0016

Digging a large garden by hand (or by foot) is monotonous work. Once you've defined the work to be done and set about doing it, there isn't much else; just do the work. Drive the spade. Lift the clod, turn it over, dig it down. Over and over, for hours. This does not require my brain's input, so my thoughts wander.

In this respect, repetitive manual labor can curiously become quite liberating. When I was employed as a software engineer, I was being paid to think; thinking was my livelihood; I was in effect leasing my brain to another. Now my thoughts are free; they are my own, and I can direct them as I wish.

So I think as I dig. Mostly I'm thinking about my idealogical goals, and about what concrete ways I should employ to pursue them. Grow my own food, of course. How about growing my own seeds as well? I've already saved some bean and pea seeds from my city garden. I even took a few potato berries last summer and got the seeds from them. I'll have to try planting them, and see how that works. Look for ways to cut down or eliminate all industrial and consumerist dependencies. I wonder if I could install a wind generator and get off the grid? Or could I learn to just live without electricity? That would mean cooking with wood, and dehydrating or canning food rather than freezing and refrigeration. Hmmm. And definitely look for ways to use less petroleum; that seems like a higher priority. Maybe I could get a horse, or a mule, to get around. I'll have to look at those old horse-drawn implements over in the meadow - figure out what they do, and whether they could be refurbished. I haven't seen a cart or wagon, though - I would need a horse-drawn cart. Maybe a plow, too, and relieve myself of this work, and enable me to work more land. Hmmmmmm.......

My thoughts are interrupted occasionally by hunger or thirst, or the need to stretch. Or by the sights and sounds of nature that are sometimes still a novelty to me. I think I hear something crashing through the woods, but when I look up, I see nothing. Was it a bear? A phoebe sings its little song, and I whistle back in reply. I hear a snorting, and I look up in time to see a buck staring at me, about 75 feet away, on the edge of the treeline. "What? You don't like the way I smell?" He turns and walks away.

Meanwhile, the garden is taking shape. I even start planting a few things. I've planted some lettuce, and a few radishes and peas in both the main garden and the front patch, to see which location might be better. And once or twice a day I take time to pump, pump, pump the well. Still getting sand. But it is good water; I'm drinking it now, after letting the sand settle out.