The Quiet Work

All The Good Things Happening Behind the Scenes at CAF!

Most of the time, this substack is following along with a woman’s struggle to keep her home and dream going. And honestly, it’s not always a mood enhancer. I know reading this can be concerning (at best) depending on how hard it’s been to make a living. And since anxiety is always winning the emotional horse race in my mind—those thoughts of lack or fear are what get written about—mostly as a way to hang my ghosts out to dry.

But I think it’s time to share some good news.

To catch you up for context: In the late fall of 2021 I was dumped by the person I thought I was going to marry. (I was naive as hell and it was my first committed, living together, queer relationship.) We spent nearly two years and a pandemic basically rebuilding this farm from scratch. Putting in the kind of energy and effort I never had as a struggling single person.

And after they left I knew I was capable of backsliding again. Instead of sinking into self pity (there was a decent grieving period, I am a cancer after all) I decided that not only would I continue the work we started together, I would improve on it. And over the past 2-3 years I have kept that promise every single day. Literally.

Every day I have to do something that improves this farm. It can be as complicated as hours expanding and rewiring a pig pen or it can be as simple as weeding one small patch of the garden. It doesn’t matter. Organize one drawer. Paint one small wall. Drive three bags of trash to the dump. Replace a dead lightbulb. Anything will do.

And small changes add up, folks. They really do.

That first year after they left I kept every system we created going, indoors and out. I expanded the gardens, growing more food in more places. I kept the path they created through the woods tended and added solar lights to make it feel more magical and beloved. I continued the work we did of cleaning this house and organizing it. (Turns out living alone in the wood for a decade barely making it work builds up a lot of dust.) And I started making lists and plans for bigger jobs that felt impossible, breaking them up into in smaller chunks. Things like this, made all the difference. It was an uphill clawing, but I still ended up on a better ledge.

Because even though I was depressed and alone, I must have felt I was worthy of improving my life and home for something, even if it was to prove to myself the time that person spent on me and my farm wasn’t wasted. That I would carry it forward and keep making my life better…

In the last three years:

• Went from being carless to owning a car, title in hand

• Expanded gardens and food production on my land

• Patched the roof in two places (3-5 to go)

• Maintained and improved the forest path

• Extended and repaired the pig pen

• Started lambing again!

• Repaired and re-laid flooring in the bathroom

• Lifted the sagging kitchen floor in the same area

• Built an outdoor deck/porch area with plants and grass on a concrete slab

• Created stone walls for landscaping/water runoff management

• Got a professional to fell dead trees around the house

• Painted and decorated the front/dining room

• Raised a perfect cat son from a kitten

• Filled my home with plants and cheery lighting and MUSIC

• Reworked and managed all the pasture systems

• Developed a dedicated yoga practice

• Heading towards four years sober (California sober)

• Went from being unable to walk a mile to river wading to HIKING AGAIN!

• Dropped 25lbs

• Trimmed back overgrown bushes overtaking the house

• Learned basic plumbing and how to wire household electronics

• Started teaching falconry instead of just practicing it solo

• Went to the motherfucking ERAS TOUR!!!

• Replaced my 20 year-old-hand-me-down mattress

• Painted and redecorated my bedroom
  (with $36 in magenta paint and stuff already in my house)

• Launched a substack to save a dying writing career

• Launched a podcast and started being a guest on others!

  

  I always forget to mention I write books, too. If you’re more analog about type.

And a lot of this is fairly recent, within the last year, all of it thanks to finally dealing with and medicating my depression.

Holy Crow, what a game changer that was. Three days into enhanced serontin and I decided to start this substack. It was a reader’s idea, not mine (Thank you Toni, my first Founding Member). That was eight months ago. Since then I have gained over a thousand subscribers and a couple hundred patrons, and thanks to you, I have earned more from my writing in 2024 than I have in the last decade combined.

When people ask what I do these days, I tell them I’m a writer.

I stopped doing that years ago because I felt so ashamed that every book I pitched, every idea I had, got shot down by agents and publishers. So once again, I hired myself to try something hard and new. This substack is why I am finally this close to catching up. It’s like having a roommate again, financially speaking. My electric bill is caught up? There aren’t disconnection notices showing up anymore. If I’m lucky I’ll keep growing patrons of my story and work and be able to fully support myself farming and writing, which was the goal 12 year ago when I started this, and is still an uphill battle.

But this coming year, I want to be caught up. I want to start a savings account. I want to pay off old debts. I want to repair the roof and stop any more damage. I want to hike on the AT again. I want to lose 12-14 hours at a time in a woman’s arms. I want to look ripped as hell in a tank top. I want to wake up on a September morning knowing I won’t be homeless in October and actually enjoy and experience a fall on this farm not tainted with anxiety and constant, nonstop, fear I made the worst decisions in my one life and all I ended up with was a failing farm alone on a mountain.

But that’s not happening. What is happening is healing, hope, and a sense of esteem I never had before. I carry myself different. I stopped apologize for being myself. I keep toxic people at bay. I put myself out there online in a way that I never have before and the returns have been amazing. They’ve been life changing.

Thank you so much for being a part of this story in progress. I know it seems like a slog, because changing your life doesn’t happen overnight, not for most of us. It happens deciding to weed one section of the garden today, even if you don’t feel like it. It happens asking a girl out you don’t think would be interested. It happens sending $25 to a debt at a time and slowly watching your bills get paid as you go.

And mostly, it happens because I finally felt I deserved it. That I was not only worthy of healing and love, but demanded it from myself. And the people that truly cared about me, friends and neighbors, leant their ears and advice and time and energy towards helping someone do a little better, a little at a time.

Things are getting better. There’s a chance this could be the best Autumn of my life. I’m so excited to finally be coming up for air, even if I’m still treading water.

You’re witnessing someone doing the impossible at the end of the world, and I might even still fall in love or sell a book or see the Northern Lights or something amazing like that!

There’s still time. For the longest while, I forgot.

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Also! Today my episode of Way Out Here drops. It’s a new northeastern-based podcast by and for small town queers! I had such a lovely time recording and talking with Laurel, and hope some of you will check it out, because we need more rural queer voices and more conversations about Late Blooming!