Victory Lap: Year Four

Today is four years to the day since I closed on this property and then immediately drove out to the house with a bottle of champagne and toasted to the adventures to come. It’s a tradition I repeat every year…

2016:

2012:

I had no idea what I was getting in to.

I mean, I kind of knew… I knew enough not to expect it to be easy. The day I signed the papers for this property I expected that every day after was going to be hard fucking work, but I was grateful just for the opportunity to work my ass off to make it awesome.

And of all the things that have happened in the last four years, there hasn’t been one minute where I wasn’t grateful. Not when I’m hauling cans of diesel through the snow because the boiler is out of fuel, not when I walk downstairs to find the basement flooded (with a salamander living in it), not when hand-stacking the rubble from an entire fallen-over barn, not when I have to spend three hours digging out the barn doors to be able to get the tractor out and plow my driveway just so I can leave the house, not when I lose my shit because nothing is going my way, not when I’m doing farm-chores with a fever and a mouse ends up on top of my head.

Those minutes of difficulty in and of themselves are wonderful. If I was to live a lifetime of shit breaking down and not going how I expected punctuated by the occasional sunset, I’d be a happy girl…

But I’m lucky because life on the farm brings so many other joys. Donkeys who want to share in the celebration for example…

Parker is determined to get in on this “toasting” thing…

Chickens that make me laugh…

Bees that I find fascinating…

A cat that eats all the mice in the house, and also reminds me who is in charge…

(It’s not me, obv.)

I have a pain-in-the-ass garden that I will finally get under control this year…

And a tiny little orchard that I hope to grow into a respectable mid-sized orchard even though I hate digging holes to plant the trees in.

(I do love the fact that my mom may or may not have accidentally run this pear tree over with the tractor, and then walked nonchalantly into the house and said “I need tape, a clamp, and some honey, and don’t ask why…” I later found this thing Frankensteined back together and, the best part, IT WORKED. The tree lived through winter and looks as healthy as the rest of them. Because of honey and painters tape. Moms.)

I have a bathtub…

And a hammock…

And lot of land that I’m hoping to at least start to turn into something more awesome than “just a field” this year…

It’s been a solid four years of “foundational” work… barn upgrades, and coops, and fences, and garden structures, and digging lord knows how many holes. And year five is going to possibly be the most work yet, but I think that this year a lot of that work is going to pay off and this place is really going to start to look more awesome than not.

Here’s to another four years of hard work and gratitude with a few brilliant sunsets where I can get them.

 

Article reference Victory Lap: Year Four