Work

Wow is there ever a lot of work to do here!! I spent a couple of days so overwhelmed by the amount of "stuff" to do that I shut down. I started to doubt myself and my choice. Then one morning I came across the going away card from Sandi Risi. The final line she wrote in that card was "Now...pull up your big girl panties, pull your hair back, straighten up your crown and go get 'em". When I finally dried my tears, I unpacked my saw and pulled out my 2x4's and started building a compost bin. Silly maybe, but to me it was a very important first step as I knew the vegetable gardens I had planned in the spring would need all the compost I could create!

The following day my parents arrived for a 10 day work-cation. These 10 days put me on a path of self confidence and belief that I could do it. I just had to remember everything would not happen "now". People who know me well, know I am not a patient person...I want everything done NOW! So its a hard lesson to learn, but a very important one.

Over those 10 days, I watched my Zoe go from hesitant when her grampa told her to try the lawn tractor, to not letting anyone else touch her tractor. We cleared an "island" (our nickname for the overgrown areas around and between trees) we harvested and processed apples, we got the barn door running smoothly, we discovered more of the 25 acres including streams, meadows, another orchard, and very dense forest. We started to bring in firewood, we took numerous loads to the dump and cleaned up the mess remaining from the previous owners. We got so much accomplished its hard to believe we had time to enjoy good food, Nova Scotian wine and beer, evening fires and star gazing as well as showing off the area surrounding our new home.

I had so many plans for this move. I still have all those dreams and plans but I have tried to relieve the pressure of the timeline I had set for myself. I want to enjoy the process and not feel like I'm letting myself down if I don't have a garden dug this fall and chickens in the spring and a pig by June and a cow next year. I have realized its going to be okay if I have to get a job to tide us over until we are able to achieve a sustainable farm. And in the meantime...I have to go burn the wild climbing roses I cut out of the tulip tree this morning!