A Worthwhile Goal

With each day where the chaos of the workplace threatens to consume me, and I find solace with my family and farm – especially those days that I head to the barn and tell everyone to let me have some time alone – I draw closer and closer to the land, and overthink how the office jobs are damaging to us. 

I’m a tough mama, in that we have fun but I have no tolerance for lies or pettiness or misbehavior.  As a result, my kids love to laugh and we have game nights and they are polite, helpful and respectful people on the whole.  It’s my job as Mom to raise them to be happy adults who can be positive influences and make responsible decisions as adults.

My animals are well cared for and come running to see us as soon as they hear us come out of the back door, knowing they are safe and loved and well-tended. 

Each species on our farm serves a specific purpose, in addition to enriching our lives.  The chickens provide eggs and meat.  The goats provide milk and meat.  (Though only males who don’t sell and aren’t worthy to keep for breeding will be slaughtered.)  The donkeys protect everyone in the barn yard.  The dogs protect the kids, house and yard.  The ducks – well, they make me laugh.  That’s a purpose too!  When we someday have turkeys, they will provide meat and eat grasshoppers.  (They are grasshopper eating machines, folks!  Really!)

We make and sell soap from the goat milk, and make cheese and dairy products for home use.  Every day in the office at my daily job I contemplate at least a little bit how to make this little farm, this beautiful little dream, grow in the right way, and at the right rate, that someday it can be my real job. 

Believe it or not, I really would take sweating outside when it’s 110 degrees or layering up for those days it’s 20 degrees out, over just about any other job in the world.  It’s dirty, and sometimes it breaks your heart while other days are filled with elation, but it’s honest and natural and at the end of the days spent that way, I feel like what I’ve done is really worthy.  I took action that made a life better, or healthier or happier.  That in turn makes ones’ own life more enjoyable. 

How do you go from where we are now to sharing that passion and knowledge and those skills and those products with others, and make a living out of it?  That’s my worthwhile goal.