Life Update

Still alive.  Thought I should write something because the cow post being the most recent post was bugging me.  We sold Molly and George last Monday, before George was even a week old.  I'm a little bummed in a way and may never clear this slight sense of failure, but I can say I have no regrets.  We gave it a shot, our best, and it wasn't for us.  Ya gotta know when to fold 'em.   Okay, one regret... in the hoop-la, I somehow neglected to tell Farra exactly what was going on (I thought she picked up on the preceedings, I was wrong) and she didn't get to tell the critters goodbye.  *gulp*  Ya ever have one of those moments as a mom...?

I have to tell you, though, that our daily responsibilities are a far sight easier now.  I haven't heard anyone say, "Gee, I miss milking the cow.  I miss the cowpies in the yard and all the flies."  The older girls and I take turns milking the one goat and feeding the rest of the critters.  The first morning I milked our goat after the few days with the cow... I laughed and laughed because it was just SO EASY.  Picture a goat kid compared with a calf and you can imagine the difference in their sucking reflexes...  it's obvious in their teats.  You really don't have to work that hard to get milk from a goat.  I know people milk cows all the time and good for them, I say.  But, at Molly's new home they milk by machine.

The couple buying her asked me to get up a little earlier to milk, since they were coming from KC (the night before), then going to the Springfield area to pick up another cow/calf, then home to KC by evening chores.  I did, but they were late anyway.  Oh well.  They were very impressed with Molly and the calf and even sent us an email when she settled in to tell us what a good job we did training her.  That felt so good!  Also, they said Molly was enjoying the lush grass - they noticed how dry it was down here in the southern part of the state - they've been getting all our rain up there. 

We previewed Molly's new home here:  hiddenhillsfarms.com   The family is doing something I greatly admire - sustainable agriculture.  Joel Salatin style.  And apparently doing it well.  They sell 100% grass fed milk (now 10, I think), beef, pastured poultry and pork, as well as some organic produce.   She seemed a lot like me in her thinking, so I got to wondering what the difference was, why am I not doing the same sort of thing?  The difference is that her husband shares that vision.  Mine appriciates it, I think, but that's as far as it goes.  It's not the life for him.  I can deal with that. He watches Food Inc., wows and agrees all the way through, drinking his Mt. Dew and eating his Reeses Pieces.  With Bobby and I so different, I am often amazed and grateful that I get to farm at all, and that he will help me build barns and till gardens.  Another reason to give careful thought in choosing a spouse....

Haven't been in the garden much.  Watered some, marveled at how terrible the tomatoes were doing (splitting, rotting), how tall weeds grow when you ignore them, how silly of me to plant this or that that we never even harvested before it went bad.  My heart is not in the garden this year, even when my body is.  We've finally gotten some rain this last week... not just a spit and sputter, but drenching rains, wonderfully rains.  Beautiful, but not violent, storms.  Still some in the forecast.  It's been cooler, but HUMID and ugh... I'm just thankful for the little AC unit Bobby found for our bedroom (free - out of a wrecked camper while he was scrap'n).  This pregnant lady can get restful naps, now.  Some days it feels like the only thing I do well.

This summer is hard.  Harder because this last winter was so hard and we so much looked forward to the relief that warm weather would bring regarding work.  But there has been so little work.  We wouldn't have been able to pay the mortgage if we hadn't sold the cow and though we've tasted that in some winters, never in the summer.   Even my dad, who has always been able to get work as a carpenter somewhere has barely found enough.  That makes it a little less hopeful looking for us!  But Bobby has enjoyed scraping.  It's one of his favorite ways to earn money.  There are so many old farms with those dumps in the woods, filled with old steel.  The price of steel has dropped somewhat as we've gone into summer, but most days it's still worth it for Bobby to go out.  I don't think we'd ever be able to live off it, but it helps and it keeps him busy.  The hardest days are those when he's home and we have time and no money and we don't know where or when the next work will come from.  The waiting is so hard.

I was looking through old photos on my laptop a couple weeks ago and saw one that stopped me, made me think.  Bobby and a 5 or 6yr old Farra were sitting at our kitchen counter at our house in Ozark.  They were snacking on blueberry muffins, taking a break from work.  Bobby didn't remember, but I did.  They had been out raking leaves.  Bobby wasn't able to find work, so he took Farra and hit up the neighborhood for leaf-raking jobs.  The first (and only, I think) job they got, the old couple paid them and threw in a box of food, odds and ends of non-perisables, blueberry  muffins.  Blessing and humbling.   My point, though, and what got me, looking back, is that this way of life is not new for us.  I have been telling myself it's because of this "recession" that we're having such a hard time, but it's not, not really.  We have lived this way our entire married life.  The realization was at once depressing and encouraging.  Depressing, I need not explain, encouraging because we have LIVED this way for nearly 11 years.  We have not gone hungry, not been cold, always had a roof over our heads, etc.  We have always had friends, always been blessed by each other, always been rich in character.... this is our life.  It has worked for us.  Maybe a different choice of mates would have netted me a more "comfortable" life, and there's a lesson in that (that I will somehow, delicately share with my children as they grow), but I wouldn't trade mine now for all the world.  There is a sense of security in my life that comes from somewhere other than my husband's job.  This was no mistake on my Father's part...  he knows who and what I would be if I didn't need to depend upon him for my daily bread.

There.  That's my life update for now.