Reap the Harvest of Effort

It’s that time of year again. The sun is reaching ever higher into the sky, casting its gilded warmth over the shock of color now spreading across the landscape. Yes, spring has finally arrived here on the River Danube, my home.

Kiliya is a quiet rural backwater on the border between Ukraine and Romania. It is a place where life goes on pretty much as it has done since the Cossacks reclaimed the town from the Turks back in the days of Catherine the Great.

The smallholding is a way of life in these parts, with the landscape a patchwork of strawberry and potato fields. The people, uncomplicated by the politics of an urban environment, live each day as it comes. The way nature intended.

Our own smallholding is a modest affair made up of an orchard of cherry, apple, pear and apricot trees, and some land to grow potatoes, corn, and other vegetables.

In addition to growing fruit and vegetables, we also keep chickens, ducks, and geese. Rarely do we buy food, as much of what we need is produced by ourselves. We live a simple lifestyle, one which is far removed from the clamor, noise and speed of our previous existence in the city that never sleeps, London.

The decision to swap the comfort of our urban existence for the uncertainty of a lifestyle impacted by the vagaries of nature was not an easy one. It took a lot of souls searching before we actually made the decision to leap into the dark unknown of living off the land. In the end, we decided to give it a go and last year we planted our first crops.

Our first harvest yielded barely enough to sustain us through the winter months. However, we learned a lot from that initial experience. We learned that to succeed at smallholding, we needed to have patience and an understanding of how nature works.

Nature is not a machine. It is an interlocking system of life cycles dependent on weather and season. You work alongside nature, learning how to harness its power to produce what you need. That is how it works. And so it is with writing.

You have to have patience and understanding to learn the art of writing. It takes time. There are no shortcuts, just a constant and prolonged effort to learn the nuances of articulating your thoughts through the written word. But once you’ve mastered the art of writing, as with learning how to plant crops, you will reap a rich and bountiful harvest.