Back to the Homestead

How ironic is it that I am going from a farm property to an urban property and thinking, "Back to the homestead?" Still, it fits. This feral farm hasn't seen homesteading practices in the 30 odd years since I first saw it. It already looked pretty feral then. The FIL treated it like a suburban rental property from the day he bought it in 1965. Finding the old truck gardens, etc., is something of an archeological adventure. My urban half acre produces its own eggs, chicken, bee products. herbs, and herbal extracts, here, now, today.

Semantics aside. . .

I think it was Thursday that I received a phone call from Youngest Son while I was scouting for a local laundromat. Four weeks without doing laundry is borderline intense, even for my field practices. Youngest Son (schizophrenic) is currently unemployed, cycling and begging for financial assistance to pay rent, etc. I still don't know his wife all that well, but I suspect she is cycling with him. Kinda built into Nature's family design, isn't it? When one hurts, all hurt. This weekend is his wife's birthday and the December babysitting shortage is on. He was desperate enough to try to work arrangements with his most reliable babysitter, despite the fact that I am 189 miles away from any of my grandkid paraphanelia. Gampy is currently 150 miles the other side of our Urban Homestead and cycling pretty hard, himself as he deals with the official business of closing out his father's estate. I am pretty worried about him navigating the haunted halls of grief and his adolescant home by himself. I have been ready to make the 7 hour drive to Houston at the drop of a psychosis. I told Youngest Son that I would let him know what evolved.

I now know where the closest laundromats are, but decided to do this round of laundry at the Homestead. I spent today cleaning up the paint mess and tightening up the end of this phase of the farm project. In the morning I will harvest some horehound for the herbal distiller and be off for some laundry, collecting miscellaneous supplies and grand time at the Urban Homestead. I miss my grandbabies. Wouldn't mind a morning coffe in the back yard with my main squeeze, either. I miss communing with our birds and bees, too.