How to be a single parent

How to be a single parent? Well; by fate, circumstance, death, your own dysfunction, someone else's dysfunction, that special stew of dysfunction you shared with your former partner, you find yourself the only parent in your home responsible for the little people that reside there at least part of the time. Statistically speaking the majority of single parent homes are headed by women. A large percentage of children in poverty live in homes headed by single parents. These are homes and families with challenges that any solid family unit do not have.

How do I know this? Well, I am a single mother.Twice over. My first son was born when I was 26 years old. I left an abusive relationship when I was 6 months pregnant. I gave birth,took 6 week maternity leave at the same time that Dan Quayle was maligning Murphy Brown for being a single parent. I went back to work when my son was 6 weeks old with spotty daycare, a former boyfriend I would have to negotiate with for the next 18 years, a low paying job.

My second son was born when I was 39. This time I was married. It was never a whirlwind romance. But it was comfortable and reliable ( so I thought). We shared the same dreams. But as the years past, I realized I was really unhappy and I wasn't getting what I needed out of the relationship. I supported everything he wanted to do but somehow there was never any room for what I wanted. And him. I can only guess. My theory is he didn't want to be married anymore and he needed somebody to be the bad guy..and that wasn't going to be him.

So there I am 45. I have a 6 year old. I have no job in one of the toughest job markets in decades. I have a forty year old house at the end of a 2 mile dirt road that needs work I can't afford to fix and can't afford to sell. I have a crappy car. A single mother again.

That was two years ago. I know challenges. I know shame. In know pride in my boys. I have had small but very important triumphs as well. And while I may not be on the solid financial footing I was on when I was married; while connecting the dots between incoming and outgoing funds may require a little negotiating with my friends Peter and Paul, every day; like so many other single parents, I get the job done.

I Dwell in Possibilites

I dwell in possibilites... I love this idea. It is not just an easy play on the simpler notion of hope. It seems concrete. It means that you can accept that anything is possible.

In this vein it has finally arrived...that moment when what I hoped would be a balanced life that allows me to live on my land, work enough to avert financial disaster and provide some security in the form of, if not fully realized at least implemented, savings.

Crunching numbers week after week I have been trying to figure out how to manage on less money than I currently have coming in. Spousal support ends in June and I have needed to find some more work. I will be working one more day a week starting in 2 weeks. I will have caught up on all my bills by the end of June and (goddess willing) I will actually have some money in the bank. Furthermore, I should actually be able to keep banking a at least 15% of my monthly income into two important funds...House and Car.

This is my grand realization. I have this land and it can provide a vast amount of food to us if I have enough time to give it. I just need to have some money set aside for the inevitable rainy days.  From the outside our situation can still seem a little tenuous. But given where I was a year ago with no job, no savings and the panic that comes late at night at the direness of the situation..we are doing SO much better.

The possibilities are endless...

On food, balance and mushrooms

The following is my homework this week. How cool is it to take a class that asks you to think about goals to establish around food?

I have been thinking a lot about food lately. As a homesteader food is primarily what encompasses most of the work I do on the homestead. I was a stay at home mom. I grew a 600 square foot garden, boiled maple sap down, grew meat birds and layers, chased sheep,canned, pickled and dried, collected wild edibles and herbs, made our own medicinals  such as salves, syrups and teas, baked our own bread, made our own yogurt, made mozzarella cheese, made fruit and flower wines, made granola and every meal was from scratch. It was a full time job. I loved standing in my cold room every fall to see just how much food I had produced and preserved. 

    My  life has been in transition over the last year as my partner and I divorced and I returned to work, school and my youngest was no longer homeschooled. Because of these changes last years growing/ preserving season was not what it needed to be. The energy was just not there as I was trying to adjust to our changed circumstances. As a result the changes in our diet were apparent. Many things that I used to make from scratch were purchased. My son started eating school lunch. The amount of time I needed seemed to be a scarce commodity . The amount of money I spend on food for a family of three is considerably more than I used to spend for a family of four. A lot of this food is not as local as it used to be or wholesome.

     It is now a year later and I feel as though I am nearing the point of finding the balance I need between home, work and school. I will be working 4 days a week. This gives me 2 days during the middle of the week to work in the garden and take care of food stuffs. Sundays are a day of rest. I may also be doing a work share for a local farmer which will supplement the food I grow. This is what I know, the more I do for myself the less money I need. In terms of food this also means better quality and more local. One of my goals this year is to return to a level of food self-sufficiency that  I used to have but with some important changes. 

     First, I hope to grow a number of crops that do not need a lot of effort to process. I used to spend so much time at the canner. I will be growing a fair amount of winter squash this year. I also will be growing a fair about of brassicas. Kale can be extended into December. Cabbage can be made into kraut and brussel sprouts are easy to freeze and can also be harvested well into the fall. I will be growing a fair number of root crops as well.I like these because they can be successively planted, easy to store, and can stay in the ground later in the season. I used to have an electric dehydrator. It pooped out and I have been thinking about alternatives to it for a while. I have a crawl space that gets REALLY hot in the summer. I think I could easily construct some drying racks and stick some stuff in the crawl space. I am starting shitake mushrooms this year. I love that they do not require a lot of work and can easily be processed by dehydration.

     Second, I am planning to grow two small batches of meat birds this year. This spring I purchased a meat/ layer bird package from Murray Mcmurray. They arrive the end of May. The first batch of meat birds will be ready for butchering by the time my little guy gets out of school. The second batch I will start in the fall for the winter freezer. This would be the first time I have done this in the spring. It would provide some needed protein in the summer when my work hours may be cut and my little guy will be home from school.

     Third, I find that I have found my kitchen mojo again. I am baking bread while I am cooking dinner. I am planning batch cooking recipes that I can have for quick meals after a long day at work or to take to work for lunch. I want to continue to do this so that it becomes habit and will easily adapt to any further changes that come into our lives.

I'm gonna Soap Box!

Grr...I just had a job interview. It was actually a job I would love to do.  I probably could have it if I wanted it.  But as is the trend these days it is only part-time and it pays 8.00 an hour. But part-time is 4 days a week and it would be mostly weekends. There is so much about the job that would be great. It is in a greenhouse, the people that run the business seem pleasant. I could be outside.

I would be working more hours for less money than my current part-time job.

There isn't a lot of flexibility to make both schedules work without either working 7 days a week and paying for childcare and having NO time with my little guy.  Really??

I understand businesses needing to make a profit. I understand about not giving a new employee pay equal to other folks that have been there longer. But really? How about enough that I could pay for the childcare and gas needed to get to this job with..oh ..I dont' know some money left over to buy food.

If only this were an isolated incidence. But I know it isn't.  When employers do not pay a fair wage they are receiving a backdoor subsidy by tax payers who end up paying higher taxes for the social services that I receive.

There's my rant for the day!

Balance

Isn't this a funny word? In one respect it can mean that something is in equilibrium and in another respect is can can be easily thrown out of whack.  It doesn't feel solid to me; a tipping of scales in essence puts one out of balance. And then there is the holy grail...trying to find balance.

I feel like I am always trying to find balance. In my mind this is a threefold goal of having enough employment to keep, if not grandiose, then sufficient amount of money coming in. Balance means having enough time to spend with my little guy. The third thing is finding the time an energy for my own pursuits.

In terms of employment, I guess I would like to call this occupation. Occupation for me is the time I fill doing things that have an economic value. So this can mean work but it can also mean gardening, putting food by, darning a pair of socks, bartering with a friend. It fills my time. I would like that time if it is going to be filled to have a sense of satisfaction after the work is done. There is no greater feeling for me than standing in my cold room and taking stock of what I put by for the season. For me it means that I can save money at the grocery store, weather a financial storm with a little resilience and if I do not have to get in a car on a cold day in January to make dinner ...so much better!

With my little guy in school for the first time this year I find that the time I spend with him is even more important for me. School sure does eat up a lot of time. But we are finding ways to keep it real. We read at the bus stop. We enjoy mom and little guy dates. Most importantly, we enjoy quiet days at home where he can just play. We make the most of snow days..thank goodness we've had a few those this year.

Finally, time for my own pursuits. I think it may be a challenge for me to always give this part  of the scale the due it deserves. My big problem is, I think, is that I have too many varied interests. I have taken up running again. I enjoy this but for the health benefits and stress relief it provides. I read A LOT, but sometimes this is for work; so my brain wanders into this realm sometimes. I am not hand knitting as much as I used to.  I find that I just don't sit down for the long stretches like when I was knitting more. Still I put a few rows on something when I get the chance. Writing is always an important activity for me and I want to write more but I haven't figured out a way to do this without giving up much needed sleep. Work requires some writing and I feel like even when I am not able to write my stuff I am still flexing that muscle. The writing muscle is not getting flabby; it is just cross-training.

Sometimes I think that when we are in the pursuit of a goal it can be hard to know when we've reached it.  There are only 24 hours in a day but the great thing is there is always another one tomorrow1

And in other news!

I have an article published in the Daily Bulldog! Trees are tapped, seeds are planted in little pots, and we are going to get another 17 inches of snow this week! Spring will come..spring will come...spring will come...

Some of this and some of that

We are getting ready for another storm here.  I feel grateful that I do not have to be to work today. I plan to spend some time baking, maybe some handwork and some reading and some homework for
my class. Tomorrow I will have to find my way to work in the snow. But today is yarn, tea and bread...yum!

Last semester I took a class in Organic Vegetable production. As part of that class I conducted some interviews with some local farmer's.  I am excited to announce that the local daily online paper is going to publish them.  When that happens I will post a link here.  I had such a great time talking with the farmer's about their cultural practices and their approach to marketing. There is so much great stuff happening in in the local foods movement in my area and it would be exciting to get the word out.

This past weekend I went to the 4th Annual Seed Savers Conference at the University of Maine in Farmington. I learned a lot and it was nice to go and be with people and friends that are looking to preserve seed for themselves and for us. With large corporations buying up seed companies at an alarming rate (43% of all seed by some estimates) it becomes even more important that we learn to close this loop. And its kinda fun. It is easy to get started with some seeds like tomatoes. And it saves money too!

Finally, I am not sure if I shared our new friend. This is Shadow. She is 11 years old. She is called Shadow because she follows you around like a shadow. She's a very sweet girl and is well loved!