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. 

Thoughts on Gift Giving - for the kids

The holidays are coming. We're being bombarded with even more marketing than usual, the toy aisles at Wal Mart are full and spilling into the walkways, and the newspaper advertisements include actual books of pictures of toys intended to make our children beg for all the things they don't even actually want.

Over the past several years, I've become completely jaded when it comes to Christmas gift giving, especially to my kids. It's exhausting, it's irritating, it's wasteful and expensive. I want to make a change this year. I want to give them less, but not have them feel like they're missing out. But how to do it? When you set the standard for eight years, how do you suddenly turn around and just stop?

Honestly, I've always tried to keep it fairly simple. At least, compared to the insane barrage of gifts I was presented with each year as a child. The rule has always been six gifts - each month through the year, I would purchase a gift (something I found on sale usually) and stash it away in The Christmas Closet. (The six remaining gifts were for birthdays.) Doing it that way avoided feeling that extra pinch at Christmastime, and kept me from buying stupid things at full price during the holiday season. And until my oldest was about six, it was a really good system. But around that time, her interests became more specific - and on top of that, they changed more frequently. You can buy a three year old girl a Barbie in February and know she's going to love it come December. Not always so much with a six, seven or eight year old, who is fascinated with dinosaurs in February, but by December is over the dinosaurs and on to an obsession with horses.

So we need a new system.

My goals for this system: to discourage excessive want and materialism, and instead encourage appreciation and value; to provide toys and other gifts that will provide a full year's worth of enjoyment; to avoid adding to the already significant amount of Kid Clutter in our home; to not go broke.

I want to go down to four meaningful gifts for each kid (and by meaningful, I don't mean expensive.) Four is still probably an excessive number, but we better take this slow or we might all have a panic attack. One of those gifts will be hand made, all the better if it's made from recycled materials. One will be educational, something that will be used during school time to make learning a bit more fun. One will be something I find used - clothing or toys. (Is giving used items as a gift tacky? Eh, not to kids. Read Money Secrets of the Amish for a great view of this.) And the last will be a toy or something else they're really wanting.

This seems totally doable, right? I distinctly remember the year I was twelve, and when the presents under the tree were all opened and tossed aside, I looked one more time to make sure there was nothing else, and I was really disappointed. I'd already made out like... well, like a spoiled adopted kid whose parents wanted her to know how much they loved her. And I wanted more? Disgraceful. The let down was awful - going from the huge high of More Stuff to... done. I think a lot of people from my generation have a similar memory. We want to avoid that for our own children... so we've decided the best way to avoid it is to give them even more stuff! How much sense does that make?

So how to inform my kids - especially the oldest - that we're going to help build character by giving them fewer gifts? This can't go over well. They've got strong characters, but only Christ himself could accept that bit of news without feeling any disappointment.

My hope is to replace that huge pile of gifts with a huge pile of family traditions and togetherness. Remember in my last post, when I talked about quality time together as a family being the most important demonstration of love for my oldest daughter? Well, I'm gonna take that and run with it. I'm not sure just how yet, but we'll figure it out. I'm pretty good at coming up with hokey traditions that Two Little Girls love. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Have you downsized your Christmas gift giving yet? How did it go over? If you've got any tips on how to make this less traumatizing for my kids, please do share!