Happiness is ...

Feeding the baby possum that was rescued (along with it's siblings) after their mother was hit by a car.  Sorry for the blurry picture.

Good on you Todd and hope it ends well for the animals and your family.

I had a Kill Deer make a nest within feet of a new road I was building and she would do the broken wing trick to try and keep me away from her 4 eggs. Despite having a lot of work and a lot of equipment, I steered clear of it, even staking it off with grade stakes until the eggs would hatch and she would go. But sadly I noticed this week the mother bird and eggs were gone. Should cracked shells be present I would assumed they hatched and flew off, but being comepletely gone I assume a raccoon, snake or skunk got them instead. Too bad, but I did my part and managed to never drive over them.

Some birds and other critters will eat egg shells to get the calcium.

This baby deer is doing fine. He was rescued by the owner of an excavator who accidentally buried him. It's been a couple months, and he is on mostly grass and browse now.

A full woodshed in July.....

A baby boy in a bow tie...

When your raspberries go feral!



I've been planting some of my better fruiting raspberries in my tree field and letting them get on with it. This year several of the new canes fruited pretty well, and I've planted a couple of other varieties which have taken...What to do with a glut of raspberries? I had more than I needed for jam from the ones by the house...I may have to start another thread.

A plant delivery from the Agroforestry Research Trust!

Now I have to work out where to plant 2 silverbell trees, a northern bayberry and a Sochan cut leaf coneflower. I already know where I'm planting the 2 Gingko trees!
The Sochan seems the most tricky, a 10 foot herbacious perennial that likes full sun?! It may end up making a polyculture with my Helianthus strumosa, which seems to have taken off this year, That might end up a bit much of a good thing actually, but I do like the biomass potential!

Edit - how could I forget my two new chokeberry varieties: Nero and Hugin! Not a problem to find somewhere for these; they can go in the tree field.

When one of your trees makes a seat for you.

First flowers of spring. These would have been under snow last week!

Your flock of chickens waddle running towards you when you get home from work.

Levers!

Today it was a first class lever - fulcrum was the axle of Big Green and I was able to lever a big rock I had no business moving on my own, from the rock pile to the baby Black Current I was planting that needed a big rock to make sure the dirt didn't get washed away on the up-slope side during our heavy winter rains.

I'd never get anything done without Levers to help!

The green shutes poking up out of the soil, even though there was a week of ice and cold two weeks ago.  And sunshine.

... simply knowing that like the worst weather, life's harsher seasons will eventually pass.

My old dog Jenti trilling like a dolphin because she wanted to go for a walk.   This still makes me cry. I miss her so much.

Jenti Trilling

Looks like my fava bean grex has a good diversity - and drying nicely.

Nancy Reading wrote:Looks like my fava bean grex has a good diversity - and drying nicely.

These are gorgeous!!  

Which reminds me, time to start sowing my broad beans (and end of the time for sowing spinach) any time now.

I failed to achieve carrots this year, however one of the people I gave seeds to from my carrots from last year have now given me some of their carrots grown from my seeds
They said it has not been a good year for carrots - lots of split roots due to the wet summer following a dry spring - but that they got much better germination from my seed than their commercially bought seed. The carrots are mostly oranges, a few paler coloured ones. The biggest one is about 8 inches long! I'm planning to plant most of these to grow for seed next year, although I can't resist sampling a few

Here are my top ten.

To me happiness is:
1. New life of any kind, it being baby animals or sprouting seeds.
2. Meditating in my garden while listening to the birds singing, and the squirrels coming up close to see who I am.
3. Knowing  we have 2 years worth of food stored, so I don’t have to worry about how to feed my family.
4. Seeing our feral cats learning to trust, getting healthy and accepting love.
5. When I was told that thanks to our and others conservation work, our silver fox rabbits are off the endangered list.
6. It’s watching the gardens, I have worked and wished for, coming together even better than I thought it would.
7. Baking cinnamon rolls, with flour I grew, oil I pressed and eggs from our chickens.
8. Knowing that I am loved for who I am and don’t have to pretend to be something/someone else.
9. Looking into my husbands eyes and seeing his love and devotion to us and everyone around us.
10. Having someone bring me coffee in bed.

For me spending time with my grandbabies is pure happiness.  

Happiness for me is the moment that a spark of inspiration for a project enters my brain, which usually after coffee and a good night's sleep. I am happiest during the planning stage of a project, trying to bring that spark or idea into a physical reality.  If my creative mind stops sparking I know something is off and I need to get out into nature, sleep more and turn off the news.





More sparks :)

I like Ulla's post best because it acknowledges there are so MANY things. And it changes. After a lot of rain and clouds, having the sun comes out lifts my mood--but after a long drought like this year's, a little rain is cheering and soothing. A good hug with my husband brings a nice wash of oxytocin.  A hint that we might be able to bring this world out of its polycrisis after all, and seeing ways I can do my part. And yes--seeing the garlic and walking onions coming up, flowers in spring, also the vivid colors of fall and that taste in the air when it cools. Looking at something pretty, even a car with paint job that is not simply red but a deep, double-toned shade of brownish red...

I've been thinking about this one a lot lately. After suffering years of chronic headaches, fatigue, and dizziness (among other symptoms), I've come to recognize that it's the simple pleasures in life that make for happiness. I had to give up tea for a while, and now I savor it every morning.

A couple years ago a friend texted me a daily gratitude list; the list was so simple, like being greeted by his dog when he came home, yet so meaningful. At the time, I was on our land in southern Utah. It was a cold morning, the air was frosty, the sun was rising from behind redrock cliffs and turning the clouds pink, a hummingbird said hello, I had a hot cup of tea, a plate of pancakes, and a Louis L'Amour novel. I realized I was happy at that moment (it had been a while).

To me, happiness is gratitude for what I have, and marveling at how much i have to be happy about. It’s a spiral cycle of happiness!

Especially to Randy--that's it, happiness is a butterfly that comes and perches on your knee, and when you say, "Oh! I'm happy!" and try to catch it, it flits away. You can't recreate it deliberately (set yourself up with a cup of tea, the L'Amour novel etc)--the ingredients may help but it's not so plannable, definitive, as that. Especially when you're consciously trying (I've got the tea and the novel and all, now where's that damn butterfly?)
But a gratitude circle is a good idea. I saw that somewhere and tried it for a while with a few friend; each day we'd email the others, naming a couple things we were grateful for that day. Quit when it got to where I was the only one still doing it.

Mary Cook wrote:You can't recreate it deliberately (set yourself up with a cup of tea, the L'Amour novel etc)--the ingredients may help but it's not so plannable, definitive, as that. Especially when you're consciously trying (I've got the tea and the novel and all, now where's that damn butterfly?)

Agreed 100%. But I heard a story on the radio the other day that if, say over dinner with your family, you list two good things that happened that day, it becomes easier for you to recognize the good things in your life. Maybe the novel you're reading is boring and the butterfly isn't there (tea always tastes good though), at least there's the scent of lilacs in the air.

@Mary Cook wrote:
You can't recreate it deliberately (set yourself up with a cup of tea, the L'Amour novel etc)--the ingredients may help but it's not so plannable, definitive, as that. Especially when you're consciously trying (I've got the tea and the novel and all, now where's that damn butterfly?)

I believe you may have missed Randy’s point. I read that he has been through a lot. That days events led him to his tea, his book, and the realization that he was in a different mindset. That is what made him happy: he noticed the good left in his life.
Randy, I understand. I found myself smiling at a memory yesterday. I laughed and congratulated myself for overcoming with GOD’s blessings.

It, to me, has to do with where one is in life. I am of course getting older. But as I think back here are a few memories:

- Getting up way early to be out cutting alfalfa with an old double sickle bar when I could finally see in front of the tractor. By then everything was greased and the tractor warmed up. I went until I had to shut down to go to my 'job' which allowed my to cut the hay.

- Having a self employment job that made money and that nobody else did. I still provided a good value to the customer.

There are of course other things but these come to mind immediately.

I love this topic!

One – seeing the mulberry trees getting to be two or 3 feet tall after just one year!
2 – the relief of finding one of my birds after they've gone missing, or saying that they just come back to the hutch all of their own.
Three – how much love my dog has in his eyes when he looks at me
Four – having a problem come up and just knowing intuitively that the problem is the solution, and then I'm going to figure it out pretty soon.
Five – mulching! Why do I love mulching so much?? It just gives me so much joy to take a pile of stuff in my hands and toss it on the ground, and know that it's gonna keep moisture there for months after the last rain. I especially love, wood chip mulch, even while understanding all of the potential downsides of this, I got mine from the Highway Dept? so I'm fairly confident that there's zero herb besides in it, the Highway Dept? hasn't been allowed to use those in years, and die grow in it  Abundantly. Much more so than anywhere else on the land.
Six – seeing stone fruits getting growing in the mulch pile.
Seven – when my partner has dreams that just have such a deep feeling of balance and natural flow to them, and help me have my expanded mind open up and become awake
Eight – Rainwater catchment!!!
Nine – siphoning!
10 – fukuoka!!!  The feeling of ease and balance, trusting the part of me that's willing to let go of everything, let go of control, allow things to go really, really seemingly badly, and not be arsed to try and fight it
11 – a really good Paul podcast, while I'm washing the dishes, and the feeling of" oh my God, I could do that on my land! That would further Permaculture so solidly! Wow, that's a way way. Way way better idea than what I assumed was the best one possible!"  

I like what Lynne said about needing to stay with what sparking creativity, and how if it's not sparking anymore than something is off. Really good way of describing my own process. I've learned to distinguish between the excitement of hearing something amazing in a podcast, on the one hand, and actually implementing it in my own land, on the other.  Apples and oranges. It's like I need to translate it from one language into another, and express the essence of it in my own language, rather than trying to make it literal.

That reminds me of number 12, translating Permaculture into some thing that other people understand, who've never heard of Permaculture, and meeting them at the starting point where they are.

Happiness is finding a patch of  delicious  wild morel mushrooms 🤎

Kathy Gray wrote:Happiness is finding a patch of  delicious  wild morel mushrooms 🤎

Happiness is sharing....

Happiness is...
A good woman who has your back