. And not a catastrophe that can be simply avoided by growing veg.

The best way forward in these times seems to be to talk, face-to-face, and often, with people who live near to us. Not just people who are just like us, people who are not. Talking to people enough that we can see that right here, right now, we are moving forward in good work, and that that work matters in some small way.

The skills needed to survive these times are unpredictable and slow to acquire. But almost certainly, someone in your neighbourhood has them. Whether the skills of wisdom or the skill of killing rats or making compost or wiring electricity or arguing with poor government policies, the skills are around us, and we have to keep tapping into them.

And even more than that, we can be the people who have the skills that people need. Which just means that we have to keep learning. We cannot just plateau, we have to incorporate new skills and knowledge. We can somehow be the opposite of a black hole.

So what actual skills are helpful this time of year?

Be the calm in turbulent times, keep growing, and grow more than you think you’ll need. You can change the world just by having extra— time, money, food, energy— and it’s not that hard to have extra of something.

We change really slowly, at least I do. It takes a long time to get used to new tastes, new routines, new ways of doing things. These skills become muscle memory and don’t take up extra time, if you’ve done them enough times. Be willing to be terrible at something in order to invest in getting better. We’re still pretty bad at seed starting, but I feel certain we’re getting better, and that in 5 years we’ll be a lot better. You don’t have to be great to start with, you just have to keep on gaining skills, catastrophe or not, they will make a difference in your life.

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