For those of you who have been following my blog, you will know that last winter we bought some land in Northern Minnesota so that I could go “home” and plant some berries. Today my 24 baby blueberry plants arrived at my brother’s ironworks shop. They are BEAUTIFUL. This afternoon my brother Rick hitched an old hand plow to his tractor and Milt did his best to guide it through the furrow. Tomorrow we will finish preparing the berry garden and plant the plants.
The first day we were here, we walked the whole twenty acres just to scope it out and see what we had bought into. We found this perfectly cleared circle of land in the farthest ten acres from my brother’s place and decided it wash here that we wanted to “homestead”. We mowed down the meadow, pitched our new cabin tent and moved in. Naturally, we fought the huge mosquitos who were not too friendly about having their lush habitat disturbed. I also picked a bunch of ticks off–part of the bargain if you buy land in N. MN.
Once we had established our spot, my brothers (very resourceful guys) began to contribute to our meager establishment. Suddenly we had an old wood stove, a fish house aka outhouse, a picnic table and a few chairs. We built a fire and people came. I have a feeling about this place that many, many people will visit. We have not big desire to build a camp or commune, just a place to experiment with alternative building techniques and berries. Our idea is to once every summer have a building camp where we construct a small, alternative cabin and end it with a Bead People Festival–a peace party.
As you can tell, I am having a wonderful time exploring and dreaming.
It is always about the land–and this little piece feels just fine to me.
Jamie
Dear Jamie,
You know the thing I keep thinking about is that when something is right, it’s so easy. Today, it started out hard trying to get the land tilled up, but this afternoon, we got it done. The blueberries are planted and it’s raining! How perfect. Then you fixed an amazing supper, and we sat in the hot tub. It’ so clear that this is what we are supposed to be doing. Even the fact that a bunch of folks got introduced to The Bead People - even when we weren’t trying is pretty clear that this is the right path.
Love,
Milt