Today: Heartache and hopefully lessons
I can't say that moving to the simpler life has been easy.
Moving to a small town where people are honest, caring and real definitely has some great advantages, but deciding to try become self sufficient farm for our livelihood is NOT easy.
We have poured our energy and money into this in droves, and yet we have had disappointments in builders work, unfinished structures, extra money on all sorts of things that were not done right and then failure after failure in crops!
That last one is the one that is breaking our hearts.
We have toiled and sweated to get the land ready, have toiled and sweated to keep it right and then cared for the vegetables like they were children!
Honestly we even spoke to them!
Lessons were learned during the failures. Don't plant certain crops in certain seasons....their growth is affected to the point where you can't sell the crops.
Trying to keep things organic is just not worth it. The bugs kick our butt's (and its lots of work keeping them away) and people just don't want to pay for the additional effort.
Argh!
Then today!
5000 cabbages had to be ploughed into the ground because they had been beset by white/black rot.
This was tough people. We really needed the income from them. That's about R50000 that I literally threw into the ground as fertiliser.
Perhaps raised beds would have stopped this from happening. They say it helps.
But learning this lesson is not making my heart any happier.
This life is not easy or cheap....I'm happy here generally, and now I understand why having a farming heritage passed down to you is the way to go.
That way the lessons have been learned for the most part. Their lessons can be passed on.
Trying to stay positive
If this is to be my children's heritage, then that is what I will hold to.
These are lessons I can pass on hopefully when or if they decide to do this too.
But for now, our heart is broken.
[Image credit is farmlifelove.com, pinterest]
So sorry for your loss. Something like this would break even the most hardened of farmers.
Much love and positive vibes sent from your friends at #TeamSouthAfrica
thank you for your message! It was genuinely heartbreaking....have to get out and try again somehow. It is a common thread in life this kind of thing is it not?
Devastating to watch vegetables go to waste when bugs destroy a crop that should feed many. Loss of crops is loss in money, enabling farming into next season @towjam, so many things we have no control over.
#teamsouthafrica
It is! You can understand why farmers are generally quite spiritual people then, because they rely on things out of their control...they tend to be people with faith...as their lives are based around it.
It is not easy!
Nature teaches us the laws of change, grounding our spiritual being into better understanding things we are unable to control. Human's seem to think they are all powerful, little do they know... This is my opinion only.
Well it is a wise opinion....in my opinion :)
Sorry to hear guys!
Thank you....
We are feeling a lot better now...nothing has changed but we do
I am so sorry. I so get you on both living in a village and losing crops. we lost virtually everything in our little garden during the drought and we are still recovering. And even though we are far from self-sufficient, it did knock our pockets and souls when we could no longer harvest things we would normally have harvested.
This post has also been selected today's daily nominated post in the @teamsouthafrica discord channel. And I have re-steemed. I hope this helps.
Ah thank you so much @fionasfavourites for your heartfelt message.
The wife and I were both tender for the week, and battled to find motivation to get something going again.
Im scared to try again....although I know the lessons already learned will help we us going forward, but do we try. That is the question !
Sorry to hear you went through similar experiences. From what I understand, this is not so uncommon among farmers. I have to wonder what they did that was so different to get to the point that they are now successful and forging ahead.
Respect to them :)
Well, we wouldn't eat if it weren't for farmers and brave folk who take the risk. I do hope you are feeling stronger.
So sad for the loss...hope things get better for you, soon.
Thank you for the note. We hope so too. Dont have it in us yet to ump in right away
Hello @towjam, I feel for your both, life lessons are beyond hard sometimes.
And how! It feels to crush you under its weight at times. And the pressures filter into life