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My Muddy Boot Dreams

I've spent years working on my Muddy Boot Dreams, yearning for a farm of our own during that time. We were desperate to get out of our little city beside the ocean...it was lovely but too busy, too many people stuffed into compartments trying to live together in harmony getting into each other's space.



sunlight on purple cabbage www.ruralmag.com



Even as I tended to my tall (almost reaching to two stories) trees and nearly 100 pots on my deck (go big or go home was my motto) I dreamt of a garden that would be completely mine, to plan, to build, to maintain. Not encumbered by space, or height.

I dreamt of wandering.....
                        ....through a garden in the summer, of plucking peas...... clicking away at flowers with my camera.

Of birds and nature mingling together happily. Of being able to plant an abundance of homegrown veggies, while mixing in my love of beautiful blossoms, herbs and veggies into an organic chemical free place where wildlife could wander, and the bees buzz.


Mauve mint blossoms in the herb garden www.ruralmag.com



The farm dream didn't work out for us, a bad back, and worse allergies made our dreams change and evolve into something else.

Last night while I was moving the sprinkler in the garden as the gathering blue dusky shadows stained the mountains, I realized that these revised Muddy Boot Dreams (the name of my first blog 10 years ago) were really us. 

Even if they ended up differently......

....then I thought they would be.

How much of our lives play out exactly like we think they should...and if it doesn't end up like we thought it would, is that a bad thing? 

I find immense joy in the way the light sparkles on water drops coating the leaves of my purple cabbage. And love to hear the chirps of the quail while they wait impatiently for me to vacate the garden so they can reclaim their dust bath in the middle of my new variegated iris, it makes me happy. 

In fact, it gave me as much joy as my dreams of harvesting acres of organic veggies.

Nigella blossom in the garden www.ruralmag.coom



This life is doable for us, it also allows us an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the Okanagan. 

While it's not quite what we had planned years ago and bears little resemblance to our original Muddy Boot Dreams, there's a lot of gardening and nature involved. 

There's countryside where farmers plough the fields and cows live, and sheep graze. We live on the edge of the mountain where the deer wander the streets at night, and the bears walk the same paths that we do.

Dreams change, and they evolve just like we do.
But they still come true.

Jen @ Rural magazine

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