Farm Life's Hardest Lesson

If you read any "What I Wish I Would Have Known" articles written by modern homesteader types, one of the first items on their list is always going to be this:

You don't have to do it all at once.

Take it slow, they say. Give yourself grace, they say. Just a little bit at a time and don't overwhelm yourself.

I've read dozens of those articles. And I've always nodded in agreement, as though I've always known perfectly well that that one little bit of advice is absolutely correct.

Except that I didn't.

My best friend and I used to joke that whichever one of us ended up moving to a farm first was going to end up sitting in the middle of her pasture, crying the ugly cry, absolutely overwhelmed by what she had taken on and that the other friend was going to have to listen and comfort and try not to say "I told you so."

Turns out, I was the first one to move to a farm. And that prediction wasn't as far off as I'd like for you think it is. Except that it's snowy outside, so I was sobbing in my bedroom, while staring at my pasture. Which really isn't any better.

I haven't blogged regularly in almost a year. There's a reason for it though.

The past year has been seriously rough. My husband has been working out of town - sometimes out of state - for the past year. He's gone two weeks and then home for a week. That means that two thirds of the time, every responsibility of this property falls on my shoulders. In the past year I have raised a rather large garden, milked two goats and kept another 50 or so animals alive, homeschooled a first and fifth grader, kept a 4600 square foot house clean, raised 700 bales of hay on a 25 acre pasture using nothing but a shovel and some tarps. I've raised and butchered enough chickens to last a year, canned a year's worth of fruits and vegetables and dried or frozen what wasn't canned, cooked dinner every night,  run my kids around to their extra curricular activities, driven an hour each direction every time I needed groceries, hauled horses to 9 gymkhanas and rodeos, and hauled chickens to the county fair. And almost all of this with very little help from The Man of My Dreams, except for the weeks he was able to spend at home.

What I learned is that I really can do it all. I'm working from 5:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night, every single hour of the day, but I can get it all done. Until something goes wrong. As soon as the slightest little thing happens to upset my very rigid schedule, I lose it. I get so overwhelmed that I can't function and all I want to do is give up. Or cry.

The bad part of that, though, is that in this life, something happens to change your plans Every. Single. Day. Nothing ever goes the way you expect it to, or plan for it to. An animal gets sick. A kid misbehaves. A neighbor needs help. A fence needs fixed or a goat gets out or a deer dies in your front yard or your dog gets skunked or the well runs dry (again) and you have to spend an hour hauling water. The list of Things That Can Go Wrong is infinite. And each one of those things is guaranteed to happen when you least expect it. That is reality.

And with a schedule as packed as mine has been this year, and a brain so overwhelmed by constant mental to-do lists, there just isn't time to stop and enjoy all those little things that are supposed to bring me joy. I don't have time to watch my kids play with animals or build a fort or raise a puppy. I don't have time to relax with my husband and just sit and watch the sun go down. I've spent every waking moment just keeping up, keeping my head above water, that I've lost touch with every reason we moved up here in the first place. And that makes my heart hurt.

It's a lesson no one can just tell you and expect you to understand: You don't have to do it all at once.

You have to learn it, first hand. And it's painful. And it involves a lot of frustration and even more tears. But eventually, you take a step back, and you realize what you're doing to yourself, and you decide things have to change. Priorities have to be considered. You have to give yourself room to bend, and time to relax. You have to remember that there are so many years ahead of you to figure this all out and get it all done. And there will never be one single year when you actually accomplish everything you feel like you should. Living this life isn't something to mark off the to-do list. It's a process - a life long process - and it will never actually be finished.

And so, at a time when so many of my friends are moving out to the country and starting their homesteading lives, here is my advice:

You don't have to do it all at once.

Take it slow.

 Give yourself grace.

Just a little bit at a time.

Don't overwhelm yourself.

And when you are sobbing in the middle of your pasture, don't hesitate to give me a call. 

Weeds, Bugs, Snot... and a little bit of spinach.

I did a lot of daydreaming about our garden here when we first moved in. It involved lush, gorgeous plants, rich, nearly-black soil, and no weeds or bugs to speak of.


I'm not sure what I was thinking.


A little bit of mountain-gardening reality: we grow everything bigger up here. Except plants that produce vegetables.


The weeds are amazing. Their roots run a foot or more deep into the ground, they grow at a rate of six inches per day, and they spread like wild fire. And they're not just normal weeds, either - each one is dangerous in it's own way. There are goat-heads, which produce nasty thorns with spikes sharp enough to pop a tire, there are thistles that manage to prick me even through leather gloves, and there is something out there - I've yet to identify it - that causes an itchy red rash if it touches skin.


And then there are all the bugs! I always sort of thought the first year or two gardening in a new place, you got a 'bye' from the bugs. You know, because they hadn't found all your delectable goodies yet. But no, apparently that's just a rule in the city. These bugs know what they're looking for. Cabbage worms, flea beetles, japanese beetles, cutworms, ants so adept at climbing that they can make it inside of muck boots in no time at all. You name it, we seem to have it. And in addition to the bugs that are enjoying the feast I have planted for them, there are the flying, stinging variety too. I've never seen wasps as big as the ones we have up here. As big as the one that stung me in the armpit last week. (Yes, the armpit. It takes a certain amount of talent to get stung in the armpit. Clearly, I'm one talented lady.)


I'm not sure why I thought it would be, but the soil here is no different from our soil in The Big City - thick clay that turns to snot every time you water, then turns to cement when it dries out. Neither snot nor cement are considered ideal planting mediums for seeds, and sprouting is random and sparse. This also means tilling is a heckuva job for The Man of My Dreams, because sadly, using a jackhammer isn't an option when trying to turn over dirt for a vegetable garden. He's managed to get three beds worked up, and I'm afraid that might be it this year. So I've got something like 750 square feet of garden beds to work with right now. Early in the season I was disappointed at this.

In fact, The Man of My Dreams (who is the most logical, realistic man I've ever met) told me, "I think you need to start small." Hmph, I thought, start small? Phooey. I want all 10,000 square feet tilled this year, and I'm gonna plant every last inch of it, darnit! But once again, he's been proven right. Spending an hour out in the garden every evening, I'm barely keeping up with the bindweed that's climbing my onions, the alfalfa that refuses to grow in our pasture but is quite prolific in the garden, and all the dangerous plants threatening to fill my garden soil with pokey, prickly bits if I don't get them pulled right now.

At some point, I was starting to feel a little down about all of this. Okay, no, that's an understatement. I declared, "I am a gardening failure. We will never again eat fresh vegetables. Gardening in the mountains is impossible, and I am giving up."


But them I remembered: even in my little 300 square foot garden in The Big City, it took three or four years for the soil and I to get to know each other and build a real relationship and be able to work together. And the soil in The Tiny Little Town doesn't care how well I knew the soil back in the city, it expects me to start from scratch, introduce myself, and we will slowly get to know each other. That's how soil is. It likes to take things slow.


So I'm letting it go. I'll plant things. Some will come up, some won't. I'll give the soil as much enrichment as I can (which is easy to do with farm animals that produce inordinate amounts of poo.) We'll eat some fresh veggies, and what I can't grow, I can buy. (I like to pretend there is no grocery store to run to when we are hungry. It makes me feel more like a pioneer. But there is, and this year I'm grateful for it.) We may not have freezers full of blanched and frozen garden veggies to feast on all winter, but that's just gonna have to be okay.


I'll learn a lot this year. I'll make notes on how to do things differently next year. I'll fight the weeds and maybe have fewer to contend with in the future. We'll harvest what we can. And I won't stress, because this garden is simply not going to be as lush and beautiful as my garden in the city... at least, not yet.

 And if nothing else, at least we will have spinach.

Dancin' Under the Stars

Fact: Small town fun is way better than Big City fun.

Well, if you have the right state of mind, anyway. In the short time we've lived here, we've done more fun things together as a family than we did in the years we lived in the Big City. It's safer, the people are friendlier, and everything just feels a little more wholesome.

This holiday weekend, after the rodeo was over, there was a dance at the rodeo grounds. The band set up a stage on a flat bed trailer, a dance floor made with plywood covered pallets, and a makeshift party was had, right there next to the arena while the calves mooed from their pens and folks finished putting their horses into trailers.


If you've never had the opportunity to dance under the stars, you're missing out. There's something really special about it.


It doesn't matter that the dance floor is a little bumpy and scratchy, that the only real lighting is from Christmas lights strung along the trailer. What mattered was seeing my husband dance with my Littlest One...


And seeing my biggest one getting her farm girl groove on with a little cowboy...

 And enjoying the fact that we live in a place where there are such fun things to do. Country folks really do know how to have a good time! 

A Christmas Dance

We went to the Tiny Little Town for the Christmas Dance last night.

Tiny Little Towns are wonderful. Because they have things like Christmas dances in old auditoriums. Because they have local bands that include banjos and fiddles and all the ranch-folk get up and dance and have a merry ol' time.

Tiny Little Towns also have adorable little boys dressed in boots, hats, and leather vests.

Adorable little boys that like to dance. :o)



I get the prize for worst video quality ever, I think. It was dark! But it's still cute.

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On a side note... the contract is signed. The Tiny Little Town is going to be home before too much longer!