hard work

Living on this little farm is a whole lot of joy. Our conversations lately have revolved around animals. Do we want to get pigs next year? Maybe goats? Maybe a cow. When should we order our fryer chicks? How soon will we need that mobile coop for the chicks? Where will we process our honey?

These are all really fun conversations. It's the dreaming stuff. It's exciting. And we're excitable.

But there has been a little pace shift this spring that I am just now starting to put words to. And it has to do with the fact that Rory already works a full time job. So every other project has to happen in the afternoon and evening.

It means that often, I lose my husband to the outdoors until the sun goes down.

And this is fine. I signed up for this. And everything he is doing, I want done too. I want the apple trees watered. I want the blueberries mulched and the sweet peas trellised. I want the law mowed and the flower boxes weeded. I want the rocks picked out of the field.

I'm fully on board. But I'm just here to mention that there are some harder adjustments to this life out in the country.

I helped on Sunday night with the rocks in the field. I actually was out there for quite a while, proud of myself, thinking about that scene in Sweetland where the husband and wife harvest all of their crops by hand. We weren't quite that couple, but since rocks seem to be one crop our field grows super well, it did feel applicable.

But then I remembered that the kids had hopped out of the cab of the truck, and that I hadn't seen them in a while. So I went looking and when I found them I had a diaper to change, supper to make, baths to give and kids to put to bed. Rory worked the whole time out in the field and I was very aware of our new routine. It's a good life, but there are just a whole lot of plates in the air.

And don't get me wrong. I have enough large scale farmers in my life to know that I know nothing about long hours during planting and harvest and never even seeing my spouse during those times. But I'm just saying, for a hobby farm, there is a whole lot of time and hard work that goes into all of these hobbies!