Gardening teaches you to be a watcher. The saying, “make hay while the sun shines” came into my head this weekend. It was one of those rare December days when the temps reached up to 40 degrees, there was not a breath of wind, and for a moment everything gave a sigh of relief from the chill of winter coming on. When a day like this arrives a gardener makes a change of plans.

So, while the small birds chirped in the blue spruce outside the chicken house, I moved the ducks daily bath water outside to its summer spot under the tree. The recent snow had melted and they ran outside flapping, quacking and jumping in and out of their black tub; giving us the “Runner Ducks Show”.

Dad and I fired up the small tractor attached the little tilt dump trailer and attacked the manure piles that had built up in the open area in the big barn where the llama and sheep had been spending more time in the cold weather. The sheep and the llama tend to make their deposits in specific areas and two large piles had developed. This stuff is really great fertilizer.  I have been meaning to spread this manure on the vegetable beds but weather and holiday preparations and well, the never-ending to-do list… I hadn’t gotten that chore done. Now was the perfect time to get this chore done. It felt good to sweat and shovel in the barn and then take the black gold up to the vegetable beds to sit and feed the soil for next season.  Ed got in on the warm day and borrowed the Lull from the construction site at mom and dad's, brought it over, and headed up with his chainsaw to trim some large branches off the dead oak we have been watching since we moved here. It needs to come down next spring so it won’t fall on our little old farm house. Getting some of the branches off now might save time in the spring and prevent them from dropping during winter storms. It’s not often you have a giant machine in your side yard that can magically lift you into the air to reach the huge limbs of a hundred year old oak; and free!! I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up and putting away all the pots, outdoor furniture, and tools that were still out and about.

The gardener in me watches and learns. While putting things away I noted that the big border by the road looked so beautiful. I hadn’t cut everything down. The architecture of seed heads of the Sedums, Echinaceas, and grasses stood up silhouetted against the clear skies. In contrast, the beds around the house had been cut back hard and cleaned of all dead and dried foliage. They looked stark, dried out and barren. In my defense I had done a lot of dividing and moving of perennials and planted a bunch of bulbs, but I noted that next year I’m not going to cut everything back in the fall. I love the winterscape of the plants in their senescence.

These subtle shifts in the weekly plan don’t alarm me anymore. I don’t feel the panic I used to about veering off my weekly plan. I’m a planner. In the past I have clung so tightly to “the plan” it has either paralyzed me from action, or driven up mine and my family’s stress to intolerable levels.  In Holistic management practices there is what they call the Holistic Framework. It’s a decision making process that farmers and ranchers use to effectively manage multiple aspects of their operations. The concepts can apply to any size property and endeavor really.  It has helped me plan and manage all the various aspects of what we are trying to accomplish here on Brown Dog Farm. Sometimes the endeavor seems overwhelming, like trying to drink the ocean with a teaspoon.  In the planning procedures there is the Feedback Loop.  We make a plan and assume that it will change, we implement the plan, and then we monitor. This is where we do the watching. This is where we check if we are on track, if there is a road block, a weak link, something going off the rails or we watch for an opportunity to shift the plan. There are 7 testing question that we can go through to help us decide a logical course of action that keeps us lined up with our overall Holistic Goals.

1. Root Cause: Does this action address the root cause of the problem?

2. Weak Link: they can be social, biological, or financial

3. Comparing Options: which action gives us the “biggest bang for the buck” towards our Holistic Goal, our highest return?

4. Gross Profit Analysis: costs?

5. Input Analysis: Is the energy or money to be used in this action derived from the most appropriate source in terms of our Holistic Goal?

6. Vision analysis: does this action lead us towards or away from our vision in our Holistic Goal?

7. Gut Check: considering all the testing questions and your Holistic Goal, How do you feel about this action now?

If your new plan of action meets the 7 testing questions you shift and the whole process resets and loops again, plan, implement, monitor, control, plan… It sets up a rhythm and keeps things going forward.  This seems very technical but once you start using this system depending on the decisions you are making some of the questions you can skip over but they do help to prioritize and guide you.

It’s a good system. It allows for spontaneity, and takes into account everyone involved in our operation here to be heard and their wishes and goals addressed but it keeps us focused on where we want to head. It also understands at the heart that a farm or a garden or land stewardship in general is dependent on not only certain laws of nature but also the capriciousness of weather and animals and life in general. It is a system that keeps us in the now and allows us to plan also.

In the sermon at church last week, our vicar asked us to think about what we are watching for in this time of Advent before Christmas. I realized I am watching for days like these. I am watching for signs to connect with nature, stopping to hear birds singing on an unusually warm day, watching the ducks bath outside, and the horses stretch out sleeping in the warmth of no wind and sunshine, watching for a free moment to walk to the far end of the pasture to prune an armload of cedar branches for Christmas decorations. I am watching for a chance to connect with the land and my garden and feed the soil and nurture my relationship with my Dad, shoveling and sweating and sharing a love and stewardship of this farm with him.

I am watching for the signs that give meaning to our lives and commitments to those we love. I am watching for the signs that keep my focus on the now and temporarily set aside the constant planning for the future.

I am watching because I am a gardener and a gardener learns by watching her garden.