Spring Work

On Saturday we went to the BugFest put on by the UF Entomology department.  They had cockroach races, an arthropod petting zoo, beautiful specimens displayed, all kinds of food made with bugs to taste.  We had a good time, but the best thing was the huge snapping turtle we found in the parking lot.

Otherwise, I'm afraid I don't have anything very interesting to say today, as this past week and weekend were absolutely full of spring work - spring cleaning and building the garden.  It's funny how when so many things get done, there just isn't much to say about them.  My days have been about the same - after spending the morning scrubbing and sorting through things, I would take the wheelbarrow and pitchfork out to haul loads of hay and manure.  I like the difference in the work.  One is dusty and focused, the other is refreshing and energetic.

The garden is finally looking like a garden and not a field again.  So far I have accommodations for the tomatoes, beans, long beans and malabar spinach, gourds,  summer squash, cucumbers, melons and pumpkins (I'm planting LOTS of pumpkins - especially the Seminoles.  They keep very well, and are sort of a staple crop.  For most of the year I have them on hand).  I have already planted four rows of cassava.  There remains to build beds for:  cherry tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillos and ground cherries, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, okra, roselle and watermelons.  So I'm about half-way or less finished, and the weather is getting warm and the weeds are waking up!  I am impatient to finish this work!

Spring-cleaning-wise, I have gotten the kitchen, dining room and living room entirely sorted out.  Over the weekend I sorted through my grandmother's sewing kit.  It was disorganized, but I've hardly touched it since it was put into my hands after she died about fifteen years ago.  It had seemed wrong to disarrange something she clearly had in her own order, and that she used so often.  But I know she would rather it be useful to me than it just sit in the closet untouched.  When I opened it up, it still smelled like her, and the memory of her presence it invoked brought tears to my eyes.


 Someone sent me this link.  It was validating to read it.  I liked the description of it being like Snow White and having the poison apple come out and waking up.  It's the perfect description of how I felt.  I wouldn't necessarily say that I was REALLY into Anthroposophy, but in a way my identity had become wrapped around it, as a Waldorf homeschooling mama.  It had become my ideal, and there was real danger of becoming more involved, and actually shelling out money towards it.  It's easier than you would think to get wrapped up in something unhealthy.

While the whole thing was very upsetting for me, I feel so much freer and unshackled in my thinking and my life now.  I have been much more cautious, and learning to check in with myself about things, to see how things feel to my heart, and really listening to that.  So in a way, my disillusionment has been very empowering.