Sifting Through The Weeds

Well, it has been quite a few months since I have blogged. I have had plenty of time to write but for some reason didn’t. I had gotten started a few times and never completed an entry. Not sure what stopped me each time but such is life. Where do I even start?! I remember blogging in the past about how things had changed with this pandemic but could any of us have really imagined the depths that this would touch our society? Our world? The “new normal” is a term that you hear a lot and I keep feeling like I am in an episode of the twilight zone. Fortunately, that feeling typically only occurs when I walk into the grocery store or some other public place where everybody is donning a mask and there are people on the ready to spray you with sanitizer. Or when I watch a baseball game and can see cardboard cutouts of people in the stands. Anyway, excuse my rant but isn’t this stuff on all of our minds? Recently, I had a discussion with a friend about how this pandemic has affected mental health and something that stuck with me and made sense is that for a lot of people, there seems to be no end and that is hard to deal with. While other things that we go through as a society, such as a mass shooting or bombing, etc. have a clear ending and we heal and move on…and get back to “normal”. People are having a hard time dealing with this pandemic and feel as though they don’t have resolution and can’t move on from it. I’m sure there are other aspects and different scenarios that are reasons for this pandemic affecting mental health but this angle was one that made sense to me. It has been tough and so many changes and disruptions will affect almost everyone. Regardless, let’s always do our best to stay positive and be kind to one another as we don’t know the battles others are fighting. As a side note; I am always here for anybody that needs to talk.

OK, back to what this blog is really supposed to be about .

A lot has gone on in the last few months at Simple Ridge and we have learned so much. First and foremost, when people say you probably won’t get much honey your first year of beekeeping, don’t believe them. Our bees have really knocked it out of the park this year and it has been amazing to watch them work and be able to reap the reward. We have always said that we wanted to use this land to give back to our community and the surrounding area and we have found our first way of doing so and that is through donations from honey sales. We made a decision to donate $1 per jar of honey sold to various charities and this will continue for the long haul. It is so amazing to be able to give back in this way. In our first month, we were able to donate $100 to storm relief for those affected by the derecho that hit Iowa on August 10^th, 2020. For the month of September, we have chosen Alive and Running as the charity, which is a local non-profit that invests in education and awareness for suicide prevention. September is suicide awareness month and we also lost a family member to suicide 2 years ago in September so this cause is close to our hearts. I believe that we can at least double that $100 amount raised, if not triple it this month. Another thing that we have learned over the last few months is that weeds in the garden are a lot harder to contain than originally thought. The weeds in our garden were so bad at times, it was hard to even determine where certain plants were. It wasn’t a total loss though. We have enjoyed tomatoes, peppers, kohlrabi, kale, lettuce, cantaloupe, watermelon, sweet corn, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, pumpkins and a few onions. If we could have controlled the weeds, we could have harvested a lot more but the garden was not a complete failure. Plenty of “tweaks” already planned for next year.  We now have a solid crew of barn cats that actually enjoy our company and at the same time are rodent killing ninjas! We have had dead mice on our doorstep and I even found a head (yes, just the head) of a large rodent laying close to the barn where the cats hang out. They are definitely doing their job and the chickens appreciate their work. We have let the chickens free range a few times and have realized that the cats enjoy their company, we won’t be testing this with the dogs as I’m sure there is a strong possibility of tragedy if we added them to the mix. We have planted a couple of Linden trees which when mature will supply a lot of pollen for the bees and some tasty honey for me and you. Those are just a few updates from Simple Ridge. The biggest update might be that since the last time I blogged, we officially became an LLC, adopted a logo and will soon be working on a website. Thanks for all your support. We love the community in which we live and look forward to being able to contribute more as the years go on.