So, Zillow predicts that the housing market in Greater Philadelphia is going to heat up this year; that’s good news for sellers, less good news for buyers, and terrible news for me.
Homeownership is something I want, simply for the benefit of transforming the land around the home into a miniature farm (and maybe, someday, with animals) without the fear of needing structures to be temporary should the need to relocate arise.
But, I think, for the time being, and that being such a long time, I am relegated to the rental market and all her whims. Which is not to say that it doesn’t have perks, or protections, of its own. I bounce between iterations of living arrangements like a rubber ball, often too quickly for My Husband to take any of my ideas seriously, but there’s this teeth-itching craving to sink my fingers into dirt that I call mine and send roots deep into the bedrock.
In the mean time, I have twisted forty screw-in hooks along the west fence in my current (rented) backyard in preparation for spring and the awakening of my disaffectionately named groundhog, Garfield. This will help keep young, tender crops off the ground and away from Garfield’s (gender: unknown) grubby paws. Hopefully.
Today, strawberry seeds need to go into a starting medium and then a warm, sunny window. The same with onion seeds. Maybe I’ll take a whole onion and also plop it into that sunny window, sprout it, and then bury that.
Along the kitchen window right now: a rutabaga top in a shallow cup of water, sending out lots of greens in search of sunlight; scallion butts from a potsticker fry-up; the knobby end of a sweet potato, still slipless but beginning to node out where the cut end lays in a whisper of water; grocery store basil that survived the beheading and repotting; a basil seedling in a peanut butter jar with a lid to serve as a personal greenhouse; a tall glass of fig tree cuttings; and eight purple potatoes with sprouts getting stronger every day.
It’s only the middle of January. The final frost isn’t for another one-hundred days. I’m getting a good head start, perhaps, by trying to pour my teeth-itchiness into this year’s garden. But, still, I set my financial goal for the year in buying my commune property, and I’m going to keep praying for a housing market crash.
Raccoon Commune Co. 