Southwest View

My desk still  not quite the space I want it to be, but this view? Oh this view is so distracting, beautiful, heartbreaking.

It is a conventional field we don't own. When we first moved here it was used for hay, all of it as far I I could see was green and gold grass. Every year that hay field shrinks in favour of soybean crop and with it the crop duster issues, last year the plane flew so close to our house that the tops of the maple trees crackled. That can't be good for the plane either. For almost a week, the plane buzzed our house and the woods right over the beehives over and over again. I had to blast NPR podcasts to drown out the noise, which to me is the sound of death and poison.

This is tragic for me in so many other ways too. I am the daughter of a pilot. I grew up around planes. I wanted to be Amelia Earhart when I was little, getting a pilot license was high on my list and I absolutely LOVED when planes flew low enough for me to read their numbers. The crop dusters here have ruined that joy for me.

I need to find a way to make peace with them. Send a letter, post more no spray signs. One of the things we have tried really hard to do here is respect the conventional farmers that are our neighbours, respect their land and their farming and foster relationship. Maybe they just don't understand what we are trying to do here? That we are trying to develop new methods of agriculture that can undo the damage of the last century of farming and move forward with better, healthier soil and water? According to the fliers and rhetoric I have heard at the co-op- our goals are the same.

This is what I thought as I gazed out this window. Also, that if I ever finish that novel and it makes enough $$, maybe I can buy the view and everything that flows into our watershed and make this land and this water better. One handful of dirt, one drop of water at a time. That's what everybody dreams of right? Healing the earth? I think perhaps I am more of a tree hugging hippie than I have ever admitted before. My dream is to own the 3000 original acres that went with this homestead and create regenerative agriculture systems that folks can learn from and that can provide for my community, healthy affordable food and nutritional medicines.

Those of you who have read here for a while, you all know, when I have a dream and set a goal? It gets done. Eventually. You have to have a destination to make a map, then you have to take the first step. We are leagues into our journey already. Even if we don't get all of the things done, we will have made progress and the world a better place if even just for a moment.

First thing in the morning......

Instead of saving blogging for right before bed when I am bone deep tired from the day or for the times I can escape to a coffee cafe with free wifi, I am going to give writing a go before I even get out of bed.

Why not? The floors are so cold today that I spilled water in the kitchen and I swear the puddle froze. I went right back to bed. Farm life, yeah.

This is my view right now. Chad moved my desk to the bedroom last night but I have not yet set up anything, there is a giant pile of laundry on the floor waiting to be checked for sizes and either put in storage or put away, and there are odd and ends everywhere. Bed isn't made because I am still under the covers, the 7 layers of quilts.

Nah, it really isn't that cold here. Not really. I am a southern girl in my blood though and the cold hurts. It feels like an insult to my human form. I thrive when it is hot, hot and the air is so think with luscious humidity that you can swim in it and drink it raw right from the air. Why do I live here, in this arctic vortex? It is a compromise with my love, he melts and dies in the heat a million deaths and feels like he is drowning. He likes the cold and is up and alert and alive when the temps drop. He'd move to a pole if he could, or at the very least Canada/Alaska, and be really happy. Not me. Oh no. I neeeeeeeed the heat.

When I do get up, it will be right into long johns, double wool socks and insulated boots, maybe even two sweaters. Then I make cinnamon and ginger tea. I add cayenne to everything. Still, after all that, my core body temp is still fighting the cold air that I breathe in. Come on winter, let's get you over with.

I do love the beauty of the snow though. I love how my kids love to play in it. I love that it kills ticks and fleas and cockroaches. I love how peaceful everything looks when it is snowing big fluffy flakes of wonder. I love soup. I love that when the weather gets like this I can make soup all the time and I don't get as many complaints. Today I am making fennel bulb and leek soup with croutons and Dubliner cheese. Molasses bread with beef gravy and fried potatoes for lunch. Oh it is going to be so good today in the kitchen. So good.

"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."

Mark Twain

Focus. This is what I need to do. I need to get up early and get shit done. Every day. Last year when I would head out to grade papers or plan lessons, I would submit work and blog first. I still got all my work done, but I also got the work for myself done. I was blogging almost every day. I was getting my work out and writing done. I got out of this habit in the fall because fall is killer here on the farm, but also because I unplugged myself for a bit. I needed to just be in my own head for a bit, process what our life was evolving into, and be there for my family in a really intense sort of way. That time is easing up though, and Spring brings with it more travel, lambing, and a heavier course load. I will need to stay focused so I don't end up crushed by obligations and workload. I can do this. I can eat the frog like it is my job. It is you know. The farm, writing, teaching, caring for my family- these are my jobs.

Today, I will crank up the music, get my creative space organised, cook nourishing food for my family, and dance through all the tasks. Lunch I will eat and then sit down to work on lesson plans since classes start next week. After dinner, I will head out for coffee and cake and write an essay that is floating in my head.

What frog will you eat today?

Selfie of the Prairie Life

Someone asked me last week if I were a patron saint of something, what would it be? If I was a goddess, what would my domain of power be?

To me theses are separate questions entirely. I used to really admire Saint Theresa, my middle name sake, the saint of little things, of household tasks. I once did a huge pencil and acrylic art piece of St. Theresa in modern times, asleep on the floor, with yellow latex gloves, mid floor scrub. The judge in the art review paused in front of it for quite a long time, just looking at it. Whispered, "Interesting." and that was it. It didn't win, but to me as an artist, the pause, the moment that stopped the viewer? That was what it is all about to me.

That is how I feel with my writing as well. When someone reads a poem or a blog post and it stays with them, they think about it, they feel something. That is enough. That is art. That feeling. That feeling is why I keep coming back to the page and lens trying to capture it when I feel it, trying to keep the darkness from eating me up.

And today, a lovely amazing woman I know posted a challenge to us all to take more selfies, not less. Take more pictures of the mundane moments in our life, not less. It is not self centred. It is not narcissism. It is trying to capture and share who we are, our own histories, our own beautiful imperfect lives. This is a challenge I live every single day. Or I try to.

It is true that often I leave out the hardest or the ugliest parts of my own life and relationships, but when I can, I post the real moments, the raw ones. It is always a balance to tell our stories while respecting the relationships that dwell inside them. I can only tell my own narrative point of view. This means leaving out the conversations I have with my 10 year old about private struggles she is having about growing up, leaving out conflicts I have with family members over personal choices I make when sharing them would show them in a bad light. Because I love them. I am not a saint of anything, but I try really hard to respect relationships in our everyday lives. I let friends go gently when they ask to be released, I respect the silences that grow from conflict, I nurture the spark of understanding, and I try really hard to be my authentic self the whole time and not hold back who I am even if it makes people uncomfortable sometimes. We all have our own struggles and issues. I get that. When I can accept my own self, I can accept yours.

I am a prairie dweller now. An artist and a caretaker of the land.

And this is rambling. I suspect that forcing daily posts will sometimes produce more and more ramblings than I like, but there you are. This is my mind.

This is how I spent my Sunday afternoon:

 Paper dolls, angry birds, and frying up "circle eggs" for Isaac.

Holly decided to cut out and glue together her own name. It was actually too huge and fell apart, so she joined Lily on the couch to learn about volcanoes and octopus bio-camouflage.

Lily actually is still pretty weak from her bout of the flu in December. She was the first to fall with body aches, migraine, and fever. Then Chad and me. The two littlest had Influenza A in 2011 and so when they got sick, they had some natural immunity and they only fevered and coughed for about 2 days with no asthma incidents. Thank goodness.

Chad and I though? I was so very sick for a long time. Week three now and I still have lingering symptoms. I feel like I am on the mend though. I shall send out Christmas cards soon, maybe. Ha.

Sunday was also our anniversary. We had "not really" tacos. I went to bed really early with a headache.

When I woke up this morning though, I was thinking about the selfie and the domain power questions. Right now, my calling is to document our everyday histories. To share my story. These questions intertwine. I am the goddess of the mundane and the quiet moments, of beauty in the everyday and small things.

What is your calling? What will you be remembered for or what will you want to remember a year from now?

Happy Anniversary Love

Today is our 16th wedding anniversay (I think, I've never been very good with math, but we were married in a snow storm in 1999, so I think my math is right.....). This is also our 6th farmaversary. We moved into the farmhouse 2009, on our 10th wedding anniversary.

We have 3 children, 16 years, 3 houses, 100 pigs, 3 bathroom tear outs, 2 kitchens, 4 gardens, and so many more adventures. So many more adventures to come.

This year though, this year was the hardest of our marriage. We'd survived three major house remodels/restorations (one was a full blown "divorce" house), three surgical births, one medical needs diagnosis for our youngest (the kind of dx that tears families apart), a major bank fiasco selling our other house (also recipe for marital strife), and a car accident. But this year? This year when everything seemed very stable and very calm, that's when it became difficult.

Why? My best guess is stress fatigue. We could finally collapse after surviving the years that nearly killed us. Collapse we did. And hard.

Luckily we fell into each other eventually. Not at first though, and that was a really scary part.

I went to Georgia to pursue poetry. I came back ready to move forward with that artistic endeavour. Chad was deep into learning about permaculture and studying the design aspect. It was not the first time our interests took us in opposite directions, but it felt like it. It felt like a huge distance was growing between us.

Spring came and was absolutely gorgeous. We tapped and syruped the trees. We had piglets born. We began to make space for each other, though terrified at what was happening, at least I was. I thrive on open physical space, but I have always needed the closeness that was our marriage and family. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't know what needed to be done.

This is the crucial part. I realised that I was looking for a physical space to recreate what we had when we were first married. I needed a porch. My porch, however, was filled with construction debris that needed to be there. So, there it stayed but block by block, every night I moved a few to the perimeter. Soon, the kids joined in. Then one week Chad finished it all. We hung the porch swing. We moved some chairs out. Soon enough this became where we spent our mornings, afternoons, and evening. Dinner was shared out here. Games were played. Art was made. Long, long talks, often with blankets wrapped around us, candles lit in lanterns, and music playing, happened on the swing. Sometimes early in the morning. This space had existed all this time, but was unusable because of all the junk that was piling up.

The distance that was between us filled up with love. Block by block, things that were problems shifted to the outside. Still there, but not in the way.

We came to a place where we realised we really didn't know each other anymore, but wanted to. That was an important part of it: we both really wanted to. We dated each other all over again, made time each day for connecting (usually doing chores together), and made space. Then, once we felt stable again, we really talked about what needed to change to keep things good. We did more things with the children, invited them to our porch space, into our art and music space.

So.....Chad quit his job. The commute was killing him. The sitting in an artificially lit box at a desk all day was killing him, actually and physically. So he quit. We have a farm. We have a farm business, I have a job I like mostly, and the kids need him too.

I need him. More than ever, I need him here. We discussed a lot of other options though and this is the one that made sense, that felt right, and was doable.

This. This making space. Making time. Making room. This is what saved our family. I feel more married and connected to the thing that is us than I have ever before this year and for that I am really grateful.

Happy anniversary, Love.