Growing More than Organic Food: a Weekly Series on Hobby Farming

Children have more need of models than of critics. 

~ Carolyn Coats

I

 t has been nine months since I moved back to my childhood home.  Appropriately so, as it has been a time of growth, change, and preparation for the next phase of my life.

Originally, I moved back to help my mother care for my aging father ~ a move I hoped would be temporary as his health improved.  All in all, my father’s health is good for an eighty-eight year old.  And to be brutally honest, moving back in with your parents after living on your own for over a decade is. . .ahem. . .challenging.

Psychology will tell you that a child is not fully accepted by her parents as being an adult (read: having a brain) until she either reaches thirty-eighty or becomes a parent herself.  Obviously, Dr. Psych has not met my parents!  I do not have any children, but I am almost to the age mile marker.  But one would think to hear them speak to me that I am still thirteen!   This has made my dreams for the house and the land more difficult to realize.

I was tempted to give up before even getting started. 

However, living a sustainable lifestyle and eating food I have grown myself is something I am passionate about.  So my plan is to plow ahead (pun totally inteneded) and see far I get ~ one planting season at a time.  With that in mind, I am starting this weekly series on hobby farming ~ a series that is about personal growth, joy, change, challenges, and heartache as much as it is about sustainability, organic farming, and home-grown food.

I hope you can join me on my latest adventure.  I could sure use the positive company!

Next week: pictures of the first phase of the garden.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Do you have aging parents?  What are some of your challenges in caring for them?