Getting back to reality

I have been having a tough time getting back to center with my writing, and during this process with Steem we have continued to grow and change, to move around and continue to walk the spiral path to the summit. Now we are coming back around again, back to the farm and my permaculture diploma project, back to homesteading, sustainable agriculture and living at the fringes of the periphery.

_{I need a bigger ladderPhoto by Ledis Arango V.}

Despite connectivity obstacles, the hardest part for me about writing is not internet access but facing failures. Agriculture, especially of the tropical variety, is an endless iterative process where we slowly seek better and best practices, function-stacking designs and others among Mother Nature's natural bonus combos. Every failure comes with a lesson, and we have had a lot of failure since we began.

Psychologically, I prefer, perhaps I was trained, to write about things concludingly, that is, with a conclusion. I did x and y activities, with z results, therefore I get a B+. To write a complete poem or make an entry for a contest on steemit is not unlike turning in a homework assignment. But neither homesteading nor sustainable agriculture are anything like that.

Though it is important for the homesteader to recognize the cornucopia of single, simple tasks that can be assigned, like homework, to the different members of a rural household or community, it is at a higher level of analysis, a 'meta' level, to look at where we are expending our efforts, why and to what effect.

Over the two years that we made the shift from the traditional Colombian method of processing our coffee to the dried in the fruit method, through discovery, research, experimentation and the full transition, we were taking tiny steps, patiently testing options and using the permaculture principles as our guide.

This is interesting, and is set to be the subject of The Truth about Coffee Part 3 for more than six month now. What's the hold up you ask? I have been reluctant to conclude a topic that is not yet concluded in my mind, there are more questions to ask and developments to be derived, to perfect the process and improve the efficiency of the overall system. I think that to be a 'blogger' and to do any sort of academic documentation are different things, not so different that they cannot be combined, but different enough that its possible to slip entirely out of one category or the other.

Part of the great part of Steem is the incredible community that continues to grow around the now multiple applications being built on this blockchain. I have connected with, and feel indebted to, a wide variety of different people during my time here. I want to continue to encourage that connection, I believe that it is worldwide connections such as these that will allow us as humans to see past our differences and notice how similar we all are, searching our world for meaningful connections.

_{Global Big Day is about identifying as many bird species as possible! We got 48 this year without leaving the farm!}

In closing, I am writing again, putting together words with pictures and, without making promises, plan on connecting to the internet slightly more frequently with my thoughts and actions. We are planning a trip up to Wisconsin this summer, and are working as hard as we can to leave our Earthbag Dome finished before we head up, so look forward to more muddy pictures.

Love and Light to All! And Happy Global Big Day!