Three Years Later...

One of the hardest things about gardening is gardening alone.  At least that's true for me.

Right now, I've looked at this blog for the first time in three years.  I see pictures of daffodils and green grass.  Right now, in 2015, at the same time of year as those posts showing new growth, I've got maybe half the ground still covered in snow.

It's a rough time right now for other reasons.  My wife, who's been with me for eight years, has decided that we're too different of people, with too different of goals in life, and she's moved out.  I think of all the times I stood in the garden and wished I had her company there.  Sometimes she'd come out for an afternoon, once or twice a year.  Sometimes she'd critique my gardening, saying I'd be more productive if I had a system, or if things were more organized.  That's why I have raised beds in one section now.

But I'm alone.  I suspect I will be for some time.  I can't argue that we're not two very different people, but dammit, I tried.  I was supportive and helpful.  I got us to go to counseling for years, where we both learned things about dealing with each other honestly.  And in the end, she honestly didn't care to stay with me.  It's hard to convince her to stay when that happens, and it's hard to want her to stay.

So now I'm heating the house as though it was normal spring weather, which it isn't, but I just don't care to keep tending the furnace.  Last fall I bought a pellet stove and installed it in the kitchen, and it's been nice.  It's cheaper than oil, even though oil is back down for the moment.  It's not cheaper than the firewood blocks from Peavey, but still not bad.  But I still don't heat much.  The house stays around 50°, and I've got an electric blanket and a featherbed on top of me at night.

I can't stay in this house.  It's too damn big for me.  It was too big for the two of us, and now it's worse.  Three bedrooms, a living room I hardly use, a dinning room that seems like a hallway with a big table to collect junk...

For the past two years I've been working on the garage.  It started as an attempt to clean out some stuff and make it better for storage, but it needed enough work that I figured I should try to make the top into a rental apartment, so that it would pay it's way.  Now I'm thinking I should rent out the house and move into the apartment.  I've got a month and a half until June, when the rental season should begin.  Can I get my ducks in a row?

Actually, I don't have ducks.  I have a cat and seven chickens.  I have a one legged rooster at the moment, but I don't know if I'm keeping him.  Chances are poor.  I should be getting five piglets in a few weeks too.  I'd better arrange housing for them.

Nobody is going to be joining me.  I'd better get to work.  There's no use wishing she'd come home and join me.