Half a year. That is what we have to keep telling ourselves. It’s only been HALF A YEAR.

This is our first home. And this is also our forever home. And so we are eager and excited to do, do, do — but we must also remind ourselves (daily) that we will be here a long time (hopefully) and that there is absolutely no way to do it all so quickly. We have learned this the hard way — In some cases, we have moved with too much haste. Too much enthusiasm mixed with not enough research, discussion and thought can lead to mistakes and poor decisions. We have certainly had a few of those. But teamwork, determination and perseverance can lead to successes too. We are proud of those and have ultimately had a mix of both ups and down in our first six months here at the homestead.

In addition to upgrades and fixes needed on the house, we are also attempting to start an orchard and a garden. The orchard is off to a great start, we planted a variety of fruit and nut trees this spring, with more planning and planting to come in 2022. The garden so far has been very hit and miss, partially because there is just no time to research and learn (to grow a green thumb!) properly. This first year will be a bit of a free for all — just plant and see what happens, without much reading up on best practices. This seat-of-the-pants approach has already proved to be a poor strategy for the herbs which were transplanted too soon. But we can’t possible do it all in year one and we most certainly cannot do it all well. We are humbled by this old house and the wonders of nature on a daily basis.

We’ve had to make some decisions about projects that just have to be put off until year two (or later) no matter how badly we want to do them now (new pool fence being one of these). As the long summer days inch closer, we are recognizing that we need to stop, slow down and make more time to just BE — be present, be accepting, be patient. We also have to be able to leave the homestead more — for hiking, visiting family, day trips and finally, again — some travel! The house is not going anywhere and the project list will always have items on it. Learning to space it out to keep stress down has been an important step for us this month. We are slowing down and focusing more on what already IS wonderful and what is also just fine AS IS, even if it is not perfect or what we would ideally like.