When Going Back to the Land Isn’t an Option

I’ve mentioned a few times on ye olde blogge that a while back, I was very interested in a “natural” lifestyle. Heck, even over in my profile bio on the right, I mention that in my daydreams, I live on a ranch. Well, a few years ago, from around 2006 to 2008, wanting to live a “back to the land” lifestyle was a very strong desire of mine.

Recently an online friend blogged about something similar – seeing the positive qualities in a simpler life, a more natural life, a slower lifestyle. She admitted that she probably romanticized it but that it still looked appealing. I noticed many commenters agreeing, saying they felt the same way. I jokingly commented that she sounded like I did, a few years ago. She responded and asked what I did about it, and here’s what I told her:

I made certain small changes to our lifestyle, and honestly, I kind of grew out of it because it wasn't a dream that was to become a reality for me anytime soon. :/

My husband wasn't interested (especially in the back-to-the-land stuff - he's a city/suburbs guy) so without buy-in from him, it wasn't going to happen, you know? And because of that I just kind of let it go and began focusing on other things. I get my "fix" in other ways - spending more time outside, eating better, doing creative things with the kids, watching Frontier House on PBS, ha!

Something I've noticed about myself is that I will get really gung ho about something that interests me, and I'll think that I need to change my whole life to look like whatever that interest is. What I'm still learning is that maybe "tweaks" are what I really need. Maybe I don't need to homeschool and make all my food from scratch and raise chickens and live on a farm sustained with electricity from our windmill and become a midwife . . . maybe what I'm feeling is really a pull to spend more time with my kids on what they're learning from this world . . . make better food choices and start a container garden . . . cut costs and make eco friendly choices in my suburban townhouse . . . tell my friends about great pregnancy and birth resources and let them know I'm available with a non-judgmental ear if they need to vent or need advice. Maybe I can use my interest to advocate on behalf of people who need a lot more of these things in their lives but have even less access than I do - people who live in food deserts, people who have only ever been told that birth is a terrifying, painful thing to leave up to a hospital staff, people who have so little chance to visit a zoo or forest or farm, or even just a park.

I'm still interested in all those things and love to see, read, hear, talk about them . . . but in their full-blown form they don't work for me. Doesn't mean I can't incorporate some of their important principles and aspects into my life!

Do you do this? Do you get really excited about something, learn a lot about it, and think you must change your whole lifestyle to be happy? Have you actually done it? If so, how did it work out? Are you like me – it takes a while but eventually you understand that perhaps a radical change isn’t in order, but smaller changes are?

What are things you thought you needed, and it turned out maybe you just needed to make some tweaks?

Our “garden”

Ok. So . . . I can raise kids. Keep them fed. Tend to their injuries. Teach them things. But plants? Yeah, I just kill them. But – I finally have a bit of a yard, including a small patch that is just perfect for a small garden.

My 2 older kids and I walked to a nearby Menard’s (it’s a Chicagoland Home Depot sort of place) just to see what they had – I expected super high prices which would discourage me from jumping into gardening. I was so excited to find that everything was . . . DIRT cheap. *snort*

Now – I realize that I should have done some research, figured out what the best plants and planting techniques were. But I was just in the mood to DO, so we DID.

Everything in this cart – around 10 plants, a bag of soil, a bag of rocks and a little hand shovel – all came to about $13!

Now I’ll show you my next-door neighbor’s setup, which has me GREEN with envy. *snort*

They also have a pretty hanging plant in a basket from their porch roof, and a nice little add-on patio which extends their small porch over to behind their little garden. You can see a bit of those patio blocks at the top left corner of the 1st pic above.

And now for our “before” pics:

Yucky dirt patch with old plastic lining which is no longer covered, and the straggling rocks which hung around. No idea what this looked like when it was first landscaped, this was the condition when we moved in a month ago. UGLY!

Dirt patch to the side of our small porch. This is the area where our neighbors put down pavers to extend their porch. We may or may not do the same – we really like hanging out in front on breezy evenings, but our porch is tiny.

First attempt to fill in the rockbed. I thought I might want to use this area to plant, but after pulling out the plastic, I could tell that this area wasn’t going to be great for planting. I think I’d rather make it look pretty and low, low maintenance. So I went with rocks – Western Sunset, to be exact. This is one bag’s worth – thankfully they’re only $3 a bag.

After 2 more bags worth of rocks. I want to get one more bag to fill in all the thin spots, like around the edges. I’ll likely put down a potted plant or two, copying the neighbors. And I even have an idea of what I’d like – some striking grass, like this:

Or this:

There’s a low potted plant just like this at Menards that I could go buy a couple of. I think they’d stand out really nicely against the red rocks.

Moving on! Here’s what has been planted so far, following the line where our grass meets the dirt section next to our porch. Don’t ask me what plants these are – some are Salvia, some are Zinnia, the others . . . I forget. I know, bad plant mommy!

There's some empty spaces on the left - flowers were planted but they have no blooms right now, hopefully they'll turn into something pretty soon.

So! Hopefully I won't kill them. I was smart enough to tell the kids they need to water the plants every day . . . they're eager and don't forget. I have to remind them not to drown the poor things.

I'll post updates once things begin growing . . . or not.