Never Ending... I am Blessed

How is it that I can work so hard, for so long, and still keep falling behind?! So much to do, so much to do, and not enough time, or energy! My body is letting me know that it isn't as young as it once was... but when did I get old enough to have my joints and back hurt like this? How do I never get everything done and still keep having more things piled onto the "to-do" list? Do you know what the strangest part of it all is? I LOVE IT!

Five years ago I can remember grumbling about it being too darn ( I'm sure I used much more colorful words...) HOT to mow the yard. And it was such hard work! Why couldn't I just hire someone to mow?! Push mowing the whole yard was more than I could handle. Why did it have to be done so often? Did I mention that the yard was less than 1/4 an acre... including the driveway and where the actual house stood. Since then, I have moved to the deep south... now I know what hot REALLY is! Now one of my favorite jobs is push mowing about 2 acres of my yard. The rest is bush-hogged a few times a year.  It is killing me to have to wait to mow! The biggest part of my yard can't be bush-hogged until the dew-berries ripen. I will do that once they are picked. As for the rest of the yard, I am moving the baby chickens, who are about 10 weeks old now, around the yard in chicken tractors and I don't want to waste all the good grazing area. Moving the two chicken tractors is one of the first things I do in the morning, along with feeding and watering them. They are usually moved twice a day. I have ordered automatic waterers for both tractors. Now I need to remember to buy 5 gallon buckets with lids and fittings to connect them and build a spot on top of the tractor to hold the bucket. It will make the tractors heavier, but it will lesson the chance that they are ever out of water.

The raised bed garden is overgrown and hasn't been cleared yet, much less replanted. The tomatoes I and peppers I planted inside are getting HUGE and starting to fall over. They need replanting badly! I am, however, working on a much larger, new-and (hopefully) improved garden area! I am still going to use my 6x6 square above ground beds, but for things that spread (like pumpkins) and that I want a lot of (like tomatoes, corn, and bell peppers) those little beds just aren't working. I will write more in another post, but suffice it to say, I have spent hours and hours shoveling dirt, and pulling tree roots, and busting up dirt clods. Until my body hurts so badly I can hardly move and walk like something out of a zombie movie (slow zombies, not the ninja ones lol), and my hands are so stiff and in pain that I can hardly open and close them by the end of the day (this typing hurts!). I have been cutting down and moving brush and briars and have fire-ant bites and briar scratches up and down my arms and legs. But I keep waking up the next day, looking at how it is coming along, and am excited to start working on it again! Don't get me wrong... the pain isn't fun. I don't like feeling old... and don't feel like I am old enough to feel this old. But I love seeing all that I am accomplishing and I am so excited to be doing it!

 I love feeling physically tired at the end of the day. It feels like I have actually DONE something. I kept saying that I needed more exercise when I was sitting on my butt in an office. This is so much better than throwing away hours at a gym! I love looking around at all the things I have done and seeing how it has changed, and planning for what comes next. Nothing I do is perfect, but part of the fun is tweaking the design for the next one. I am on my 4th garden design and just finished my 6th chicken tractor. Each time, I think they get better but each time they are still lacking something. I could make a million of them and would never feel like it is perfect, but that just inspires me to make it even better next time!

I have heard the saying that 80% of running a farm is upkeep. Only 20% is progress. I wonder how they manage 20% progress! I feel, some days, like I spend all day running in place and still end up further behind than when I started that morning. Whoever called it the "simple life" is sadly mistaken! "Simple" it is not! It is hard work! It is backbreaking, heart breaking, and sweat breaking. Sometimes it is very frustrating. But most of the time I am enjoying everything I have too much to remember to be frustrated. I will never get caught up on all that there is to do around here. I will always be taking one step forward and two steps back. And you know what? I am blessed! I have learned that, by and large, some of the most "Zen" moments I have are when I am so exhausted that I have to sit down and take a break. I sit there, peacefully reflecting on what I have been doing and plan for what is to come after. It is a really beautiful feeling. I love taking moments to sit sit and watch the chickens clucking peacefully as they look for bugs, and the turkeys puffing up and strutting around to prove to me that each is the most handsome of all. I catch myself drifting off sometimes when I really need to be getting things done, but those moments are what I do it all for. I am sad to think of all the things that the me 5 years ago was missing out on. That me would never look at my life now and think that it was pleasant. I would have thought it miserable! Now, that's how I see my life back then. It amazes me how much I have changed. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my life on Sunflower Hill!!!