The Corn is in the ground and so are the Broccoli plants. Let’s see. Yesterday we got in the tomatoes, onions, carrots, kale, jalapeno, lemon cucumbers, and watermelons. Even with knee-pads and gloves for gardening, my knees are aching, and my hands are caked with dirt and soil amendments.
Bean played in what will eventually be one of the duck ponds, and pretended to fish. We still have so many weeds to pull, but we decided that it’s better to get stuff in the ground, and be imperfect about it, than wait until everything is pristine, and we’ve missed the times to get our food in the ground.
This is an area I get to learn more about every day. Imperfection. Not that I’ve ever thought I was or could be perfect. I just strive for a calendar, and a to-do list that I can accomplish, and that makes sense. Farming and gardening, and dealing with animals and doing all these chores requires so much more of a Hang Loose Attitude than I possess. I want to be able to say Every Monday, we will do such and such. Well, it doesn’t always work that way.
It is not so much that I need to learn more about imperfection. I am a case study in imperfection. I just need to learn to embrace it more. Bring it – Big crazy, messy world. Do your darnedest! I will thrive in the midst of it and be happy, come what may. There.
Kids aren’t clean enough to go out in public? Who cares! Kids acting in public as if they were raised by wolves? Oh, heck. That bugs me, because they are taught better, but they would rather be wild animals sometimes. Wouldn’t we all, come to think of it?
Schedules don’t always work out. To-Do lists become so long and cumbersome that we only get a few of the major things done, and we run out of energy or daylight, or think it would be more fun to just play with our kids for a while instead of being productive anymore.
Here’s the fun part. Randomly, for no reason at all, other than that we had extra milk, I made chocolate ice cream yesterday from goat’s milk. We all loved it so much, we don’t ever want to buy ice cream again. And tomorrow we will be making granola bars from scratch, because it doesn’t make sense for us to make lunches with homemade bread, homemade jam, homegrown turkey, homegrown ham, homemade mayonnaise, (not all together – but there are several sandwiches we could make out of that list) and still throw in packaged snacks from Costco.
So, we fill our days with lots of work, still nap when we feel like it, get lots done, leave more undone, and embrace the idea of moving in the right direction, rather than having it all together right now. And that feels right, and like that’s really the whole lesson of living this way after all.
We are very impressed with you learning to be a farm wife, where living is more important than getting it all done on time and perfectly. “Goodonya!”