Snap

Homesteading means waking on the sofa ,where you have dozed off waiting for  the kids to go to sleep, and pulling on the quilted work suit over your pajamas, and grabbing your headlamp to check on the barnyard before you can crawl off to bed, because we are experiencing a cold snap. It means scooping up Lydia, the laying hen ,where she has roosted in the hay barn, to return her to the coop after she missed the round up earlier in the evening. It is distributing a bit more hay to keep all the other animals fed well enough to keep warm in the 27 degree night. It means pausing by the wood pile to shine your light on a field mouse scampering by with its own mouthful of hay; sympathetic to its plight tonight, but sort of hoping it becomes dinner for the owls before it moves in to eat the vegetables grown in the garden in the summer months. It is the amazing experience  of feeling the thrill of  cool air, and taking in the crisp stars above; to fill my lungs with the chill. It is also knowing ,despite the cold in my bones, I have nothing to loose in this freeze.  We are just dipping our toes in; manual work for our eggs, milk, and veggies, but my husband still trudges off to work to pay the bills. We are living a life where we have engaged in a deeper relationship with this earth, these animals, even wacky Mother Nature herself.  Yet, I know with a clarity of perspective, we are small potatoes. I buy my hay from a farm close enough that we can hear their cows call for their supper in the evening while I cook .  I am in awe of their family, farming that plot for the last 100 plus years. There is deep dedication and risk involved; for them the instability of spring brings not just inconvenient weather, but the gamble of loss in an orchard full of blossoms open early, and still they take the odds for what they are. It is easy to romanticize the poetry in this way of living. I try to remember to see with eyes wide open.