My Neighbors are Not Bourgeois

 The water barrels that were finally made this year (after sitting behind the garage for 2 1/2 years) supplied more fun little to M than water for the garden. This was partly because there was no rain to fill them for so long!! She considers their sole purpose to fill her own buckets as she makes elaborate culinary dirt magic. Super fun to watch.

 After ditching the garden in late July, we let the hens be truly free range. Hatched at the end of March, they just started laying on Labor Day. Pretty apt, if you ask me. They always sound like they're in labor when they're all waiting in line for their chance on the nesting box to lay an egg. And just like our last hens, this all seems to go down between noon and 2 pm. there must be something to that. I'm not a chicken expert. Everyone is laying in full swing now. I forgot how much BETTER these fresh eggs are than store bought! Crazy thick shells and gorgeous orange yolks and the whites hold their integrity instead of breaking into a watery mess like factory-farmed eggs. Thank you, hens for being not only entertaining (these girls behave like smart dogs!), but for also providing us with 28 eggs a week! Woot!

 Even though the potatoes were not affected by the Great Groundhog Blitz of 2012, they were the victims of my throwing in the towel and letting the garden fend for itself during a hot, dry summer. Just the same, I was pleased to harvest a small batch of Red Pontiacs and Russetts. They're delicious and cook so fast because they're small and tender. I cooked up a batch that were cubed with onions, garlic, tomatoes and kale, added some beef and made amazing enchiladas.

 The first egg. 

Little M eating the first egg while playing in the dirt. She insisted on carrying the egg around to show our neighbors. When the tour was over, I asked her to take it into the house and put it away. She came back outside to tell me she dropped it (and of course I knew this would happen). Fortunately for those tough shells, it had a big crack but did not burst open. So we fried it up. She was pretty pleased that she got to have the First Egg. 

As for the dirt she and our neighbor friend are sitting in, that's become one of the highlights of the yard this year. This was the place the garlic was harvested from a couple months ago that I didn't plan anything new in. The kids have taken to digging deep holes here (have to fill them in every evening so no one twists their ankle) just for the sake of....digging holes? I don't know what the allure is, but they love it. 

As for the silly blog post title...

We got together with our neighbors for a very last-minute, "Hey, we're going to walk to the brewery with the kids. Wanna come?" this past Sunday.  

I'm a terrible planner and love last-minute spontaneous adventures. As we sat in the beer garden, my one neighbor said my garden, hens and push lawn mower made him feel very bourgeois. This made me laugh. 

My neighbors are anything BUT. I suppose if you take the word for the most basic meaning, it is defined simply as being middle class. But I think he meant it in the more common, derogatory way. And this is simply not true. Bourgeois as slang typically defines one who is self-centered, not well intentioned for the greater community, lazy... one who takes things for granted. Maybe you are middle class, neighbor, but you're not any of those things. 

It made me think... I feel like from a world view, my family is middle class.We have a decent house, food to eat and we don't have to walk miles to obtain questionably safe water.  From an American income-level point of view, I think not (just going off of number in household to total family income). Part of this whole grow your own food thing comes down to wanting to feed ourselves well but not being able to afford to obtain that food from some of the local and non-local sources of organic food.

Hens are cheap to keep and I cannot buy $4 a dozen eggs. Vegetable seeds are very cheap (especially if you let things go to seed and collect seeds for the following growing season) and typically yield a lot (if city rodents don't decimate your garden). That push mower was bought courtesy of a Bush era stimulus check. I hated smelling like gas after hauling around our old gas mower. Not to mention buying gas for the damn thing.

On a more spiritual/emotional level, I love working in the dirt. I love seeing and feeling this whole little world of things growing, of seeing how the insects come and go and keep things in check in their ecosystem. I love the hens roaming around (granted, they shit everywhere) and doing their part to also keep things in balanced. Being out in the dirt helps me relax and appreciate all these little things that I wouldn't ordinarily even notice. It also allows me time to tease out all the mental monkeys in my head, which in turn, helps me to be a better partner, a more patient mother, and hopefully, a good neighbor. 

And when the rain suddenly comes and the grass is green again, I find myself with 8" tall thickets of bizarre weeds that no Bush era bought push mower could ever get through. This is when I walk over to one of my many fabulous neighbors and ask if I can borrow their gas-powered mower.
Thank you. It's in my garage. This weekend I will buy gas to refill it and return it to you. :)

And because there is simply so much synchronicity in life if you just take notice (and it tied into my thoughts about my good neighbors and overall awesome community), this swung round yesterday:

I read a good NYT article on how making friends is harder to do after your 20s. I think that the type of friendships we make change as we grow older, but it doesn't necessarily become harder. It's just that the old way of making friends (the methods we use in our late teens and 20s) isn't so applicable at later stages of our lives. As I've grown older, I've become more secure in who I am. Thanks to midwifery, I have had the sort of job that allows people to totally open up to me and tell me their stories. Such stories!! I've cried so often over the years as I hear the pain and joys of people's lives! Loss, love, abuse, neglect, new beginnings and so much more. No one prepared me for the therapeutic listening (and sometimes counseling- I use that term very loosely) that midwifery care requires. This in turn, has allowed me to further appreciate what is truly important in our lives: the journey, not our material possessions, our looks, our education level or other superficial aspects of living.

At any rate, the nature of my friendships have changed. I've got a couple friends who I can call any time to seriously sob to when I'm a mess and need some one to hear me lose my shit. And outside of these special few, I've circles of folks who ebb and flow in and out of my life in a very unique way. A way that I appreciate. I don't want the friendships I had in my 20s. Ack. No thank you. Even though most of my relationship energy goes toward my family, I absolutely love the wee community I live in. There are a lot of very smart, giving, interesting folks around me. 

Good Stuff, I say. 

And now my early morning, not very well-articulated rambling comes to an end. Time to wake these kids up for school.

The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel.- Steve Furtick