Feeling The Crunch...

Or, holy crap! In less than two weeks we're making the move to the farm and my due date was eight weeks yesterday!

I think every pregnant woman gets that sudden jolt at some point in their pregnancy where they realize 'ohmygodimgoingtohaveababyandihaveamillionthings to do..............'  and I had mine yesterday.  I was doing some light packing while Mr. Pretties (not so pretty today, kind of mad at him actually ;) )  was at work and thinking about how in two weeks we would be making the move. To a farm.  To live out our dream.  And then I was like 'What?! We're moving to a farm?!  To live our our dreams?! When did this happen?? Where was I??' followed by the next series of revelations that A) My next midwife appt is going to be an at home appt on the 2nd of February and my house is going to pile a of boxes 'Hi There, thanks for driving all the way out here, please, pull up a box...' Nice.  and B) Oldest Little Pretties 7th (!!!) birthday will be requiring a party mid February, when hopefully our house is no longer a box storage facility, which got me to C) My due date was eight weeks yesterday!!!  Which will be down to six weeks by the move, and three weeks by the party!!!  Then I had to hyperventilate into the nearest paper bag (fortunately I'm a crafter, I think I pack paper bags in every moving box because I continuously find packages of them around the house that I'm going to use for some craft or another).

Eight *gasp* More *Gasp* Weeks *Bigger Gasp*. 

 Clearly, this is not my first pregnancy, or delivery, why am I reacting like such a weiner head?  I have no idea! Other than I think I've put so much focus on the moving aspect (and purchasing glass hardware for the kitchen cabinets, and stalking Pinterest for new ideas, and Etsy for buying heirloom seeds) that I was under the impression that while ofcourse we were having a baby, that was light years away.  And by light years, I obviously mean eight weeks, which doesn't some so luminescent or annual...  I have cribs to sort out, clothes to buy, all those little odds and ends to replace, supplies for our homebirth to pick up, major organization, mental prep, tiny clothes to wash, cloth diapers to buy, a pump to find, a place to purchase newborn caps, and Argh!!!

Beyond that freak out I've also started worrying that we'll finally get to the farm, the one that we've talked about moving to for the last few years, that I have monsterous plans for, and we'll fail.  How you can fail at living on a rural property, I'm not too sure.  But I think it involves having access to a fair amount of land which can be used for all these great things I've been planning (food gardens, chickens, bees, canning, homemaking, meat raising, homesteading, etc...) and becoming so overwhelmed by the potential that everything has and complete control we've been given that we do... nothing.  Our property has no preplanned or preestablished vegetable patch, so we need to figure out where/how/when that happens, get our chickens set up in the barn, which requires critter proofing, clean up all the unkept parts of the property, clean up the 'Secret Garden' that I don't even want to think about right now because it has a scary amount of crap in it currently and where to put outdoor items like furniture, where in this vast yard we'll be spending the most time (I didn't realize how much I relied on a square backyard that was fenced in... take a way the square and the fence and apparently I'm lost).  I addition to these semi-superficial concerns, the more immediate issues of finding someone who will deliver wood to the house for the woodstove, having the oil tanks filled, starting our hydro bill (and subsequently cancelling this one), renting the truck, registering the girls for school (and getting their vaccines up to date), and so on and so forth are creeping up  This doesn't even touch on all the packing I still have to do. Or the trips to donate. Or the trips to the dump we have to.  And with all of this to do, what do I want to do more than anything?

Take a nap. 

Awesome. 

I am such a huge help to myself it's amazing

Me: 'Hey Self, we kind of have a lot of stuff to do, want to pack some boxes today?'

Me Again: 'Uhh... while I see the value in your idea to pack boxes,  I feel that it would be more beneficial to my person if I took a nap for a couple hours and then reevaluated the box packing situation at that point...'

Me: 'That's great! Thanks SO much for all of you help here...'

Me Again: 'Hey, I'm fat, leave me alone.'

I am my own worst enemy.  BUT I'm thinking that I will get stuff done today. I'm fuelled by aggravation and I'm feeling fairly aggravated with Mr. Pretties today (Hey, I'm just keeping it real here) so that just might be the kick in the get moving department I need to make a big dent in the packing.  You would have thought the stack of apple boxes that are taller than me in every square foot of my bedroom to the point where I can't move, would be motivation enough, but apparently not.

Here's wishing me luck!! Maybe if I finish enough boxes I'll reward myself with a nap :)

The Farm Dog Is Coming...

Or, is this not the most awesomely adorable puppy picture you've ever seen?!  *Squeel* 

 If all goes according to plan (Crossing all fingers!), we will be picking up our St. Bernard/Great Pyrenees cross puppy from a really fabulous farm not far from ours.  I am SO beyond excited.  A big dog will be completely new territory for us, and we obviously need to add puppy training to our 13 chickens, 4 kids (and a soon to be newborn) and a completely new move.  Clearly.  It's going to be chaotic, and insane, and so, SO much fun! Can. Not. Wait.

Did Someone Change The Season Already?

Or why is my lawn green(ish)?

I just thought I'd share a few quick photos taken at the farm over the last couple weeks, just to show how dramatic the weather's been up here, it's insane!

These photos were taken New Years Eve...

Driveway

Drive side of the house

Looking into our neighbours cornfield

The barn - such as it is

Now these photos were taken January 7th - a mere week apart

 

Front of house

The previously snow clad driveway

Our treed area

Same neighbours cornfield

Front lawn

   It was a balmy 9 degrees when we went up on Satuday, had their been no wind it would have been really and truly warm!  Such a lovely day, days like that are truly a treat this time of year, especially for those of us itching to skip right into spring and get some food in the ground, chickens on the lawn, and a cow in the barn.  Sometimes the only thing pulling us through is those periodic days when the sun beats down on us with open abundance.  I have winter issues, can you tell?

 So as it stands the count down is on for the move - with any luck we'll be out of here and into there by the 28th, but I'm crossing my fingers it'll be sooner.  My 8.5 month pregnant self doesn't want to push it any close to 'the time' than they have to, and while three weeks doesn't sound like much, I could very well be a complete and total whale by then with little to no ability to make myself mobile, let along any furiture or boxes.  We've done it before with mere weeks to spare, and I don't still have nightmares about it.  You know how they say 'someday you'll look back and laugh!', so far it's been 5 years and I still don't find it funny.  We're also hoping beyond hope (and this will infact jinx it) that this whether keeps up (or simply returns, I am totally okay with fabulous returning weather) for the move, I am so scared I'm going to wake up on the 28th to 3' of snow and ice and an hour long plus drive to the farm navigating back farm roads in a scary moving truck.  We have never moved in the winter and there are so many more variables in the winter than the summer!  But we will be SO thrilled to get there.  Although I have this niggling, irrational fear that after years of wanting this I'm going to get there, get settled, and hate it.  Realistically I don't think it'll be that big of an adjustment though, we aren't huge city people, so we should be okay. 

   So here's to appreciating fab weather, and looking onward and upward to scary/exciting moves!!!

A Difference of Opinion

Or what to do when your parents want to each chicken from the grocery store.


I hadn't realized it until recently, but a large part of what I visualize when thinking about 'the farm' (would farmette be appropriate?) is packing up wicker hampers, piling them high with fresh bread, picturesque bundles of veggies, sun warmed berries, eggs, and a wonderfully large, free range, organic chicken to pop in the oven for dinner. A home grown feast, and I want to deliver one to each of those who are dear to me.  While it will be fabulous to eat out of our own yard and not have to travel to the local fruit market 3+ times a week to keep the littles in carrots and apples, I really want to share the bounty with others (this is where I over estimate both my ability to grow food as well as process meat, then give away everything that did grow and end up buying ours from the farmer's market).  But what do you do when those you want to share it with not want it (other than not share, obviously)? 

Knowing where our food comes from, how it was raised (far more than humanely - and the fact that that label is a 'luxury' is really sad to me), and what it ate, is becoming increasing (and obsessively) more important to us.  We (when I say 'we' this usually pertains to just me, but I like to pretend Mr. Pretties is half as mental as I am) assume that everyone else feels the same way.  Well brace yourselves folks, they don't.  And while this particular opinion isn't wrong, I find it particularly baffling when it's presented by my own parents.  The people who (presumably) my genetic make up originated.  We must be the same, right?  If not your parents, than who?  So when we were discussing the impending meat chickens that will arrive in the spring, and again late summer, and how wonderful it would be to eat our own happy brand of chicken, my dad pipes up about how he wont need any, he'll keep buying his at the grocery store. .................   Alright then...  They also will not eat our chicken eggs.  Whether it's because we keep a rooster and they are sure they're going to crack open an egg to find a chick, or because they're under the (false) impression that they are less sterile than those of the grocery variety, I'm not sure.  Probably all of the above.  I've come to discover that my parents are of the school of thought that while they know bads things happen at factory farms, and that the risk for contamination of commercial foods is higher, they don't want to know/think about it and would rather enjoy their piece of ignorance is bliss pie.  Mind you, they will eat all of these things while dining at my house.  Likely because they don't think about the fact that the cookies, quiche, and cakes they enjoy here contain our own eggs.  And obviously they haven't come down with any cases of salmonella lately, or complained of half formed chickens in their piece of cake, but 10 to 1 if I pointed this out they would also be more conscious of what they're eating here and stop enjoying it, which I don't want. 

But it's a funny realization all the same, when you come to the startling conclusion that not everyone is going to be a happy, or even willing, recipient of your home grown goods.  It's even more startling when these are the people you were most excited to impart your gifts to.  I feel like I have such a different mind set than those I know that it's becoming hard for me to relate appropriately to others.  In my mind I'm thinking 'this will be great, this will be like giving them a FREE CSA membership to our little farm, with some bread, pies, preserves, fruits, veggies, meat and eggs, this'll be a total win, they must realize how spendy a CSA membership can be, what a great gift!' and in reality I'm receiving polite silence. 

So this has been a good trip back to reality, much like any gift you give to someone, they simply may not enjoy it, appreciate it, or want it because it just isn't there thing.  I know we have some people who will be beyond thrilled to receive such baskets, and I'll really enjoy supplying them, but I'll still be a little disappointed that my parents wont be one of them, I thought I'd found a wholesome way to show them how much I appreciate all they've done for us over the years, and now I'm back to the drawing board.  I'm hoping, in time, and when they see how happily, and sanitarily things are run in our neck of the woods they'll come around.

Now I need to find a way to obtain fully grown fruit bushes.  I knew that fruit is usually only born after two or three seasons, but I hadn't thought about how that related to me and my need to have fruit THIS year.  Seeing as we rent, I'm always leary of investing in things that produce years down the road as I always feel I'm making an investment for someone else to enjoy.  Usually I'm right.  This time I hope that isn't the case as we would like to stay at this house for a very long time, unless we buy, but I would really like to be able to enjoy some of our own fruit this year, so we need to explore our options, we can't be the only ones lacking in patience ;)

So that's where we're at in the last couple of weeks before the 'big move' (please god don't let it be a blizzard), not everyone cares if their dinner was happy, and I want fruit damn it!!

It Has Landed

Barnheart By Jenna Woginrich

      As I brought the littles back from the bus stop this afternoon I noticed a bulky white air mailed envie taunting me from the mailbox.  I knew exactly what it was.  It had landed.  Barnheart was here.  I had originally intended for Mr. Pretties to have it mailed to the farm so that I would have something there when we moved in in the next 2-4 weeks, but he was afraid something might happen to it with the mail not being checked regularly and so many different people doing the checking right now, but I knew if it had gone there it I would have a better chance of indulging in it later, because I have no self restraint what so ever, and think I'll probably have to drive it to the farm tomorrow and ask the contractors to please lock it in the house for me.  That's how sad and pathetic my self restraint is.  I also know that I have a few Christmas gifts left to finish for the girls (Waldorf Dolls anyone? Why do I commit myself to things that revolve a fair amount of sewing when I know my sewing skills are sub par and my patience for sewing is even worse?) after they're in bed and I'm now going to have an internal debate about how I need to finish these gifts, my children's joy and innocence depends on it, and my desperate want to fill the tub up with 3' (yes, feet) of bubbles, a good cuppa and Barnheart.  There's something to be said for those with no self restraint and a complete lack of ablility to reason with ones self, and it's not good.

   The main reason I want to hold onto this book until after the move is that it has a purpose.  I have big plans for this books life.  It's going to be the first book I read on the farm.  I have waited to move to a farm and start our new adventure for several years, and read Jenna's blog Cold Antler for two and a half of them, her blog kept the internal fire burning when it otherwise might have smothered out due to overwhelming complications, the apparent impossibility of finding a farm to rent, various personal trials and I want to feel like I've made it.  I'm going to be reading Barnheart in my downfilled chair, with a cozy blanket and a cup of tea infront of a roaring woodstove while the snow swirls heavily outside.  I have waited for that moment for so long, and it's going to happen.  When it does I'll know we're at the beginning of the road we were meant to travel. 

  For years I've felt like we were simply treading water, just keeping the pace in a destination we hadn't signed up for while we should running marathons somewhere else.  It's almost suffocating, to feel that while we should be happy with what we have, you feel like you're wasting precious time in your life doing what you were never intended to do.  Like something is hovering anxiously over your head with a 'wrong direction - turn back' sign while you keep on heading down the wrong road. Winters would pass by filled with seed catalogs and copies of Small Farms on the table, spring would show up with nothing to sow in the earth, summer would pass by with drives out to rural areas where we could catch a peak of the life we're supposed to be living, even just for an hour, and fall would blow passed with nothing to harvest. It was a constant feeling of being missing a season, being behind.  I've never experienced anything else like it, but it's like a winter without a garden to plan, chicks to order and a beehive to build is just another long, bleak drift of cold brown snow on the side of the road.

   Now that we're traveling at the right pace in the right direction I feel like there are so many more things I'm capable of accomplishing.  I've always wanted to write children's books, but 'couldn't' in the place we were in, but I feel like that is a complete possibility with our new lot in life.  It sounds silly but I feel like this situation is going to be the balm our emotional scars are in need of, and once theyre healed our possibilities will be endless.  We're looking into joining the local Farmer's Market for the 2013 market year, hoping that we'll have a handle on our gardens by then and having a good idea of  what products we'll be able to offer people.  We don't have a huge amount of land (no I will not disclose how much, I can't take the hysterical laughter), but I'm hoping we'll be able to do a lot with it and touch a few other families along the way.  Being that we will now have extra 'work' space, I will now be able to pick back up with our antiques as well which I've always thought mixed fairly well with farming. 

   So while the idea of a book in the mail may seem simple, a sweet little package made to delight, it is so much more symbolic than that.  And for that reason I want to savour it on our farm.  Too bad I'm now having an internal debate about whether it would be so wrong to enjoy it for the second time on the farm.  It doesn't have to be the first, does it?  I'd give it to Mr. Pretties to hang on to for the next couple weeks, but he loses stuff (seriously, everything, all. the. time.) and I would never, ever see it again, and while I would like to put off reading it, I don't so much want to put it off indefinitely.  So instead,  I'll just ignore it.  Maybe I'll put it in my purse, which I never seem to take out with me anywhere, but will take special care to bring during the move, and this might ensure that I'll both forget about it temporarily but be able to find it sooner rather than later... 

   Does anyone else have this complete lack of will power? Help!

Finding Your Tribe

... or when you realize you're weird.

  Six years and ten months ago we had one child.  And our family was complete.  We shopped for housewares at Ikea, bought groceries at Sobey's or wherever the almighty flyers told us to, and used Pampers and formula faithfully (not that there is anything wrong with that, obviously).  Our daughter was born in a hospital, delivered by an obstetrician, and the only farm association we had was that we enjoyed a nice drive 'out in the country' on the weekends where we would throw out half hearted desires to one day live there.

  Yesterday I went to my midwife appointment, where we discussed my desire to birth our fifth child at the house (I mean, the farm! Sorry, couldn't resist). We discussed our chickens, and she was so excited to hear about them (I've become accustomed to the glazed over look people tend to get when we mention that we may or may not have poultry in our backyard) and was eager to share her contact info for her 'milk and goat man', something I'd been looking for for the last year or so.  We discussed the local homeschooling groups, her other patients with larger than average families, my cloth diaper order that was coming in, and how long I planned to nurse.  While I was sitting in that cozy room with the late morning sun filtering in through the large front windows I was almost knocked over by the realization that I am absolutely not who I used to be. Or who I thought I was.

  I know we'd made family changes in recent years, we usually buy our furnishings and what nots by thrifting them from stores or auctions, we buy 90% of our family groceries at the local farmer's market, or directly from local farms where we know what went into our food, how it lived, and how it arrived on our plate, we're making the move to a farm where we plan to grow our own food, and were now entertaining plans of a homebirth.  But I hadn't really realized how far outside of mysef I had stepped.  I've always been the 'weird one' in the group, and usually have very little in common interest and moral wise with the people I encounter on a daily basis.  Usually people just find that I'm 'different' and are okay with that, but it always kind of troubled me that I didn't seem to fit in anywhere.  But sitting there and discussing homebirth and raw milk in the same paragraph with someone who would come to my house to deliver my child made me realize, these people are my tribe.  There are families out there who practice all the same parenting and lifestyle techniques we do, I just hadn't realized we were one of them! How do you not realize who you are?

  It's such a breath of fresh air to realize that you aren't alone after all,and you might be different, but you're not different from everyone, because after all,  you've just been looking in the wrong places. 

 

And Then There Was Nothing.

Photo courtesy of Ezinemark.com

   It's funny how something like that can sound so dismal and depressing, but something so important and positive.  Why does there always need to be something?  Sometimes it's perfectly adequate, if not more desirable, to be nothing.  Or to simply just be.

   We needed to vacate the house for a few hours this afternoon so the owners could find suitable tenants to take over our lease so that we could move on to greener pastures (literally, eek!).  So we did what any sensible folks with four young children would do.  We drove an hour, in the -5 degree weather, to go pay our future homestead a visit.  Nope, we don't have any keys to the house, nor can we do much aside from sit in the car, or better yet, freeze our keisters off sitting outside the car, and dreaming the sweet,  sugar glistening dreams of those who are finally on track to start living their lives (which mostly means those that are celebrating the fact that they will no longer have to scrape chicken crap off their garage floor as part of guest preparation). The house has been under going some surprise renovations this month, so we can peek in the windows and see what progress has been made.  We were actually in it last weekend and did a walk through to see what had been done, what still needed to be done, and how completely fabulous it was to realize that even when this house looked a little, well, 'loved' when we first trotted our farm sick selves through, we truly loved it and saw it for what it could and would be (and not the fact that some how it had ivy growing from the outside of the house into the livingroom...), and now that all of the things we thought we were going to have to bandage up and kiss better for it are being done for us, we love it even more.

   How can one love a house, let alone one they don't even know?  I think because houses neither physically speak, nor are able to obviously hint at their feelings, that they've been granted the power of exuding feeling. With all their histories, the years they've stood watch over their growing and changing families, and the feelings that have been expressed inside their walls, they are able to process all of these energies, times, emotions and release them in their own unique way. This unique perfume of feeling is then either appealing to others, or it isn't.  Maybe some time of house pheromones, if you will.  This house definitely appeals to us, on a very primal level at that, and I can only hope that we appeal to it in kind.  We hope to have a happy relationship with this home for many, many years.  It has truly made all the waiting, all the farm disappointment, and all the Barnheart worth while.

   While we were up there we enjoyed the few inches of crisp white snow that had already fallen into a tidy blanket of winter on the ground ( as we have no snow in town an hour away) and the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard (or not heard).  Nothing.  Sweet, wonderful, clear, nothing.  No local traffic, no train, no partying neighbours nextdoor.  Nothing.  It was as pure and crisp as the winter snow, and as cozy and heart warming as the blanket it immitated..  It might sound silly, or even frivolous to some, but even though we have lots (and lots, and LOTS!!!) of plans for that acre, and no doubt will be making a fair bit of noise (sorry new neighbours, I really am!), I am really looking forward to nothing.  To taking some well deserved time to just be. 

  Maybe this is how people go about finding themselves?  If you 'be' long enough, you just might come knocking?  If so, I can only hope the person I think I am, and the person I strive to be, are the people on the other side of that proverbial door.