Happy as a Chick with Pigs

Here is the copy for those of you who like to follow along as you listen:

Welcome to the Kitchens Garden Sustainable Sunday Podcast. Letters to my Mother. I am Cecilia. 

It’s dark - I am in my study under the trees - I am not sure if you can hear the night sounds behind me? 

I was told the other day by a person who knew me not at all that if I wasn’t spending at least 8 hours on creating and editing my 10 minute Sub Stack  Sustainable Sunday podcast then my work must be shit. Of course he had not heard any of my work or read any of my work on any of my platforms so how could you know it is shit.  I said to him.  

Generally speaking he wrote. Rule of thumb. 

Well, I said - as a rule. My work is not influenced by thumbs. My work is about empowering people to design a robust and resilient lifestyle that suits themselves - that sustains them and the environment around them. 

Well, how long do you spend on editing, he said - a little smirkily I thought. Totally ignoring my pitch too, the bastard. 

I don’t edit at all, I said. I just open my mouth to speak and then when I finish speaking I close my mouth and I send it out to my people. 

There was a shocked silence. 

Do you want to know my stats, I said - they are quite good. My eyebrows metaphorically raised. My eyes squinting ever so slightly. 

Listen in this Sunday - I said - you might even encounter some real unedited happiness!

Thank you so much to all my new subscribers and especially those of you who have chosen PAID. With $5 a month you are the ones who are supporting this venture. The money goes to feeding my rescue pigs and planting trees and allowing me the time to write to make more money to feed rescue pigs and plant trees. 

I am planting trees because I intend to turn my property into a jungle. My farm is out here on the plains of Illinois. It is huge open country with enormous skies and from a distance our place looks like an oasis. The farm is my carbon sink - my payback for all the flights.

I also spend your money on my pigs, I rescue pigs because I love pigs and we can’t just eat everything. I intend to keep this little farm and its enormous garden and the cows and hogs and chickens and my one duck and the one peacock called Mr Flowers, I intend to keep it beautiful and viable and running so people can come here and learn how to grow their own food. And so I can write about it. I believe truly that the closer we get to the earth, the easier we find it to love her. 

So, thank you for helping support this jungle.

My grandmother said put your hands in the soil every day and you will be happy. Put your hands into the soil, every day. Such a profound statement. 

She also said never tell your husband what is for dinner so he will come home to find out. I think she had a bit of trouble with our blue eyed grandfather. 

A child on my travels said to me the other day - I am happy. Not I am happy today or I am happier than yesterday, or you make me happy or ice cream makes me happy she was totally in her moment feeling happy and expressing it out loud.  I am happy. 

I think if we recognise happy, especially the happiness from a natural ordinary moment, we train our minds to see the happy. 

It is hard to see those moments of happy when the news is full of every damn thing it can find to remind us that we are all going to hell in a hand-basket, an expression I never understood.  The flaws in our thoughtless management of the planet are beginning to show. It is so hard not to feel really anxious about this very thing. But maybe if we see the happy in the small acts that hurt no-one and cause no damage to our environment, we can wedge in a little more of that happiness. And slowly you and I can be butterflies with our infinitesimal movements and make a tiny difference that grows huge.

I believe this too. 

You and I can make a difference. 

Anyone who tells us that our attempts to use less plastic, and less single use paper, and less power - you know these things - anyone that tells you that this is a waste of time needs to come here - send them to me - I will sort them out. I love a good discussion. 

They can’t help but see the difference we are making. 

But back to happy.

I am having a happy moment. Just talking to you actually. One of the most beautiful gifts I can give myself is to search all day for happy moments. Intentionally.  I call them glimmers of happy. I had a dinner tonight with fresh pasta made with my own eggs and flour from the wheat grown in my own fields and tiny tomatoes picked from the garden and basil picked from the garden and garlic from the garden and parmesan cheese not from the garden and horribly expensive but essential to this meal.  It just makes me happy to grow my own food. 

You can do that too - I will teach you. 

As I gather all the ingredients for this simple pasta dish I feel the most wonderful sense of achievement. 

That is a small moment of happy - and it is contagious. 

I have tinnitus, a low key ringing in my ears, its been that way for years after a blow to the head, sometimes it sounds like crickets, or songs - no I am not hearing voices it is just damage I read the other day about an exercise I can do that taps the skull on the outside of the damaged area and after I have been through this exercise I feel - I hear - well nothing. For just a moment the ringing is gone. The absence of the ringing is like a little miracle - it’s the most extraordinary feeling. 

That makes me happy. 

Happy is such a difficult word because happy cannot last more than a few seconds before it settles back to OK again. 

I read a book the other day I cannot remember its name or the author, this woman sold hugs for a living. Can you imagine that. It would be an incredibly hard job but good. How many people out there go through their lives for years without an honest to goodness hug. My cousin Maria gives the best hugs - she won't mind me telling you. We literally line up for hugs with Maria when she comes to visit. 

Hugs make me happy. How about you - do you want a hug. Now of course I am wondering how much a hug is worth! 

Before I go I will tell you one more. One more happy moment. Chicks. Fluffy baby chicks make me happy. Next week I will receive 50 chicks in the mail. I have a brooder ready for them with a light to keep them warm. In the old days when my dad was a child he remembers going down to the train station with his mother to collect some chicks that she had ordered. In one box - it was a little hexagonal box -  were a dozen chicks and in the other box was a broody hen. They settled the broody hen in a laying box with a couple of eggs under her and that night when it was dark they crept in ever so quietly and popped the tiny chicks under the hen then took the eggs and crept away - leaving nature to take its course. 

Imagine that hens surprise when the sun rose and she had twelve perfect wee chicks in bed with her. 

You all have a lovely day. 

And remember - every little glimmer of happiness is huge. 

Live lightly.

Live simply.

I am Cecilia - you can find me and my farm at the kitchens garden.com

Unedited. A podcast in ten minutes. Scandalous! Now go - on to the comments tell me two moments of happy you had today!