Sharon's Natural Gardens

                                   2023.......... A BRAVE NEW WORLD   

    It's been 13 years since we spread my husbands ashes on the land and in his pottery urn in the"Sacred Grove".  This Easter  Sunday, we will honor our eldest daughter who passed away and joined him with her urn from losing her battle with breast cancer .She left home after high school for life in NYC and other cities around the world .  I am grateful to have been able to have her here with me during her battle as well as on hospice here in the end.. not in a hospital somewhere. 

  That said ..I am grateful at my age to be able to still be able to live on this homestead.. using wood heat, growing my own foods and preserving them , medicines,saving seed  and making my own compost with my animals manures and live to this lifestyle.There is nothing I would rather be doing .I have gardened every year here for 46 years and planted most of the trees and plants that grow here. I am bartering for help and selling things that  I no longer need .Last week I took a pickup load of old clothes that I had saved for all those years to be recycled and help homeless people.. I create very little waste,have no trash pickup .   I take my own trash to the landfill every year or 2 .

   I am grateful for sales from the gardens or when people come for classes or  tours ,as it helps me support this way of life. I feed my one remaining horse,a few ducks,and chickens that I raise for eggs and my Silver Fox rabbits that I raise for meat ,furs and manures ..There's my faithful dog too and 3 rescued cats.Lately I have been blessed by the  local  homesteading community who also embrace this way of life ..The farm feilds all around me now hold new houses and lawns .

    .Brave NEW World 

    It was 5 years ago today that we spread my husband ,KC 's  ashes on the land here while doing a biodynamic 3 kings ceremony on Jan 6th, the epithany.  There is now a memorial bench in a special grove ,I call the Sacred Grove, where I can visit him as well as the old grandmother horse who was my speciall animal friend when the kids were young, along with cherished, childhood pets. It does give me comfort to go out there when I am in the mood and play my flutes .The horses, daughter and granddaughter also love flute music and I have a feeling all the plants and animals living on the land do as well.

    A week before he passed, we were reading a book by Woody Woodraska called "Soul Journey Medicine "about what he would want to do after he died and He wanted to be composted .I think theres a poem about it in the book. When you live so close to the land as our lives have been, I think there is a deep bond with the earth and the cycle of life that creates the soil .One of my favorite poems is by american poet Walt Whitman called Compost. KC said he wanted his ashes spread on the compost pile so on this special day which we had planned to do together ,I cleaned the stables and put some of his ashes in the pile I was building and the rest was mixed with finished compost and spread by each friend of his on the land. We also  buried some in an urn in the sacred groveand gathered there together in remembrance.  It was certainly not your usual funeral process but the funeral director told me many people chose unusual ways to have a ceremony for their loved ones .I have made special wreaths to be floated out to sea for people doing burial ceremonies. I think it is beautiful to create memories for those we loved so much in life .

   These days in the gardens , things have shifted to mostly growing foods for myself. I do offer local gardening classes here  and even a gardening program where people learn to garden but so far I have not found people locally willing or able to do the long term program -its a real commitment of time and money. I think it is not an idea easily embraced in todays culture. Still, I am here when people are ready and I try to help them learn to compost and garden .I am moving to growing more herbal medicines, flowers and working with fiber arts and crafts. I am also hosting folks wanting to learn to garden and bartering for help  on the homestead.  Its a great way to meet new friends  . I am enjoying the animals and caring for the land and hope I stay healthy enough to do that all my days .   

 Hi  Garden/farm  lovers ,

 It has been a year since I posted and this is new to me. This is the wettest year in the history of my gardening in this area . The land here used to be underwater every spring . It was ditched in the late 70's . This season was  so wet that flats of transplants did not even get planted and weeds took over because it was too wet to work or till. We sold most of the animals to some young homesteaders looking for stock and only kept the horses and a few chickens .

 We tried our hand at a couple of farmers markets and got to attend a fun biodynamic conference in Tenn. in October at the Long Hungry Creek farm. . The food, fun and music was so uplifting. It was especially good to see others in the same trenches as we are and meet young and old in the pursuit of connecting with the land in a special way.

 We also got to go all the way up to the Canadian border to upstate NY to the farm where my husband was raised and down through Vermont around Halloween .

  We are preparing the homestead and ourselves for a possible trip across country next summer to visit and help out on farms and write a book together called "Memories of a Delaware Farmgirl" .It will be about the history of our lives along with the day to day travels and observations of the farms we visit. Any farm  interested in our visiting them , please write. :)Sharon

   I really enjoyed Ambers story about the mean red hen .. It likely wanted a bigger flock and place to live .Each kind of animal has its own personality just like each kind of seed has its own needs . What works in one place does not work in another . My sister had a mean rooster attack her when she went into the flock . Once she got it by its feet and swung it around a bit.  then set it down . It stopped attacking her . We have a 30# tom turkey  that attacks . We keep the bucket of feed or water between us . It is interesting that those feelings come and go with him .. I think It is hormones ...poor thing ...

 I spent the day In the rain cleaning stables and herding our nearly full grown flock of about 15 turkeys back into their  netted yard, both to protect them from bothering neighbors as well as our new delicate seedlings on the winter beds of salad and cooking greens . We also need to protect them from hunting season and cars on the road .. but they sure miss their freedom or roaming the gardens and feilds  and roosting at the top of the walnut trees .

 But I wanted to express my thankfullness for the post in this blog from Amber at the beginning of her life as a family and her joy filled stories as well as the same joy that being involved in local harvest has brought me in my later years in married life .

  Our adventure with poultry goes a long way back to childhood on a commercial farm to now living with our own heritage small flock of turkeys  that is part of our homestead- hatching and raising their own young that are part of our  life and economy though we do not sell them for food,

  I am grateful through the support of this website, to find a connection  to the broader community even if I can't seem to find much in my local community yet . Hopefully ,in the future,  that will become easier. The online support has totally kept my small farm dream alive and I am grateful to provide the food and seeds I sell to others as well as have my children and grandchild still living with us . Most of the farm is gone, but there is a bit left. :)Sharon

  :)Sharon