Spring time

I love the spring! It's the busiest time of year with so much to do! Just this week we have 3 new ducklings, 7 or 8 new bantam chicks, 2 goats ready to kid any day, a hen that is broody, and one of our Red Bourbon turkeys sitting on eggs! We have 2 blueberry bushes to plant, and several vegetable plants ready to go in the ground too! Its been so hot lately, Polly and Esther are really needing to be sheared, and everyone's hooves need trimming! All that, together with a goat that needs to be milked everyday, so we can make that cheese we have been dying to make! Sometimes I sit down, and think, I have a full time job, kids and grand kids... why the heck am I doing this!   At this time in my life I should be slowing things down a bit, planning for retirement, maybe relaxing a bit more, but instead I farm, and I have to say.. I love it! If I wasn't doing this, what would I be doing? Watching TV, vegging out on the couch, flipping through a magazine? What is more beneficial?  I love the health benefits and the values I hope my grandkids get, of hard work, and the ability to be as self sufficient as possible,  The satisfaction of this life is amazing, and so worth the work. I love getting up in the mornings, getting ready for work, sipping my coffee, doing my devotions, then heading out to all the LOUD greetings of the VERY hungry critters! I love the way they run up to meet you when you walk out, the quack of the ducks as they play in their pool, and the bleat of the sheep as you head out to feed them! I love the sound of the milk of Cardamom as it falls in the pail, and the cluck of the chickens as I gather the eggs.

There is nothing like a delicious fried egg that you just gathered that morning, or a crisp salad made from lettuce you grew yourself, or mixing up a cake from scratch using your eggs and milk! It is so satisfying and so worth the work! Sometimes when I just want to get away a bit it is frustrating; it's very hard to find a reliable farm sitter who doesn't mind milking a goat! Those days when I am exhausted from a night of little sleep and I have to get up an hour earlier so I can feed everyone, or come home from a bad day at work only to have to refill waterers, water plants, milk a goat, gather eggs and all that other farm stuff, I ask myself.. what am I doing?! But, when I hold that sweet little kid in my arms, when I listen to the turkeys answer my call, when I see those cute baby chicks hatch and watch a family member nurse them back to health, after their mother abandons them, (great job Amber!).  That's when I realize, ahhh.. that's why I am doing this!
 As I finish this up, I think of the upcoming chores, the 20 ducklings arriving next Monday, the brooder that has to be prepared, the sheep that have to be sheared, those plants that have to be planted, the building that has to be cleaned out, the new shelter that has to be built,.. and I smile! Thank you Lord for this life!