Slowly finding my direction.

As the title says, I think I'm finding my true North. In the past I've felt torn between my love of growing things and my need to create art. I've realised lately that I have to sort out the timings but with careful planning I can do both. Because of the Fibro I need to rest in between strenuous jobs so that's my time to make art or spin. I'm settling into a kind of routine of work, rest and work and it's all coming together.
My growing started out great but the mini-greenhouse was in the wrong place so was difficult to water and I lost some of my tomatoes and beans. The slugs started to take over and so I had to have a big move around. The greenhouse is now right by the house, tucked into a hedge in a place that I thought would be far too shady for anything to grow. The fact is, this spot is perfect, it gets afternoon sun and is cooler than higher up the field so the seedlings are thriving instead of roasting. I have enough plants left to catch up and chalk this up to experience. It is after all our first year of growing and the time to make little micro-climate maps of the the land so that we can  find the best places for our plants.
The beans are struggling in this heat, but with some wool mulch and a bit of care, I think they'll pull through.

 The spaghetti squash and spinach are doing really well, so this is clearly a good spot for squash.
In the background, behind the chicken house is the new haystack. Our neighbour along the road had their field cut for hay and we knew from the start that it was going to be beautiful hay. We were so glad when they asked us if we wanted to buy it and I may be imagining this, but all of the neighbours at that end of the road seem to be more friendly. Maybe they thought we were odd getting our hay delivered from another village, but in truth, that was the only farmer I had contact with. Now slowly we're integrating with the farmers in our own village and it feels good to belong already :D

 I'm in love with dyers Coreopsis, but these little plants won't be enough to dye anything so I'm hoping to collect seed from them and have more success next year.

 At least the woad is doing well and the dyers greenweed too. The rhubarb also had to be moved down from it's place up the field as the slugs were ruthless. I don't do battle with nature, there's no point. I just find somewhere that I can protect the plants and go for simple solutions. Slug traps are next on the list.

 The dirigible plums are doing well and will be ripening soon. I love these little plants (physalis) and thought of them immediately the plums were mentioned in Harry Potter. I often forget what they're really called when people ask as I've been calling them dirigible plums for so long :D

So my garden is doing well, my plans for the future are taking, a sort of shape and today I started writing the first draft of my book. It's not going to be a Homesteading/Smallholding bible it's not going to be a how to find the best life possible (although that would be nice) and it's not going to be a self indulgent look at how we're trying to change the world. At the moment, it's a mish-mash of ideas that I'm trying to pull together into shape. If I sort through it all I could have at least 3 books covering lifestyle, knitting and healing for starters. It seems that being in this peaceful place, my thoughts and inspirations are going wild! Now I just have to find the dicipline to write it all down.