And We Begin Again
In the height of autumn we realize the ending begins something new all over again.
I have been away from this space, and now that the seasons are turning, I feel I can show up here in the way I have ached to most of the summer and early fall. As I am starting a new business, this space is still so important to me as a writing and creative outlet, but I also have clients I am prioritizing at the same time while being a parent. It makes it challenging to find time for this space. That said, I am debating new models for paid subscribers and how to handle this. I will update you as this becomes clearer to me. I also would love to hear feedback if you care to offer any.
Last time I wrote here, it was the height of summer. The days were long. They stretched out hot and endlessly, it felt. Now, it is cool. The leaves are past peak. The ground was frozen this morning, and the garlic is being prepped to be planted. Where did the last few months go? Who was I then, and who am I now?
There is much to discuss, my friends. There are things to celebrate and there are things to mourn. There are things I don’t even know how to begin to discuss with you, and part of me just feels like I should pour it all out at once, but instead, I want to tell you that these last few months have been immensely full. Clearly. They have held lessons and relief and growth that I haven’t felt in years, but I realized they were seeded in the world years ago, and now I am seeing them emerge with abundance all at once. It has shown me that to grow something new, we many times have to shed what we no longer are, despite how hard it is.
This month, I submitted for an award on a Permaculture project, I was nominated and won a Radical Design Award at TC Design Week, I joined the Board of Directors of the Leelanau Conservancy, and Mike and I closed on a 22-acre parcel down the road from us with an acre of grapevines to tend to and allow to be protected from development. That’s before I tell you about the other things, like my business having the most immensely successful year, my kids finding the beats of their drums in them, like watching them learn to read or play sports that bring them joy, or things that happened for Mike just in the last few months. There is a lot! A lot to celebrate, but it's all from a lot of felling of trees to bring light to new places, letting go, and shedding what didn’t work for me.
Why I share this is because in the height of 2020, I was lost. Immensely lost. You can go back and read things I wrote and tell this. I was redefining myself. I was a sprout in the woods that was barely emerging from beneath the leaf litter, if that. I was learning how to hear myself, hear my heart, and how to take action on it. I have spent so many years sowing seeds, sprouting new growth, going back to school, building a new one, and this year I saw the growth blossom into something so truly me.
Amongst all this, I will also say I had challenges. I partially tore my ACL playing soccer and have been doing PT, which has taught me about perseverance in new ways and trusting my body all over again. I have felt overwhelmed and struggled to find space for myself outside of work, parenting, and more, and felt the weight of the world in the cracks of all the good, too. Nothing in life comes cleanly, but I do believe that when we sow seeds, water them, give them the attention they deserve, great things come in ways we planned or didn’t.
I say all this to catch you up today on what has been happening in the silence. The silence has been good, but I have deeply missed writing, connecting to the seasons, and communicating what I am hearing from the land as well. I have been pondering a lot about this space to make it both sustainable for me and a protected practice as well. This space means so much to me. I miss it when I am not here. I miss it when I am driving around picking plants, delivering project materials, holding meetings, running invoicing, taking kids to practices, and engaging in life right in the present.
I miss sharing what I am seeing aligning with the natural world and our current worldly experience. I miss sharing these observations in a safe space like this. Instagram doesn’t offer me that. It feels tainted and heavy to share these thoughts.
So I say all of this because this is the beginning of Fridays, where I am here again. I plan to tell you about some of the new things that lie ahead of me here. I am planning to build a new vision of viticulture and bring my feral wine grapes to life. How I plan to build something, I don’t even know what it looks like yet, but it is a feeling in my soul the moment I saw this land. How sometimes good things come when you are truly and deeply desiring good, and how over and over I have seen both, and this year right in my own life.
I plan to share more in the coming weeks, but today I just wanted to close the month by giving you your autumn guide for paid members, the fall playlist, some guides to the gardening season, and to give you a peek into what I have been doing behind the doors here the last few months.
Every season, I make a new playlist, and with the beginning of spring comes a playlist as well. I love taking time to make these lists and pull together new sounds for your season, and selfishly, I love it for myself, too. I hope it brings a good background sound to your season ahead.
Gardening Advice: Make Cleanup Easy
The growing season is ending now. We just got our first major frost on top of our hill, though we have seen frost for weeks in the lower parts of the land. The cooling of the land is evident in these moments. The height of summer feels like a distant memory now for us all.
The thing, though, that I often find amongst gardeners this time of year is that they ache to clean up. They want to remove what was present to allow for a clean slate. They trim back plants heavily, burn the remnants, or worse, throw them in the trash. The thing is that nature does nothing at all by accident. It actually does everything extremely intentionally, even if it looks haphazard to us. In my research and my time working with the land, I see only very clear and consistent patterns of intention in nature, nothing else. Nothing goes to waste, and what is excess finds a new form to take to feed the greater ecosystem. That said, our gardens are no different. Every leaf is meant to become new soil. Every stem houses a life. Every seed feeds someone. Everything has a purpose. Instead of making a list of clean up, focus on the things that can be done now to make for a great spring. Here are some ideas for you:
Plant trees where you need them
Seed wildflowers and native grasses
Put away tools
Plant bulbs like garlic and tulips
Divide and redistribute plants
Place leaf litter on garden beds, not in the trash
Make leaf piles in bins to build healthy humus
Clear invasive plants
Set up a system to feed animals more easily
Add compost, mulch, manure, etc, to beds that are depleted.
If we leave the stems, leaves, flower seeds etc. not only is there less to do this time of year, but you will have more fireflies, birds, wildlife, and more through the winter and early spring. You will be amazed at what surfaces come spring, and you will feel a weight of less work on your shoulders. Doing less = more in nature. The truth is, it already knows how to care for itself; our job is simply to observe, learn, and tend with a light hand.
On my mind this week
Just some things happening and that I am thinking of lately:
CELEBRATING: The last few months have held HUGE things to celebrate in our lives. One big one is that a week ago, I was officially added to the Board of Directors for the Leelanau Conservancy. This is a serious role in our area of conservation on the Leelanau Peninsula, and I am one of the youngest directors. It is an immense honor, and I don’t take this role lightly! I will be part of the board for the coming 9 years while serving on committees as well. We have huge projects coming up, one of which is to begin the restoration and trail work at Sugar Loaf (the highest point in Leelanau County). I have spent the last 4 years on the LC Collective, which is part of the conservancy, and about 9 months on the stewardship committee as a community member, but the honor to be part of making major decisions and supporting the incredible work of the staff is something I am very excited to do in the coming years. So yes, this means you will hear about these things here, but I also will ask that if you come to Leelanau, please head to our preserves and natural areas to see the work we do to keep this place the magical peninsula it is.
COOKING: I am deep into soup making right now. I am looking at new soups. The main thing I am noting, though, about great soup making is that it is all about the broth, so we are focusing on making our own broths often with a whole chicken or leftover juice from cooking meats or veggies. I made an amazing soup with gnocchi in it last week that we all deeply enjoyed it.
WATCHING: Honestly, there are only a few shows we have been interested in watching, and they are Repair Shop (a show from the BBC about repairing old, precious things for people), The Great British Baking Show, and The Gilded Age. The theme is slow and easy-to-watch shows. We aren’t very wild around here.
LISTENING: Maggie Rogers. I have been ABSOLUTELY obsessed with her all Fall. Everything she writes is brilliant. This collection of her work is really fascinating as well.
READING: I have been a very slow reader as of late. I have a stack of books right now, but the one that affected me the most this summer has been The Four Agreements. I listened to the audio, and I cannot suggest it more to anyone who feels the weight of life and the world feels heavy. Give it a quick listen. I think it’s about 4 hours if I remember right.
WEARING: I have been absolutely enjoying thrifting clothes this year. I more than ever believe that everything we need already exists. We very limitedly order new things these days, which feels good considering the cost of things. Right now, though, my tried and true favorite item has and I believe always been this Down Sweater Coat from Patagonia. It is the perfect layer!! I recently got a vest version in the last few years and highly suggest it as well. I actually am about to send in my coat for a repair after getting a few holes in it this year.
MAKING: Halloween costumes! I have an intense passion for making my kids’ Halloween costumes before buying new ones. Every year, it about does me in, but I think I am finding my rhythm this year with it. This year, I made a raccoon costume for my son by hot-gluing fur to an old sweatshirt, garden gloves, cardboard, and more. It worked well. It was fun to do a craft! I also have some other sewing projects on the horizon this winter, now that my season of work is slowing.
OBSESSING ABOUT: This line from our CSA this week from farmer Nic Theisen of Loma Farm:
” We hosted a fundraiser for the Leelanau Conservancy last night to benefit their farmland protection program. All the while when Kim was speaking of the program, the reality that having food is not a given was screaming across y mind. Food doesn’t just appear; it is grown in a cooperation between land and people. The more reliant we become on a global food system, the more vulnerable we become. The tighter we knit ourselves together here in this place, unified in the sentiment of mutual care and a light touch on the land, the more resilient we become. What I am trying to say is love your neighbor even if you don’t like them.”
THE AUTUMN GUIDE IS HERE! It is for our paid subscribers, so if you aren’t one yet, you can get a discount below to join and get access to a new guide every season. I have big updates coming to the summer one, so sign up now.