WIW

AKA... WHAT I WANT--

I'm restless by nature, always trying to move on to better things and improving myself. Every night I lie in bed and try to think how I can improve. Many things don't come to fruition (like laundry and that dreaded kitchen sink), and many of them-- so many! are not practical for now, so I let them slide... in a way.

I never stop researching and learning. I spend a ridiculous amount of time online trying to learn everything I can, so that, when the time comes, I'll actually know how to do what I want to do.

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading about preserving the food that we grow. Not that my garden is very successful, but so that I CAN preserve food for the future. I've also learned how to build and design a smokehouse and how to make homemade sausages. I've learned the complications and diseases that affect goats, calves, fowl, sheep, and pigs. I've learned about what kind of nutrition different animals need, and even, to an extent, how to butcher and use them to the maximum.

It doesn't really help with the restlessness, but I feel a drive to know how to do all of this stuff.

Other research turns to rammed earth and straw-bale housing, solar panels, wells, and self-sufficiency.

I read about making cheese and the complications of making butter from goats' milk. About fencing, and predators, and neighbors and how to stock a stream...

I want my boys to be comfortable with animals and understand where our food comes from, so they'll appreciate it and the world and nature more. I worry about public education for them and learning futility from teachers who just don't care anymore.

I don't want a big farm. I want it to be small enough that I can do the chores myself. I want to never lose the thrill of watching Kev catch chickens and show me his triumphs. I want to know every animal, every plant, every part of my life, intimately.

I wish there were more rainy days, like today, when I think more clearly and don't feel so overwhelmed...

It's hard to address my dreams without running into a brick wall-- I HAVE to take into consideration my husband and what he wants and needs to do for him. Though I would love to go someplace cooler and green, he thrives in the heat and the desert. I can't be selfish.

And there little to do with romanticism with my dream. I feel this overwhelming NEED to know I can provide for my family without outside help, or with as little as possible. I need to know that we'll be OK in times of hardship in the world.

I also personally know the health needs of myself and my family, and they are not being met by the mass-marketing world.

If I ever went back to school I would go to learn how to better fulfill this dream. There's so much I don't know about how to raise animals and how to grow things.

Sometimes I think about how it would be easier to not have goats in the backyard. To not have to worry about my duck asking for breakfast at five in the morning...

But what would I do with myself? This stifled, burning, energy that's inside of me?

Where would I get that satisfied feeling I get when I sit outside and watch the animals run around and graze... the chickens scratching, the goose floating in the kiddie pool, the goats begging for a scratch on the head... the garden slowly leafing up and the first bite of something WE grew.

I'm not drawn to other things like I am to this. This to me, is CORE, is REAL.

It's so complicated, and there are so many reasons it keeps getting put on the back of the shelf. I live in possibly THE worst place to attempt any of this. It feels like, though I don't want to, we need to wait until Hubby has a job and is settled in to try any of this...

... and then I get scared, because everything I try ALWAYS ends up in disaster. I've been dashed up against rocks so many times that I'm almost scared to swim.

And every day that ISN'T purpose-driven drags so slowly, and part of me dies and I stand in a messy house and feel like it's a weight on top of me because I hate it so much.

I just need a little "piece of earth" to find my "Peace on Earth".