How I found relief from costochondritis

About five years ago, I developed a dull ache in my chest. At that time, I was farming and doing overly intense workouts. I figured the discomfort would go away in time. But instead, the pain went from dull to an inflamed sensation that worsened at night. It became so painful that I couldn’t take deep breaths. I (stupidly) didn’t seek help, and kept telling myself it would get better on its own.

And while the pain would lessen in the winter, as soon as a new farm season rolled around in March, it came back in full force. It took me two seasons to finally tell Jason. (For me, telling someone meant having to admit to myself that I had a problem.) When I finally did come clean, he felt terrible and immediately sought answers.

What I was experiencing was costochondritis. It’s an inflammation of the cartilage that connects the ribs to the breastbone. Pain caused by costochondritis can mimic a heart attack or other heart problems. Medical websites say it has no apparent direct cause, and treatment focuses on easing the pain while you wait to get better. It’s more common in women. Some medical websites classify costochondritis as “relatively harmless,” but while it may not be dangerous, it sure makes a person miserable. Even when I wasn’t having a total flare up, the dull pain remained and my breaths were shallow. When it was really bad, it felt like I was suffocating and made me panicky.

All of our research wasn’t turning up any relief. Since everything we read focused on costochondritis being a chest issue, I focused on my chest, doing chest-opening yoga and stretches. But none of this helped, actually it made it way worse. Visits to the chiropractor helped with other issues, but did nothing for my chest.

Then, Jason found two online physical therapists: Bob and Brad (Bob Shrupp and Brad Heineck). One of them has costochondritis. To explain the problem, they compared the ribs to rusty bucket handles — that rust needs to be worked off. They also confirmed that chest-opening exercises seemed to do more harm than good. Two of their videos turned my situation around entirely.

Here they are:

Video 1

And this one, which truly unlocked relief for me:

Video 2

Around the 10:50 mark there’s an exercise that gave me my breath back. You stand with your feet about hip-width apart, and raise up your elbows — fist pressed to palm — and swivel. I did this every morning, and noticed improvement after just a few days! After all this time? This was what I needed to do? Thirty seconds of simple motion!

I’ve been doing this exercise regularly for about three years now, especially after a day of weeding or heavy lifting. The pain still flares up now and then, but the swivel motion eases it, and lets me breathe normally.

~ Stella

Time for a new chapter

We have four lists hanging on our fridge. They’re lists of what we’re planning to put in the last CSA shares of the season. We’ve made these lists for eight years. In that time, we’ve packed weekly produce shares, June through October, for more than 300 households total. That’s close to 6,000 shares.

After eight years, we’re opening to a fresh page for the farm, and our family, and doing so means it’s time to end the CSA. We’re grateful for everything the CSA helped us do, and we’re also excited for the future.

We’ve found ourselves in the fortunate position of no longer requiring the CSA to financially sustain our family or farm. If you’ve followed our story, you know that Jason left his full-time job in December. He started his own business as a grant writer and project manager. To our complete and joyous surprise, this business was immediately able to support our family.

And while this was wonderful news for us, it did upend our year. This was supposed to be the season when we farmed full time, with Jason’s new business operating on the side for added financial security. To keep ourselves sane, we decreased our farm workload in the ways that we could. This meant focusing on the CSA, while drastically scaling back retail sales, and only attending the farmers market when it did not put too much strain on our week.

Next year, we’ll be doing the reverse. We’ll return to selling to local outlets, and we’ll be regulars again at the farmers market.

This farm reset will open up time and energy for long overdue personal and professional goals, and allow us much more time with family. It will also allow us to retool the farm. We’re drawing up plans for an entirely new farm layout (one of the benefits of a business built of soil!), and rethinking what we’ll plant and how much. There’s a new, exciting energy flowing into our lives.

We’re grateful for everything the CSA gave us. It’s because of the CSA that there’s even a farm. And it gave us the confidence to make the leap to self-employment, a decision that has changed our lives in the most fantastic way. Along the way, we’ve met people who will be special to us always. We’ve finished Part 1 of the farm’s story. Time for the sequel.

~ Stella

A little weeding...

Last year, the farm was aesthetically pleasing for most of the season. The rows were (mostly) neat and tidy, and we were proud to show it off. This year, it’s quite aesthetically displeasing. Yet, despite the weeds, it’s been a good year so far, so we’re just not going to worry about what it looks like this season.

We did, however, need to clear out one spot, or risk losing our celery, which Jason started from seed in February and tended to for weeks before we transplanted it in June.

This was the sitch on Sunday morning:

Believe it or not, there were four rows of tiny celery in this mess, as well as rosemary.

We pulled a few weeds by lunchtime. Haha!

Getting better. The celery looks droopy because it literally hasn’t experienced full sun in weeks.

Way in the back, there was a section of celery that was a lost cause. Some kind of grass that was nearly impossible to pull had taken hold (and was no joke 4 feet tall!). We salvaged any celery we could from that section and transplanted it. Then, we mowed the grass down. The celery and rosemary are tucked all snug in straw and getting a long watering. On the far left, you see heirloom tomatoes.

Here’s proof that we do crawl out from under the weeds every now and then. Fingernails mostly clean. We had my best friend and her children stay with us last week, and she took Silas and her boys on an adventure day. We declared that we were wrapping up farm work in the morning and doing something fun — just the two of us. We checked out Davenport Fruit Farm Cidery and Winery — what a cool place! It was so nice to relax for a few peaceful hours. And, yes, we spent much of that time talking about… the farm!

And I’ll close things out with a tomato photo because we’re elbows deep in tomatoes right now. Enjoy the rest of your August. Nights are getting cooler. School’s about to start and we’re half way through the CSA season.

~ Stella

Best laid plans

If you know what they say about “best laid plans,” then you’re wiser than we were last year. We thought we had 2022 all figured out, and then it unfolded in a completely unexpected way from the start.

We’re happy to report that the unexpected turn of events this year has been a true gift to our family. Last year, Jason started his own grant writing and project management firm. Basically, he's continuing to use the skills he acquired during his decade in local government, but in the private sector on his own schedule.

This was supposed to be a side gig — just something for added financial security. As soon as he left his full-time county government job in December, his new business took flight — and it hasn’t touched down yet. We even recently completed the steps necessary to make me an employee of the business. We definitely did not see that coming.

To keep ourselves from going crazy with work this year, we’ve scaled back how much we harvest and sell. While the CSA remained unchanged from last year (about 50 families, 18 weeks of produce), we decided to step back from online sales and regular farmers market appearances. We LOVE setting up a stand at the Meadville Market House on Saturday mornings, but we could not maintain that level of time/physical labor every week this season. We skipped the past few Saturdays to catch up on the farm and enjoy family time — and just breathe! FYI: We do expect to be at the farmers market this Saturday (July 30).

We’re learning to set boundaries with the farm, and work in general. This season, our farm priority is the CSA. Beyond that, we’re not doing anything if it stretches us too thin.

We definitely didn’t see this plot twist coming, but we’re glad it did. We’ve been 100 percent self-employed for seven months now. Our new business has given us financial freedom and freedom when it comes to the farming choices we make. We’re still busy making plans for 2023, of course, because we’re planners. But we’re remembering to factor in enjoying life and our family and friends in those plans.

~ Stella

Connections to the past

My mother’s mother was entirely Polish; her name was Esther. Esther’s father sailed from Poland to America, where he met his future wife, who was also Polish. (My mother’s father was Lithuanian.) My grandmother could speak and read Polish. When she gave us the Polish word for something, she lowered her voice, like the sounds were coming from deep down, and she’d punctuate the lesson with a big, proud grin.

My mother moved away from her Ohio family long before I was born, and I didn’t feel much connection to her Polish ancestry. When we’d return for weddings, I’d scramble out of the way to avoid being swept up in the fearsomely fast polkas. (Polka, by the way, isn’t actually a Polish invention. My indifference in acknowledging this fact is proof of how removed I am from my Polish roots.)

But a few years ago, I started following the site, Polish Your Kitchen, out of curiosity. It was fun to read the recipes, but most of them were either meat-centric or more complicated than I was willing to tackle.

Then, I came across Anna’s recipe for zupa fasolowa (fah-soh-loh-vah), a hearty Polish bean soup. I was curious to try it, so I added vegetarian bacon and marjoram to my grocery list. It had been awhile since my cupboard was stocked with marjoram. Apparently, it’s a traditional Polish seasoning.

When it was time to make the soup, Jason helped, and we invited Silas to drag a chair to the counter. When Silas was little, he used to drive me crazy with always wanting to help in the kitchen. Now, sometimes I’ll ask him to help, and he’ll say, “That’s OK,” and keep playing. But tonight, he wanted to be included in this mom-and-dad activity, plus he was highly curious about this fake bacon we kept talking about.

While Jason diced carrot and onion, and taught Silas how to cook (fake) bacon, I chopped potatoes. Everything smelled so good, and we had a warm fire crackling. Silas was chatty and precious, standing on his chair and stirring the pot. I just felt so damn happy.

You know when you’re cooking something, and you just know it’s going to be delicious? That’s how I felt, and a sample taste proved me right. This soup’s combination of smokiness and allspice makes it warm and cozy. I’m proudly adding this Polish zupa to my repertoire.

I also learned a good tip from Anna’s recipe. To thicken your water-based soup with flour (and keep it clump free), separately whisk together cold water and a few tablespoons flour, then add it to your cooked soup ingredients.

Here’s my zupa fasolowa.

History has been on my mind lately.

Earlier this week, the snowpack we’ve had since early January was coaxed to slush by warm southwest winds and sunshine. We finished up school early so we could enjoy the novelty of deep snow and balmy breezes. Even Luna was panting by the time we reached the farm.

Inside the high tunnels, it was hot enough to strip to a T-shirt. We took down the rest of the tomato hooks, and then relaxed in the sun. Jason and Silas tossed a ball the length of the Big Tunnel for Luna, and I rested on a bucket.

After a few minutes, head-to-toe warmth in February had me under its spell. I sank down on a straw-covered row and closed my eyes. When Jason and Silas left for home, I stayed. It felt like I was on the beach, with the wind like waves and the whipping plastic like sails. Last season’s straw had been soaking up the sun all morning. I’ve never had a spa treatment, but I don’t think they could do much better. It was one of those rare moments of luxuriant rest that come only in solitude, especially if you’re a mother.

Lying there, my thoughts turned to who else might have set foot here. Who has passed through this place? I’m approaching middle age, and it has me thinking often about those who came before me and those who will follow. This stage of life has that effect.

Before it was our farm, there were hooves that pressed the grass into the earth. My parents’ horses. But this equine fact is the extent of my definite knowledge of this land. It’s only been in my family about 30 years. However, there are ruins that provide a major clue to its history.

An old homestead lays at the bottom of the hill. A foundation remains from a home, and there’s a stone springhouse guarding a still prolific spring. You’re guaranteed to find broken crockery in the trickle that leads from the springhouse. Judging from the towering heights of the apple trees in the old orchard, they were likely planted by that farm family. Surely one of them tread where I lay.

I don’t know when the land was cleared. But it must have been woods at one time. Perhaps a tree grew exactly where I lay, and an ax man braced himself in this spot.

And before that, perhaps a leather-wrapped foot stepped softly here, heading downhill to what we know as the East Branch of Little Sugar.

All the possibilities suddenly spooked me, and I sat up, wanting to sever the connection between the ground and my thoughts. Imagine all that may have transpired in this spot? Could there have been incidents of great personal significance? A death? A birth? Or perhaps it was an ephemeral encounter. Just a hunter traversing the woods. Those kind of thoughts get you thinking about your own fleeting time walking the earth. And who will touch this ground decades from now, or centuries? They’ll never know that I kneeled here to pick peppers and cucumbers, and had some of the happiest moments with my family. And they would never guess that I laid on a bed of straw and wondered about them.

~ Stella

Kicking caffeine: from withdrawal to 6 months later

Yes, that’s a lemon, not coffee. It’ll make more sense later.

I started drinking coffee around age 9. In my parents’ defense, they brew coffee so weak you can see through it. But ever since, I have loved - no, worshipped - coffee. My first solo outing as a kid was actually to a coffee shop. We were visiting my grandparents in Ohio, and there was a place a few blocks down the street. Little Stella slapped on her snap bracelets, stuffed the pages of her notebook-paper novel into what was no doubt a sparkly folder, and proudly walked downtown. It was an afternoon of pure bliss, and coffee and writing (productivity, actually) remained neatly zippered together in my mind for more than two decades after.

But I started to doubt the benefit of my relationship with coffee earlier this year after investing a lot of time into learning about women’s health. The most influential voice was Alisa Vitti, founder of Flo Living, and author of Woman Code. Her life’s work is helping women sync with the four phases of their monthly cycle.

In her lectures and on her website, she advises women to quit caffeine. While I followed many of the recommendations in her book, and was happy with the outcomes, I let the caffeine warning fall on deaf ears because I absolutely did not want to give it up.

As the months passed, Vitti’s advice showed me how delicate a balance eating and drinking can be, and this pushed me toward suspicion when it came to the psychoactive beans that had started all my days for the past 27 years.

Vitti’s main argument against caffeine has to do with blood sugar. She writes on Flo Living that drinking coffee before breakfast (as I usually did) can “sabotage your blood sugar.” Vitti’s been saying this for years, but her assertion is now backed by research published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

Unstable blood sugar is detrimental for a long list of reasons. In the short term, when we begin the day with a spike, it sends us on a rollercoaster of moods and cravings for the rest of the day, Vitti says. It also sets off a cascade of hormone imbalances that have a big impact on a woman.

Vitti puts it this way:

“The problem is when blood sugar rises too high, as is the case when we eat a lot of sugar or, according to this new study, when we have coffee before breakfast. Blood sugar surges and so does insulin, and those spikes interfere with ovulation, which messes up progesterone production and contributes to one of the most common, and most troublesome, hormone imbalances: estrogen dominance.”

And on top of that:

“Overexposure to sugar and insulin can also contribute to fat storage and weight gain, and that can make estrogen dominance even worse. Add all this together with the synthetic estrogens we’re exposed to in the environment, and you’re set up for progesterone deficiency, estrogen dominance, and symptom-causing hormone imbalances. Hormone imbalances are why women in their reproductive years experience problems like PMS, acne, bloating, infertility, heavy or irregular cycles, and other hormone issues.”

Caffeine also spikes cortisol (the stress hormone) production in women, Vitti says, and this also leads to multiple issues.

After learning all of this, I began to accept that coffee might have me trapped in a vicious cycle.

As writer Michael Pollan explains in his book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, the main reason that morning cup of coffee feels like throwing open a sunny window to the day has less to do with caffeine’s stimulant nature, and more to do with how that first taste is actually relieving our first withdrawal symptoms. Pollan abstained from caffeine for three months and wrote all about it in his book, along with an illuminating history of coffee.

When we eat or drink caffeine, the caffeine molecule fits in a receptor in our central nervous system. By taking up this position, it blocks the neuromodulator that would naturally link up with that receptor. The particular neuromodulator that caffeine disrupts is called adenosine. Adenosine, when able to bind with its receptor, has a sleep-inducing effect on the brain. Throughout the day, adenosine builds up in our bodies and prepares us for rest. Actually, it pressures us to rest. So when caffeine swoops in and binds with adenosine’s receptors, it interferes with our desire to sleep. Spend even a few minutes researching how sleep works, or go a few hours without it in a night, and you know exactly why this is problematic. Caffeine insidiously presents itself as the cheerful solution to our problems each new morning, when it’s actually the agent of all the chaos.

Vitti would add that caffeine’s tampering with sleep also throws a woman’s hormones off kilter, leading to a wave of problems.

But as with just about any health matter, the more research you do, the more confusing and conflicting the information gets.

In Bill Bryson’s fascinating book, The Body, I noticed that he has only one line about caffeine. Caffeine “slightly counteracts” adenosine’s effects, he writes, “which is why a cup of coffee perks you up.” Even if this is true, I certainly drank a lot more than a single cup in a day, so my reality likely leaned toward Pollan’s more alarmist findings.

For most people, the quarter life of caffeine is about 12 hours. That means that 25 percent of the caffeine you consumed at noon is still coursing through you at midnight.

And then there’s research that supports coffee’s possible health benefits. At first glance, these studies may seem to let coffee off the hook, but Vitti points out that the information we have about coffee’s health benefits is derived from mostly scientific research that focuses on men.

Ultimately, I decided to try Vitti’s advice. I went cold turkey in August 2021. Here’s a daily journal of my withdrawal experiences, and an update on six months later.

NO-CAFFEINE JOURNAL

DAY 1 - Started the morning optimistic about my caffeine-free adventure. I drank two cups of caffeine-free tea, and ate a big breakfast. I did a few chores and then made lunch. Then, at 1 p.m. EST, the ground split open under my feet, spewing forth hellfire. That’s how it felt anyway. I was tired to the bone and had a pounding headache. The light through the windows hurt my head and I was in a fog. The world literally didn’t look right, and that was the weirdest part. There was an actual blueish haze everywhere. After a nap, the headache was so bad I made myself a damned cup of coffee and took an ibuprofen. The headache eased, but I remained super sluggish. These are all common caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Caffeine withdrawal, I later learned, is actually included in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-5).

DAY 2 - The cold turkey approach was clearly a no-go, so I had two cups of caffeine-free tea before breakfast, and one cup of caffeinated coffee with my meal. I drank it quickly and didn’t tote my mug around all morning as I usually did. I had a slight headache and felt a little tired. I made a point to stay hydrated and took an ibuprofen.

DAY 3 - No time for lollygagging with tea this morning. Needed to beat the heat and dig potatoes and pick tomatoes. One cup of coffee with breakfast. (Jason had bought black cherry coffee - my favorite!) No headache or brain fuzziness. No need for ibuprofen. Energy was high.

NEXT THREE DAYS - I kept the single cup of coffee with breakfast routine.

DAY 7 - I made myself a 3/4 cup of coffee with breakfast, took a few sips, then forgot about it. I probably only drank a 1/2 cup.

DAY 8 - Skipped coffee altogether. Around 3 p.m., I was extremely tired. It was Saturday, so I took a long nap.

DAY 9 - Skipped coffee again. Made myself a golden coconut milk tea (recipe below).

THE FIRST FEW MONTHS…

The list of potential caffeine withdrawal symptoms is a real bummer. In addition to temporary headache and fatigue, there are some truly dispiriting ones, like decreased focus and motivation, and a loss of confidence. Those were the three that freaked me out. As a writer, concentration and the desire to move projects forward is critical; plus, I need to live in a bubble of delusion that convinces me what I’m doing is worthwhile.

In those first few months, Pollan captured exactly how I felt in his own description of life after caffeine. He said he felt “like an unsharpened pencil.” He wrote that “this new normal world seemed duller to me. I seemed duller, too.” That was me to a T.

I do have an addendum to these first couple of months. This was far from my best year, so I don’t know if my sudden depletion of joie de vivre was thanks to a lack of caffeine, or just life in general kicking me in the pants. During that same time, I also ended up with a virus (not Covid) that led to bronchitis, and was sick for about five weeks, so my low energy could have just as easily been from illness than lack of caffeine. Bronchitis and no caffeine; I was barrels of fun.

My biggest fear was that cutting caffeine would permanently impact my creativity. A little research ahead of time would have assuaged this concern. Since caffeine withdrawal did decrease my motivation and made me feel duller, the matters became conflated in my mind. In other words, no coffee, no think-y.

HOW ABOUT NOW?

It’s been six months since my last sip of caffeinated coffee or tea. In the mornings, I drink hot lemon water (it’s seriously refreshing), or sometimes decaf with a small amount of cream. Most decaf coffee actually does contain a trace amount of caffeine. Decaffeination removes around 97 percent or more of the caffeine in the beans. For comparison, a cup of decaf typically has about 2 mg of caffeine, whereas a cup of regular coffee has about 95 mg. When I do drink decaf in the morning, I drink it with breakfast.

Jason still has his morning psychoactive cup, and he buys the most delicious smelling local beans. I enjoy the aroma of the coffee each morning, but I don’t feel a longing to brew any for myself.

The overarching sense of dullness eventually wore off. I don’t feel like an unsharpened pencil anymore, but I do feel like I’ve undergone some kind of softening. Not intellectually (that would be bad!), but there’s been a change in my overall mood. There’s been an internal quieting. Most noticeably, I’m less irritable, especially with my young son. Now, again, my life has calmed down from last year, so maybe less stress in general is the reason for these changes. I don’t know, but six months out, I’m not interested in finding out. To put it simply, I’m over coffee.

I’ve come to appreciate my baseline energy level. There is a sense of peace in knowing that the energy I have is a credit to sleep and nutrition and exercise, rather than a drug.

A FEW RECOMMENDATIONS IF YOU WANT TO QUIT

1.) Don’t go cold turkey. Ease off caffeine. This might take you a week or two or more, depending on how much caffeine you eat/drink.

2.) Have a go-to substitute drink, like caffeine-free tea or lemon water. Check out the golden coconut milk recipe below.

3.) Find yourself a quality decaf. I’d recommend a local roaster and whole beans. Remember, most decaf does have a small amount of caffeine. I spend a little extra money for the water process decaf vs. the chemically-processed decaf. A big part of my coffee habit was the comfort in sitting down with a nice, hot, creamy cup, and I found myself missing it most when I was say, settling in to call a friend, or on a rainy afternoon with a book. The decaf option fills this need perfectly fine.

GOLDEN COCONUT MILK

About 1 1/2 cups of water

2 tablespoons coconut milk

1 teaspoon turmeric

Pinch of pepper

Cinnamon, to taste

Nutmeg, to taste

Honey, to taste

DIRECTIONS: Heat water and coconut milk. Add turmeric, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey. Stir.

~ Stella

Enjoying the winter storm, heating with wood & adjusting to self-employed finances

From my pillow, the woods behind the house is visible. In winter, my gaze threads the spaces between branches, able to dart a short distance until the lattice of limbs becomes a gray wall. But when I woke on Monday, the snow had stacked thick on the branches, halting my view at the first row of treetops, much like in summer.

About a foot of snow had piled on overnight. Just a day before the storm, the ground and air were bone dry. On a walk up to the farm, the wind sent leaves clattering across the road and rushing through the woods. It felt like a late-autumn day. Now, the woods was heavy. The snow weighed everything down. The branches of the thorn apple looked like fat, white, spiked dinosaur tails.

Before the storm, Jason hauled firewood from the backyard stacks to our basement. In a less chaotic year, we would have stored wood under our porch, just a few steps from the house. But this year, we’re stuck playing catch up all winter. Jason cut and hauled enough wood in from the forest, but he has to split it every few weeks, and then we take turns dragging it to the house in either a cart or sled. One of Jason’s oft-quoted sayings is, “Firewood is so nice, it warms you twice.” First, the chopping warms you, then the flames. This year, we could say it warms us thrice, or four times, or more. Chop it. Haul it. Stack it. Split it. Drag it to the house. Stack it in the basement. Carry it up the darned stairs!

If you’ve never experienced wood stove heat, this may not sound worth it. But wood heat is a different kind of warm. There’s something about having those orange flames glowing in the Buck Stove in the middle of our humble dwelling. For more than a million years, we’ve fed the flames and they’ve nourished us with heat. That bond is alive and well as I sit in my chair and type, listening to clicks and crackles and pops coming from the stove. In winter, the low grumble of the fire is always in the background here. The peak of luxury is crossing my legs at the ankles, and feeling waves of heat wash against the bottoms of my feet.

Before bed, we load up the stove, but it usually burns out at some point in the early morning. This makes for a chilly house before breakfast. With a mild winter thus far, the lowest temperature in the house was 53 degrees in the main living area. Back in the bedrooms, it’s cooler. If I wake up, and my sinuses feel near froze, the only relief is to tuck my forehead in the warm bowl Jason’s shoulder blades make when he sleeps on his side.

The chill is temporary. We dress in layers, and there are enough morning chores to warm us up. Layers and movement, the two best remedies for cold. Within a few hours, the temperature rises to the mid 60s. By evening, it’s in the 70s, thanks to old Buck.

Working full time and farming made finding time to tend to firewood difficult for Jason. Now that he’s home, one of his goals is to get a year or two ahead with firewood gathering. Time, we trust, will be our greatest asset in this new life.

Not a bad way to get some exercise.

After the big snowfall, Silas and I went sled riding with Luna. Our house sits on a knoll that’s steep enough to cut a decent track. Earlier this month, Jason and Silas managed to sled ride with just a dusting on this knoll as I watched from the window. When you’re a wife, but also a mother to a young son, there’s usually at least one person trying to show off for you much of the time. Silas would look over his shoulder and smile at me on his way down the hill. Jason would at least wait until he reached the bottom to catch my eye and grin. Admittedly, there is something still quite thrilling about having him show off for me after more than 20 years together.

While Silas and I zipped down this same hill, Jason used a shop broom to sweep snow off the little propagation high tunnel, which crumples like a squashed bug under heavy snow. After brushing it off, he gets underneath and pushes up from inside until it pops back up.

Afterward, Jason strapped on snowshoes and trudged uphill to the farm to sweep off the kale tunnel.

Just in from sweeping snow from the tunnels. Lots of snow, lots of sweat.

After lunch, we trekked up the road to sled ride at Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin, which sits atop a long slope. At times, we were playing in the middle of a blizzard, with snow tumbling down and blowing all around.

While Jason and Silas kept sledding, I enjoyed the rare opportunity to swing on a swing and leap off without shooting thunderbolts up both my ankles, thanks to foot-deep white padding.

We’re making the most of all this snow, Silas especially, of course. Is there any greater test of woman’s endurance than the repeated bundling and unbundling of a child in snow clothes?

One year, we made a family pact to sled ride every day that we could. The rule was, a Ruggiero had to go down a hill at least once, provided there was enough snow. We set impressive streaks, going weeks at at a time without missing a day. With Jason at work, it was mostly Silas and I who carried out the pact. Watching them both from my snowy swing made this a merry blizzard.

Friends who know about trees: What is this lavender stripe?

ADJUSTING TO SELF-EMPLOYMENT

We’re in our first month as self-employed people. In the weeks leading up to Jason’s final day with his old employer (and his final paycheck), I spent a lot of time thinking about how to best handle the money flow in our house now.

Ever since starting (and completing) our debt-free journey, I’ve had my consistent system, which was based on the arrival of regular earnings. Now, our income comes from two primary sources (Spark Community Capital and the farm), and we’re no longer on the standard twice-a-month paycheck schedule that we’ve known our entire adult lives.

I needed to come up with a new system to ensure we always had enough money in the hopper. The last thing I want is to have to sound the alarm each month. We do not want to scramble. The whole point of our low cost of living is to enjoy a life free from money struggle.

As part of our new system, we opened another checking account. This account serves as a holding pen for the next month’s bills, so we’re always a month ahead no matter what. With our new system, we should always have enough funds for the current month’s bills, and the upcoming month. This lets us divert “extra” money to savings, family fun, and charity, etc. The idea is that we’ll always have time to replenish the family coffers and avoid lean times.

We also brought back our sinking funds account. Sinking funds are money that we set aside every month to pay for upcoming (usually large expenses), such as car and home insurance (paid in full, not monthly), and spring and fall property taxes. That fund was key to helping us get out of debt. It kept us from dealing with any expensive “surprises” throughout the year. (They weren’t really surprises, of course, but sometimes those larger bills sneak up on you.)

I’m convinced that the key to making our self-employment work is laying out a monthly budget, and sticking to it. We don’t see budgets as restrictive. For us, they’re a way of maintaining peace of mind in our home.

Our current monthly personal budget generally looks like this. (Note: Spark pays its own bills, and the farm pays for itself, as well. The list below is for our household, and doesn’t contain costs such as taxes.)

FEBRUARY 2022

— House-related payments: $620

— Internet: $100 … Our internet out here in the sticks is so lousy, that we started tracking every day it’s patchy, and our internet speed. Our line is likely cracked somewhere, and Verizon has apparently no intention of ever digging it up and fixing it. I requested a sort of peace agreement with the company: they’ll keep providing sub par internet, and we’ll only pay for sub par internet. They offered to give me a monthly discount for a year, and a one-time $65 discount for lost service in January. I’m going to keep tracking, and keep calling, so we’ll see what happens. We’re also exploring other internet options because it is a hinderance to our businesses. Normally, our bill for a landline and internet is about $100 a month. With the discounts, our February bill should actually be about $28.)

— Electric: $200 … This varies, depending on the time of year. During the farm season, we power grow lights and the walk-in cooler, and our bill tops out around $200. This time of year, our bill is around $130, but I typically budget $200 anyway out of habit.

— Groceries: $400 per month … During the winter, we go to the grocery store twice a month.

— Gasoline: $90 … We budgeted for three tanks of gas, given that Jason no longer has a commute.

TOTAL FOR BILLS, GROCERIES, AND GAS: $1,410

Note: We’re being extremely cautious with spending in this first year, as we figure out how to navigate self-employment. With January going smoothly thus far, I did build some spending money in our February budget for things like birthday gifts and family fun (about $150 total).

From burnout to feeling awe again

My self-assigned project this month was to write a preview for Season 8. Even with so much to share, I couldn’t find the motivation. I think, perhaps, it’s because I needed to write this post first, and square up about the past year.

From memes to movies, there’s a tendency to romanticize farm life. There are those who believe a homestead in the country solves all your problems. While there may be slivers of truth in the idea, I don’t want to perpetuate the notion that a farm life equals a perfect life.

While I usually bear no ill will toward the year about to pass, come the 31st of December, I will look over my shoulder and give an insolent sniff at the preceding months.

For much of 2021, I was trapped in a grind; burned out. Given how others have suffered through the pandemic, I’m hesitant to admit as much, even embarrassed. Unfortunately, perspective on what I was feeling didn’t help me jump the negative track I was on, in fact, it made me feel worse.

The last time I felt this way was senior year of college. At that time, I worked full time for a local newspaper and part time for my college paper (although that job felt more like full time). A full course load felt like an afterthought every day. The nonstop combination of work and school led to sleep deprivation and a period of depression.

What I remember from that time was living in an emotionally-flatlined state. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t care about anything. My wedding was coming up that summer, and I couldn’t even find the energy to pick out a color for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Since I needed to choose something, I settled on black. Elegant for an evening wedding, perhaps, but not an afternoon ceremony in a sunny, summer garden. I remember asking my mother to take on all wedding-related decisions and she did so, happy to help, but probably perplexed at my willingness to turn over all control of the special day. The color had drained out of life, and joy washed away with it.

For awhile, I was in such a rut I couldn’t see a way out of it. I needed to finish school. I took pride in my campus job and walking out on it seemed irresponsible. And I was on the cusp of graduating, on the eve of the Great Recession. Quitting my full-time employment seemed foolish. In all of this, ego factored in, too, I’ll sheepishly admit. When a coworker at the full-time job inadvertently revealed that I was being paid half of what he was to do the same job, anger made the decision for me, and I left.

On the morning after my last night, I woke up to the sun beaming in. I remember stepping to the window and thinking, “What a beautiful morning.” It was the first grateful, happy thought I’d had in months. And I had an urgent wedding message for my mother. “Pink! Pink dresses! Pink flowers!”

The world was in color again.

Back then, I was fortunate to have the social safety net of my family. I could quit the full-time job and not end up in a financial nightmare. I had the choice of lessening my load. Hope and good health were statuses I could restore.

Years passed, and the experience drifted from my memory. Until this past year, when I slipped once more into that colorless world.

While I’m normally a happy bystander to awe in forms big and small, from the beauty of white clouds over green Pennsylvania hills, to the aroma of an apple in my hand, I ceased having these regular infusions of wonder and delight in the world. Just like in college, overload was the culprit, not the nature of the different forms of work (chiefly, motherhood and farming). While the grindstone sharpens metal, it dulls the sheen of an ordinary day.

Even though I knew we were in the final stretch before our new life, with Jason preparing to join the farm full time, I couldn’t change how I felt as the hard, often lonely work unfolded in real-time this year. (I recently read, “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” by Anne Helen Peterson, and connected with the personal accounts of burnout.)

Finally, late autumn brought with it time for rest, and with rest came time and energy to think and feel like a human being again. As I write this, we’re nine days out from Jason leaving his off-farm job. There is so much excitement in our house, and we’ve jumped into the holidays joyfully with both feet.

Again, I am struck by how my turn on the grindstone came to an abrupt end. This time with the close of the farm season. And how my partner in life will be joining me next year, and we’re basically hitting a re-boot button on the farm and for our family. My privilege is twofold here: I have an opportunity to rest, and I see a hopeful future in front of me.

The other night, the three of us enjoyed some fun. We went to our small town’s tree-lighting ceremony. Wary of the large crowd gathered around the gazebo, we hung back in our masks (our Covid hospitalizations are high in this area). From where we stood, it was a bit hard to hear the ceremony.

When Silas asked to be lifted up for a better view, Jason was happy for a rare chance to hold his always-moving son. The emcee announced that before Santa did the honors of lighting the tree, local pageant winners would join him on stage. This was partially inaudible from our position, and basically meaningless to Silas, who doesn’t even know pageants exist. What he saw, was a gaggle of tiny people in crowns and fancy clothes, gathered in preparation to introduce Old St. Nick. He whispered, breathlessly, “Elves.”

I almost chuckled, thinking he was joking, but then I saw his blue eyes wide with wonder. “Elves, honey, yes, well sure, they’d be here.”

When the Christmas lights clicked on, they reflected in his eyes, and the apples of his cheeks peeked over his mask as he smiled. To see his awe, and to feel it in myself again, what a gift this Christmas.

~ Stella