It’s mid to late March and the seeding has begun. There is a lot to do on the business side as well. After 20 years in marketing I know what has to be done, but to be honest I’m finding it hard to concentrate. I just want to get my little seedlings going. On the go already are some greens that will be grown in the greenhouse floor and roughly 3000 onions and leeks from seed. The cold nights have been rough but with a little thought and a new -old fashion barrel stove things are coming up.
It does mean heading out to the Greenhouse at midnight and staying to 1 or 2 in the am to get the stove both going and then loaded and damped off.
Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or maybe it’s the meditation-like process of planting 300 plus seeds one at a time, but it allows time to think and the mind wanders.
Sometimes it’s how to save the world, or the state of the Toronto Maple Leafs (don’t get me started # FREE JAMES REIMER) but usually it’s more important and/or achievable – from planting to understanding what needs to be done, to remembering people and important moments that really didn’t seem all that important at the time. I’m blessed and cursed with a very good memory; blessed because I remember things from my childhood right down to certain conversations but also cursed because I remember things from my childhood right down to other certain conversations. Remembering days of propping an old barn board up against a building as a slide – it was a great slide – and then remembering the large splinter I got from that barn board that had to be dug out with a sewing needle and no, it wasn’t in my hand.
One of the things that came to me this week was triggered by a few events. On the business side one thing I’m trying to do is create/collect recipes for some of the different vegetables. I have planted a bunch (couple hundred and counting) of rapine plants and I reached out to my Auntie Fanny for a recipe. She was nice enough with a little help from my Auntie Denise to send one over. So there will be a rapine recipe coming but it got me to thinking. I remember my Auntie Fanny around the farm. She and Uncle Joe lived in the city but came out quite a bit when I was small. As the eldest daughter she always had advice to give. But what I remembered today was a simple exchange; as kids we didn’t talk to the adults that much but on this day I was walking in the field with Auntie Fanny. I really don’t remember where we were going but this is the conversation as I remember. I think I was 5 or 6 at the time.
Auntie Fanny: Christopher, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Me: I want to be a doctor (with conviction).
Auntie Fanny: That’s a lot of work, but if you want to then that’s what you do.
It was that simple and until today I had forgotten that conversation and what it has meant to me. I tried to live that dream. Throughout grade school and high school right into university my eyes were on that bar. But somewhere along the way that little boy stopped listening to himself and started listening to teachers and others around him telling him he couldn’t and that he needed a backup plan. Added to that there was a learning disability that wasn’t diagnosed until well after I left school and I started to believe these people. This is not to say I blame anyone; I believe we make decisions for ourselves and I chose to give up on that dream.
I chose to let that little boy down. I’m not going to do it again, I’ve already started to hear the, “well you can’t do that much by yourself” or “well, if you did something else you could have more stuff. You can’t make any money doing that…”
Well this is the choice and this is what I’m doing. That little boy has never been happier and I’m not going to let him down again.
Yes, Auntie Fanny, I know it’s a lot of work but it’s what I want so I’m going to do it. Thank you for the love and support then and now.
Christopher
Seed and Seasons 