Category Archives: Philosophy

The Way of the Lazy Gardener and Our Last Colorado Garden

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This summer will be our last one here in Colorado for the foreseeable future and with it, our last Colorado garden. After a two year’s wait, we finally harvested our asparagus and it was delicious! This marks a final step in our philosophy toward gardens and life in general: set it and forget it AKA the way of the lazy gardener. Sometimes the rewards take time to mature, but they are worth the wait!

Asparagus in the garden
Purple asparagus looks so primordial in the perennial vegetable garden

Britton and I have joked that once we finally figure out what we like to grow and what grows well here in Colorado, we go and move to Puerto Rico where we will have to start gardening (and our life) from scratch. But it will not be completely starting from scratch. We have learned a lot from our Colorado garden and how it is an expression of our philosophy in general.

What is the way of the lazy gardener? This is a philosophy where we do some work on the front end, but it will continue producing with some, but very little, input thereafter. Like recurring income investments, we prefer perennial vegetables and fruits that come back as opposed to annuals that you have to plant every year.This is the way of the lazy gardener.

Specifically in reference to plants, the lazy Colorado gardener’s plants should include things like a peach tree, fruit cocktail tree, apple trees, berry (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries) patch, potatoes, garlic, mint, asparagus and horseradish. If we were staying I also would plant rhubarb and a 5-in-1 pear tree. Even the “annual” plants are recurring. For example, every year we have cherry tomatoes and lettuces that self-seed.

We are lazy gardeners because we prefer not to fight against things that don’t want to grow and would rather just plant stuff that wants to be there. Same thing with other aspects of life. Why fight to have something difficult and time or energy consuming when you can have it easy and get the same outcome?

We will probably still throw out some seeds and try new projects, but we don’t baby them. If they grow, they grow. Even the chickens are a perfect example of our hands-off approach. We do very little and they provide us with lots of delicious eggs and fertilizer for the lawn and garden. It is a cycle in which an input and an output are part of the same circle.

Britton threw out a variety of seeds into the greenhouse and we grew what we think is arugula. It is delicious, nutty, spicy and succulent, so whatever it is, it likes to grow and we like to eat it. It made a nice side for a dinner one night. I am sure we will throw out a variety of random things and some of them will grow into delicious projects. It is not all easy. There are always weeds to contend with and the occasional bug. But overall the way of the lazy gardener is a refreshing approach compared with the hands-on, single use, disposable way that most of us are used to. I dare you to try it out for yourself!

Asparagus and Arugala
Asparagus and arugula(?) for a chicken dinner (not those pictured -ha!)

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How I Will Be Ok With Summer All Year Round Or Is It Spring, Yet?!

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Man, it seems that this winter has been going on a little longer than usual. Every time we think we are done with the snow and cold and have a nice 80 degree day, the forecast shows that another cold front will be working its way down bringing wind and snow. Tomorrow, the first of May, is supposed to have a high of only 39 with 4 to 7 inches of snow.

Maybe we get this extended winter to remind us of how great an endless summer will be when we move to Puerto Rico…a…long…drawn…out…goodbye…to Colorado winters.

So this weekend even though we were pretty sure it wasn’t quite the end of winter, yet, we just couldn’t help ourselves from kicking off the fun of summer, kicking off the type of lifestyle we will live in Puerto Rico nearly every day.

We started up the grill and ate tropical-style food outside a few times.

Outdoor Grill
Woosh. Starting up the coal grill for the first time this year

Grill food
Yum! Grilled chicken, grilled pineapple, black beans, salad and grapes.

We bought plants for the flowerpots out front (that will have to be taken inside tonight since it sounds like we will have a pretty hard frost).

Before flower pot
Sad old pot that had been sitting on our front porch all winter

Trunk full of flowers
Trunk full of flowers for the pots

Working on the pots
Working on the pots. I love the insta-beauty and have always enjoyed this type of easy “gardening”

We took long, sunny walks. We remembered HOW MUCH we love nice weather.

A lot of people ask us if we will appreciate nice weather less if we don’t have the contrast of winter. And honestly, I don’t know. There is a certain quality and feeling from a cozy winter house watching movies, reading, sitting by the fire drinking hot tea and looking at the sparkling snowy wonderland outside.

But I also know that I feel so much more alive in the summer. How I want to be outside. How I want to be with other people. How I want to grow plants and raise baby chicks and start new projects. I feel like all winter I have been hibernating and spring is time to wake up. Will that be different in the tropics? Probably. Because there is no winter to shake off and bolt off into summer, it will probably be a slower fizz, a constant brewing undercurrent, instead of a jolt into life. A lazy, languid, and warm “island time” sort of feeling instead of the rush to get everything done, everything planted, “hurry, hurry, hurry, take advantage of this nice weather because winter will be here before you know it” feeling.

While I can’t know the future too far down the line, I know I have lived over 30 years with some pretty harsh winters, so at least a few years without them will be fine by me. Yes, I am sure of it.

UPDATE: The snow came down hard and cold and more than likely killing all the fruit tree blossoms. Let’s cross our fingers that they rebloom soon.

Peach snowy bloom flower

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Just Like the Goats

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When we stayed with Awilda at the property we nearly bought in the rural jungle near Lares, Puerto Rico, we learned quite a lot from her. About her philosophy and attitude towards life. About how she ran her finca. About her goats. We still often think about her and the inherent wisdom that comes from living as a partner with nature for most of her life. One of her pearls of wisdom we still often quote was that we humans are “just like the goats”.

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Me and a goat on a rope in Lares

This was specifically in response to how she had helped her daughter through the labor and birth of her grandchildren without any doctor or medical help of any kind. We sort of just stood back, awed by this woman. “Just like the goats” she had said. As if we were actually the crazy ones to think we needed all the fancy tools of modern society.

As we thought about it more, it is really pretty true. We humans are a lot like goats. We give birth. We raise our young. We eat and rest and play, and need a social structure, just like the goats.

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Feeding a baby goat out of a bottle

We also have built a huge infrastructure that makes us THINK that we are not like the goats. We use examples of how we wouldn’t have survived without the system, how the system is a net, how technological advancement helps us out in situations where things might go wrong. How we have much larger brains than other animals. How we can do some amazing things unlike other animals. All of these are true. I am quite certain that without the medical system, 5 days after I was born, I would have soon died. As many goats have died. And yet, at its core, we are still animals just like the goats. Living, fragile creatures that need a community to survive.

Sometimes when we think about our move to Puerto Rico we feel a little over our head, out of water, leaving our known infrastructure for the unknown and we get scared. When we are scared we have a tendency toward trying to find some protection. In the modern world these are things like money, insurance, technology, schooling, advanced tools, experts, security systems. Helpful, sometimes, but all made-up human contrivances that make us think we are separate from nature.

estrella-awilda-and-britton
Estrella, Awilda and Britton in Lares. They have shown us that if they can do it, we can too!

Underneath it all we are just like the goats. We will figure out how to survive using the tools that are available to us. We’ve been to Puerto Rico many times. People live just fine. They don’t need nearly as much “cargo” and contrivances as we have just to survive the harsh Colorado landscape. It is warm all the time. There is food and medicine dripping off the plants and swimming in the ocean. It rains nearly every day.

If Awilda in her 60s, her stepmother in her 80s and her goats can survive in the jungle mountains of Puerto Rico, we should be just fine in Rincón. We just may need to toughen up a little. And maybe get a goat or two.

We really are just like the goats. And goats don’t need much. It will be nice to try a life that is closer to that more basic, natural existence. We are just like the goats, but with bigger brains. And sometimes those brains do us more harm than good.

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Never Let Your Fear Decide Your Fate

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Going out on a limb. Taking a risk. Trying something new. Following your calling.

They all sound so romantic when you read about someone else doing it. When it is you, it takes a lot more guts. Britton and I really have a good life here in Colorado. We have relatively high paying and highly esteemed careers, we have a house, car, extra houses, extra cars, friends, family. We have time on our hands. We are fairly healthy, happy and numbingly comfortable.

So why leave it? Some people have asked, or rather, told us. Why leave a good thing? And logically, I really don’t know. I mean we have everything “they” tell you we should aspire to have. Everything the school system and the government and our parents and everyone with a stake in “us” turning out to be productive people said we should try to be. And we have. We are!

And yet.

And yet there is something that pulls me -us- out of the comfortable. That says that excitement will not be found in doing the usual. That growth and adventure do not lie in the routine. That there is more to life than being a cog in that same system that had a hand in making us one. But it is oh, so hard to let go once “you have it made”. Or at least it is for us.

We have some idea what our life will look like when we move to our property in Rincon, Puerto Rico. But not a whole lot. Anything is possible. It is much less predicable. Here in Greeley, on the other hand, I know exactly what to expect more or less. Little things change, but for the most part, life will go on exactly as it did last year and the year(s) before that and so on.

And so.

And so there is something inside of me that says: “There is more out there in the world for you to uncover. You have played this game, you have passed this level. You are ready for a new adventure.You have even set yourself up so that it is very unlikely to fail at the next game. Why are you scared?!”

This is a part of my lesson that I must do to learn: To never let my fear decide my fate.

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