Next Adventures

It's raining after two lovely warm days. If it wasn't I'd be out finishing what I started yesterday in the kailyard. I raked and cultivated with a wheel hoe, preparing the earth to be composted and turned again before I create rows and start planting. That felt as good as I remembered, being sweaty out in the garden. The pigs watched me as I plowed through, and I could see the laying hen chicks biting and the few blades of grass that have arrived on the mountain so far. They were all experiencing the outdoors for the first time in a small tractor I use for "hardening off" young poultry. The lambs on the hill were bleating for more grain, the horses tails swishing in the sun, and the goats were having a head-butting competition that Ida was winning. It was a good day. The last few have been really good.

When I started this blog it was a fever dream. All of the writing was based on passion; this love affair with farming and the dream to pursue it full time. Over the years that, amazingly, has happened and what was once an outlet for energy has become a lovely habit. Writing is something I don't think I'll ever stop doing, and as long as people want to read this blog I'll keep at it.

Now, at 35, ten years after those first blog posts I wake up to the daily reality of keeping that dream fed. I'm happy for it, and proud of the determination and discipline it's forged inside me. Every weekday is a list of clients, meetings, deadlines, illustrations, design, and income goals. It is rare that everything on those to-do lists (a notebook I call The Boss) isn't handled and checked off. Every day I am accountable to that book and the work inside it. And every day I need to use social media to promote the skills I have to offer in hopes some of you take me up on it.

Things have changed in how I live and work on this farm. I realized that I wanted this place to be where I grow food for myself and for neighbors and friends. That keeps my customers close and their numbers small. I don't think I ever want to be responsible for feeding a village, or making the farm my entire focus. I adore the time I spend drawing animals as well as caring for them. The design work I spent 4 years getting a BFA in paid off, and also helps keeps those lights on (most of the time). This winter I started taking on part time work with a local marketing firm to supplement the farm/freelance income. Some weeks they have 2 hours of work for me, sometimes they have 10, but everything helps. Still, it's never going to be easy. Days like Monday remind me of that.

But even if things won't ever be easy, I can get better at them. That's the next adventure.