Sometimes life knocks you off course

Shortly after the November trip, a series of unfortunate events took place that brought an end to my permaculture journey, for a while.

As an only child, I care for my mom who suffers from dementia, is wheelchair-bound for the most part, and undergoes dialysis treatment 3 times a week. As you can imagine, my mom Nicole keeps me and my family quite busy with her care. One week after my last trip to Sleepy Mesquite, Nicole suffered a code blue while at dialysis and was hospitalized for a month afterward. This event worsened her dementia and left her unable to function at her senior living facility. She had to be moved to a memory care facility where she stayed for over a year. This event prompted many additional doctors and rehab visits over the course of that time.

After about a year and a half, Nicole ran out of money and was forced to live with us in our 1000-square-foot condo. Our living room was converted into her bedroom, and other changes, such as railings and monitoring systems, were added to our house. Despite the changes we made to our home, it was not enough to keep her safe, as she would try to leave the home unassisted, which nearly ended in disaster as she tried to go down our front porch stairs and nearly fell to her death. Additional locks had to be installed to prevent this from happening. Now that she lived with us, we were responsible for all her daily needs, which is equivalent to that of a newborn baby. Now our schedules were not our own anymore. For about a year and three months, we cared for her hand and foot.

Needless to say, leaving town to work on the Sleepy Mesquite project was not even an option, so for well over two years, I did not go to the site to do any work. That's not to say I was not doing any work at all. Initially, I simply made plans at home for what I would be doing on the site going forward. As I made my plans, I began to realize that I had a significant knowledge gap. I had gleaned as much knowledge as I could from YouTube videos, and I just hit a wall. After several months of feeling stuck, I decided to do something about it. I chose to take Geoff Lawton's Permaculture Design Course. I bought myself the Permaculture Design Manual written by Bill Mollison, who had taught Geoff Lawton. I purchased the course online through Discover Permaculture. The course started in May of 2024 and ended on March 30, 2025. I finished the course on schedule. Although I was a bit rushed at the end, trying to meet the Final Design exercise deadline, and meet it I did. About a month later, I received my PDC certificate. Now I felt I was better equipped to take on the challenge of designing and evolving my own greening the desert project. But more bumps in the road were on the way.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Feel free to leave a comment or two. Until next time, grow your system of abundance with joy.