From a Sharecropper's Grandaughter to Organic Oracle Homesteader

Main garden freshly tilled

As I started my preparations for this upcoming growing season (using my electric rototiller) I could not help but to wonder how far my family has come. My grandfather was a sharecropper (other wise known as legalized slavery) and as I listened as a child growing up my Pop always emphasized the importance of owning your own land. No matter what...own your own land. Now mind you this was the same man who lied at the age of 16 , enlisted in the US Army and fought in the Korean War to mainly avoid the same fate....That's a whole nother' separate blog on the insanity that is rampant in my family, but I digress. I remember having him over to my first home that I bought with all the concrete pavers in my back yard. I had ripped out all of them by hand from that 400 sq foot yard (hella backbreaking work) and put plants galore (as long as they were edible) everywhere I could stick them. It was a townhouse with a small back yard but, it was mine. He was beaming from ear to ear. It was a start.

My family may have come a long way in certain aspects but as a family and a collective we still have a long way to go. There are many obstacles that confound and distort the reality of living in this society and while we may think that we have progressed, in fact we have not. As my Pop's story continued, His father eventually had to flee that area (something about attempted murder charge against him from the land owner) and moved up north to start over only to be sucked in by the industrialized capitalistic auto industry, the false promises of modern life and its rewards and the shunning of the lessons that where no longer deemed practical for such modern day living.

56 years later and as a collective we are just as bad off as we were then; only now the economy is crumbling and the weather no matter where you live is not what it used to be. We have become so accustomed to "instant gratification", fast food, popping a pill for any and all things that unless we go back to basics we will not survive. If we do it will be with a significantly decreased quality of life.

We have become so accustomed to "instant gratification",
fast food, popping a pill for any and all things that
unless we go back to basics we will not survive.
If we do it will be with a significantly
decreased quality of life.

These Rhubarb plants that I got free from a farm outside the small town where I live are a perfect symbolic example of the societal condition of which we find ourselves in. No these are not dying..just coming along from transplant shock. Depending on the conditions of which they will be subjected to will determine whether they will survive or not. But basically it is simple..organic matter, water and air. the same things that we need to survive ourselves. Winter has taken an extremely long time to release it's grip and in some areas it keeps coming back. The area in which I live is one of them.


The property that I acquired had pretty much been neglected for a few years until I bought it. In other words, it was mine to rehabilitate and bring back to life.

Trees at fruit set-

Top left; Red currents
Top right; Pears
Bottom right; Tart Cherries

I have 10 fruit trees, raspberry and blackberry brambles, currants, a grape arbor, an herb garden, a main vegetable garden and as of last year a greenhouse. I had to start somewhere. Believe me, this keeps more more than busy.

Remember those "country" relatives? Of course you do. They are the ones that sew, knit, grew and preserve food, hunt, build structures. In other words, did things with their hands. They practiced the fine art of manual labor.

Oregano

Garlic

Remember those "country" relatives? Of course you do. They are the ones that sew, knit, grew and preserve food, hunt, build structures. In other words, did things with their hands. They practiced the fine art of manual labor. They grew herbs and used them for medicinal purposes; no instant gratification for cures.

Sage

Now, not to romanticize the good old days when one worked hard but think of this, they lived much longer and in most cases in much better health than we do now. There has to be something that they did that defied modern living. That something is called eating real food, live food from the earth. Food that you know where it came from, nurturing it from seed to plate.

Life sometimes presents you with opportunities to expand. Taking the plunge, I sold everything, packed up and moved 5,000 miles away from my comfort zone to expand and see what I am capable of doing. I went from a townhouse with a 400 sq ft yard in a tropical metropolitan area to a house on a quarter acre in the middle of semi nowhere. It has and continues to be a great lesson in personal and spiritual growth promising to continue until I take my last breath in this realm. This is a chronicle of that ongoing journey.