Can you grow happiness?

It may not solve the world’s problems, but I find spending time in my little piece of urban homestead incredibly relaxing and rewarding.

Like many people, I suffer from the effects caused by lack of sunshine, and am miserable during the winter months when I can’t spend much time in the garden and everything looks like a muddy Hippo wallowing-ground.

Having slipped over in the chicken run on more than one occasion after several days of relentless rain, I always feel for the girls and their mud-caked feet. We are constantly looking for ways to improve their run and perching facilities, and keep their food and drinkers off the sodden ground. On really rotten days we don’t even let them out of their enclosure, much to their annoyance and complaints, but I know it’s better to keep them dry than the alternative of letting them stand around in the rain (they never think about finding shelter) and catching a chill. 

Now we have started to landscape the area, I am suddenly feeling incredibly uplifted and positive. It may be related to the fact we have been having more sunny days, or maybe to the anticipation of watching seedlings make their way to the surface, and hopefully their bounty of produce to come. We have worked incredibly hard recently and our efforts are starting to pay off; the garden is beginning to look like a place I will enjoy spending time in again, after the recent years of neglect and destruction caused by the flock. Warning – chickens will eat their way through EVERYTHING, they don’t distinguish between weeds, shrubs, veg and flowers. They’re really not fussy and will help themselves, given half a chance.

Recent personal trials and tribulations have truly knocked me back, but I am now even more determined to focus on the positives in life and control the things I am able to, and to let go of the negative stuff, and the people who try to drag you down. I am also trying to see the positives in a bad situation – we have turned the disaster of a collapsed wall into an opportunity to do some landscaping with beautiful old Victorian bricks, and it’s coming along nicely.

We have been preconditioned to constantly want bigger and better and more, but this is not the answer to real happiness. I find it in the little things, like quality moments with my Beloved, one of Meg’s doe-eyed looks, attitude from Oily and unconditional love from Mouse, and the joy of watching my girls getting on with their chickeny day-to-day business. I am usually happiest when I’m surrounded by chicken muck and soil and my efforts actually show. Sow and you shall reap.

The daffodils have emerged, with their cheerful yellow faces. The garden is waking from its winter sleep.

So I am looking forward to growing what we can and making our environment and surroundings a nicer place to be. I get excited about the prospect of picking home-grown veg and fruit to take straight to the kitchen (munching what I can in its raw state before I even get there).

So yes, I think you can grow happiness; allow yourself to take the time and find contentment the little things.