The Year the Farm Ideal Cocooned

I dream in bold, vibrant colors.   And sometimes my reality scrapes the surface of those pictures, those ideals.  Yet often it falls way short.  Slowly, Josh has lost interest in bee keeping.  Two hives died over the winter and one this summer.  Now there is talk of cleaning up the equipment and selling it?!?  Dad can't work them anymore because of a way too close to antaflatic shock sting.  And me.  Well, I have struggled to make the time to enjoy it with him and it feels more like a chore than a fun hobby.  No one ever told me how smeltering hot those suits are in the heat of summer!

And chickens, well...a neighborhood dog ate one last November and we ran out of feed and the chickens were not laying so I sold them on free cycle.  Harsh?  Maybe, but if you don't produce are you worth keeping around?  Besides, our chicken guy, Jed was selling the eggs we did get which left me buying eggs from the store.  hummm.  So plans began to build a bigger coup so to feed us and have an egg business.  But here it is November again and do we have a bigger coup built?  Nope.

The one thing that has been smokin' around here is our Tower Garden.  It fed us the most tasty lettuce I've ever had.  After years of struggling to grow enough lettuce for my crew I am thrilled to be an organic lettuce grower!  Lettuce below took 1/2 the time to get that big compared to my square foot garden.  Yet now the dream is a green house so I can keep producing lettuce throughout the winter.  AND the kids say they will help sell heads at the Farmers Market next spring- heads of lettuce that is along with eggs from our chickens we don't have a home for yet.  And did I mention Abby wants to sell bread that she doesn't know how to make fully on her own yet?  So, plans are in the works of buying 3 more towers and growing even more food.  And dreams are in the blood of all the Walters of making and growing things with our hands that will bless others and deposit some change in these kids bank accounts.  For college, of course.

But as I sit here on a crisp fall Saturday morning, it is hard for me to give myself permission to admit I am tired.  Yet, as I reach for food that doesn't satisfy like I thought or seek out girl time that leaves me insecure and teary this week I wonder what it is I really need.  After all what more could a woman living in America, with food, water, a home,  a husband, who has a job, with four healthy souls to raise, a dab of land, her health, family only hours away and friends within reach be groaping for?

Attached to the fencing for the chickens, 4 fences so to rotate them and allow them to be free range of course, we dream of building a fence for 2 sheep as well.  We have the land, so why not?!?  They don't need milking or tear things up like goats, so what could be that hard about it?

 Our hearts are restless until they rest in You, O Lord.  St. Augustine said.  And ya know what, he was on to something.  It was 3 months ago that I unplugged from social media, started turning off my phone for periods of time.  I woke up to my reality and felt the nudges and followed them.  My reality being I was sitting in my chair in the dark of morning with coffee in hand and my Bible, wheeling my thumb through facebook, then email, then checking the weather.  God felt miles away even though I was supposedly sitting there with him, my day felt weighty upon me and despite responding to & encouraging friends on the internet, I felt alone.  Disconnected from my own heart and unsure of how to re-kindle my once optomistic, loving self.  Not to mention, how to re-connect with Father in a way that didn't feel trite and routine.

So what is a girl who has driven to Alaska in college, around the whole US of A in highschool and from WA to NC with 3 kids under 6 do?  She takes to the road!  I packed the kids up & drove 3 hours to my parents cozy little national park of a haven, fit with bikes, fishing rods, kayaks & canoes for a week unplugged, just the kids and I.  Marvelous.  Deep breath.  Amazing how the kids play and laugh and invite each other to run and explore when other distractions are taken away.  Little to no toys, no other friends, no internet.  And we survived.  We even live to tell about it and are better off for it.  I will say, we actually thrived.  I will write about it more fully at some point I know.  We returned refreshed, more connected to each other, rested and with stronger bonds of loyalty and love to one another.  And a ton of silly stories and brave adventures to tell at highschool granduations & wedding rehersals.

Then, 7 days later, I was loading up again for a 10 hour road trip to FL...by myself with the kids.  Alone until James flew in on Wed. to enjoy with us and then drive back as a family on Sunday.  Nervous to say the least, I went overboard with car games, baggies of carrotts, grapes, cucumbers, goldfish, cookies, new books on cd from lamplighter theater.com (fabulous quality, beautiful, funny, character building) as well as movies for when all my tricks ran out.  Stopping only at rest stops for potty breaks and a lunch picnic & soccer game of course, we arrived safely at dark.  We found our condo, gloried in the beauty, gave high fives, brushed teeth and crawled in bed.

It was here that I had a moment.   A teary one, actually.  It was an, "I love my kids" moment.  A "I'm going to be okay" coupled with, "Damn we smoked that road trip- that was actually restful at times, we laughed even.  Like often.  Amid the occasional, "She touched me!" stuff of course."

So, today, this fall of 2013 I wish the coop was built, the bees were warm & cozy in hives & sheep were grazing so our kids could be caring for them, learning both responsibility and building bonds with living things.  I wish I wasn't soul tired, that I was "all better" after a few months of unplugging and ready to re- enter.  But what I think is that once burnout is reached or surfacy, internet, scrolling addicted reality is confessed, it takes time to re-humanize.  To re-surface fully whole and holy full anew with beauty & the persons in ones eyeball world.  As I journey through this reality and allow myself permission to be a bit tired and raw from the bumps of the year, I am thankful for this space to write and hope afresh of living a one piece life.