How homesteading has connected me to the magic of the earth
in a disconnected world....
I think back to my childhood when I was an outdoorsy kid, always covered in mud, grass stained knees, rips in my dresses, playing in hedgerows, climbing trees & collecting bugs that I believed needed my help & sitting just watching the birds as they flew over our back garden. Laying on the melting tarmac on a hot Summers day with an ice cream after a long bike ride, picnicking with my Sister in the orchards behind our house, making fairy rings & flower crowns, mud pies & homes for all the magical creatures we believed in. My Mum is an outdoor person, she loves walking & camping & we have always had dogs in our family so she would go out every day with them, my sister & I would join her when we weren’t at school, mostly me actually, my sister was a kid who did not like getting out of bed in the morning, much like my Dad.
Fast forward to 2002, I turned 11, we got an internet connection on the PC & I went to secondary school, I think my outlook on life changed completely during this first year of school. Wanting to be like the girls I saw on TV or on the early days of social media & Myspace, trashy pop videos, Jennifer Lopez & Xtina springs to mind, how naive I was to want to grow up so fast! I wanted to fit in, I wanted designer clothes, I wanted the cute hairstyle, I wanted to grow up immediately & hang out with my friends in town outside the Burger King or go to the mall with them while they shoplifted bras & thongs which they hid from their parents but wore to school (I was too scared to join in on this particular activity so I just followed them around the stores) but I no longer wanted to be the feral little girl climbing trees as I had been the Summer before.
Almond blossoms from the tree we planted.
I studied art & when I was 19 I moved to London to study fashion. I don’t remember if I cared much about nature & the natural world around me at this point, I was indulging on the fast paced city life, the concrete jungle surrounding me, moving only to the ticking time on the phone, not with the seasons. I enjoyed studying fashion because I love clothes & how they make me feel, how they can elevate your mood or how it shows to others which tribe we fit into. I have been through many fashion phases in my life, most of them far too embarrassing to show you photos of! Maybe I will save that for another day, the history of Jaymie the chameleon via the clothing choices I made since I became a pre-teen.
In 2013 my degree finished & I went to Australia to meet Marley. My connection to nature started to come back, we lived with a guy who was studying horticulture, we visited the beach & the rainforest & the mountains & my wonderment for the natural world grew immensely. My sister & I went cage diving with great white sharks, it was one of the most epic days of my life, we walked around Melbourne city saying hello to the possums, the fruit bats, the gum trees, I could feel the change of the seasons because I could finally relax here after all the stress of life in London. I let the city wash off of me, Melbourne is much more vibrant than London.
Our year in New Zealand also captivated my inner child, I learnt how to fish ( I cried the first time because I did not want to kill the thing, but in the end we did & I ate it)
We hung out in caves with fairy penguins, I swam with stingrays, collected Pāua shells from the beaches, we built our own campervan & met people from all over the world who wanted a life close to nature, it made me feel alive! Once again I felt what it meant to be connected to the Sun as she rose, spending the days on the beach watching the tides ebb & flow while Marley fished, saying thanks for another day on this beautiful earth as the Sun went down & we lit a fire to cook the fish we caught that day for dinner. We disconnected ourselves from the busy hustle bustle culture of city life & then we realised that it would not be a life suitable for us anymore.
Our outdoor shower.
My veggie garden in the Summer of 2022.
Noodle enjoying the sunrise with me the other morning.
I did not expect to be living off grid in a rural area of Portugal, cultivating the land, caring for animals & supporting the natural world around me. But here we are, in 2024, living seasonally, growing our food, helping the pollinators, watching the stars at night, smelling the cherry blossoms in March, listening to the sound of the cuckoo as Spring hits in April, watching the storks fly in from Africa in May to have their chicks, hearing the nightingale singing through the night during the Summer & watching them all depart in time for Winter when things become quiet again. I feel alive again, so I wanted to share that with you all.
With this sense of wonderment at the natural world comes a curiosity to find my inner witch again. Something I also believed as a child, that I was a witch, or destined to become a witch at least…. I create my own medicine with the plants that grow on the land. This month was the Summer solstice & so I created some St Johns Wort Oil using our hand picked olive oil as well. St Johns is a magical plant ally that grows freely at the beginning of the Summer, perfect for helping your skin when you have a graze, rash or burn. It is also used for treating anxiety, so if I ever feel anxious I take a teaspoon of this calming elixir or I use it on my skin when needed. No big pharma needed!
As Blindboy says, Dog bless! I will be back again next week.
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