With a little help from my (four legged) friends

For a long time, I've dreamed about having a vegetable garden. It would be functional and beautiful, filled with butterflies and bees, flowers and herbs and quaint homemade twig trellises, mulched paths and little touches of whimsy. Sigh.

When we moved here last July, what I got was a once-loved but most-recently-neglected patch of five-foot tall pigweed.

By the time we'd settled in and I got a chance to work in the garden, all the weeds had gone to seed. I was able to salvage a few tomatoes and of course some pumpkins but the garden was pretty much a write-off for the year. I hand-pulled as many weeds as I could and hoped for a cold winter that would kill off whatever was left.

By the first snowfall, I tried to put the whole mess behind me and focus on getting a fresh start in the spring. Or that was the plan.

We got off to a reasonable start. I put away my no-till thinking (for this year, at least) and in May, we rented a tiller and ploughed over last year's patch.

Unfortunately, I got busy with work and at least a week passed before I was able to get back into the garden. In that short time, deep-rooted grass with a crazy underground network of rhizomes began popping up everywhere. First the odd blade or two, then a few days later, those lone blades morphed into tufts. Then the baby pigweed started appearing again.

While Lucas drilled holes and built a beautiful split rail fence to help keep the deer (and dog) out, I started hoeing and hand pulling weeds again.

Ella looking down one of the newly augered post holes.

No matter how fast I worked, I just couldn't seem to get ahead.

So, in early June, I shelved "The Dream", got practical and downsized. And now, my garden measures only 28 feet wide by 16 feet deep -- about one-quarter of the entire patch (though still sizable, I know.)

I delineated that area with old two-by-fours and managed to clear enough to plant this year's garden: 24 heirloom tomato plants (not one variety is the same - more on this later), two zucchini plants (hopefully, one green and one yellow), one cuke, several green bean plants, a watermelon, five strawberry plants, one pepper plant, some basil, and two rows of carrots and multi-coloured beets. Plus some sad looking nasturtiums and a row of mammoth sunflowers. Oh, and a pumpkin plant that emerged from the compost pile.

Not a touch of whimsy to be seen anywhere.

Some of those plantings were ones that I grew -- more were not, as many of my seedlings bonked this year. It was not what I envisioned by any means. But strangely enough, by letting go of my expectations of perfect self-sufficiency, I've started just enjoying whatever happens in that little space.

Case in point: I planted my carrot seeds late this year just before we had a long stretch of hot, dry weather that prevented the seeds from germinating, or so I thought. Then just yesterday, after four days of rain, I discovered tiny one-inch tall carrot plants. I'm not sure if they'll mature in time before frost hits, but I think I'm actually okay with that, because when you don't expect anything to happen, whatever does happen becomes that much more wonderful.

But unfortunately, my carrots weren't the only plants to benefit from the rain: those baby pigweed plants are now adolescents. I was determined to pull them and the other broadleaved weeds before they went to seed. But I needed some help with the tall grass. I thought about taking the weed wacker to it, but as handy as the machine is, it's noisy and awkward.

So I put some electric tape around the perimeter of the veggie patch (it wasn't live, but who's to know?) and invited some four-legged friends to an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch.

Gallagher helped himself to the grass while keeping an eye on the other two yahoos.

Cinder found the compost pile delicious.

And oh, so exhausting.

Lee, unfortunately, decided that this tree was to his liking.

Cheeky bugger.

Even Chris the barn cat strolled by for a visit.

So they munched while I weeded. And again, it wasn't how I expected I'd be tending my long anticipated garden. But it was a perfectly lovely way to spend the day just the same. And for now, that's good enough for me.

P.S. Um, yeah. If you're wondering about the last three months -- let's just say I had something of a crappy spring. I was juggling work, farm chores and kids and felt like I was failing at all three. After a long winter, I had so many expectations of what we'd get done in the spring -- and none of it happened. No matter what we did, our to-do list kept getting longer, our bank accounts kept getting emptier and I became exhausted and overwhelmed.

And as more things didn't happen - or at least, not like I expected - the less I wanted to write about yet another thing gone "wrong." And so I stopped writing.

But once I started letting go of those expectations, it opened up the possibility of things happening, just differently. I'm still very type A and this whole "simple living" thing is anything but simple, but making myself (and everyone around me) crazy because I want everything fixed and perfect and done right now is creating way too much negative energy and unhappiness. And for what purpose?

So I'm trying to go with the flow a bit more while reminding myself that gardening or animal husbandry or even living simply can take years to learn. And no matter how many books I read or how hard I try, it's the life experience that will make the biggest difference -- to me and everyone who shares that life with me.