Life is unexpected.

I guess if it were expected, a lot of the excitement and enjoyment would be lost.

There are currently two sets of hands living here on the farm. Within a month that will be down to just one set, my own.

I expect things will start getting a bit harder, especially with the approaching snow and cold. Luckily this year has let us discover a lot about what we want to do and how to go about doing those things. I have a nice game plan in place, with the tools and supplies ready for success. I have almost a year of farming experience under my belt.

Most importantly of course I have my friends and family who are always eager to give a hand however they can

I don’t view this change as being unpleasant. It’s simply amping up the difficulty level.

This year has also taught me that I should spend more time relying on other tools – calendars, schedulers, encyclopedias, so that I can better know what needs to be done at what time. My memory is not the sharpest tool, but we have the technology to fix this! Reducing farming to a cause-and-effect situation, breaking it up into tiny tasks that provide small bursts of satisfaction, not only will this guarantee success and streamline the process, it kinda makes it more like Farmville… Except of course you actually GET something in return beyond having your personal information sold to advertisers…

Regardless of what happens, I am always happy to share my life with my animals here on this farm. No matter what happens with the rest of the world, my little sheepdom oasis remains pure, plain, pristine. Even if it IS an hour out from the rest of the world, it’s nice to have a home base.

Farming is really fun… except when you’re sick.

Which sadly, I am, AGAIN! Twice now in the past three weeks I am suffering through some kind of illness.

Previously, when I fell sick I did things like play video games all day, snuggle in bed, sleep a lot, eat very little food. Nowadays these options are much more limited – sure I can do these things, but not before feeding the birds and sheep, making sure they have water, shoveling the snow off the stairs…

The farm life never ends. When you move out here and adopt this life, you really have to recognize that you are putting yourself back into the direct cycle of life. Animals need to be tended, stuff needs to get done on time. There aren’t a lot of safety nets here for when you can’t do a task – if you don’t chop and stack wood, you won’t have any for wintertime, so you better have warm socks and quilts to keep you warm!

The fall/wintertime has also brought a large shift in the things we are focusing on now. Growing food is pretty much not possible – no greenhouse, no cold frames, no indoor growing setup. Even the grass the sheep eat isn’t growing, so we need to feed them hay and grain. The cold outdoors makes it desirable to work on indoor tasks, now is the best time for processing my fleeces, except I didn’t wash as many as I wanted to during the hot summer so I’ve made the job harder for myself!

Oh well. We have plenty of cold months coming for things like this. Plenty of time for slow things and thinking, and there is indeed lots of thinking and planning to do for next year’s farm!

Just a short little post for now, my friends. I hope you all are warm and snuggly this cold morning! I am hiding out under my quilt savoring my morning coffee before going to put on a fire and warm this old house up, then it’s out for a hard day of farm work.

Snow has landed, and more impressively has stayed on the ground. There is a fine white powder over everything this morning. Luckily the roads are in a great condition. Unluckily for me I don’t get to enjoy them, I’ll be spending all day out in the fields working on double-layering the fence in anticipation of getting the Maremma puppies next week.

Actually, I shouldn’t say unlucky. It’s quite nice being out in the fields nowadays. Without Frankie around, all the sheep come up to you within a few minutes for snuggles and to satisfy their curiosity. The fact that I won’t get painfully rammed also makes the experience much more enjoyable.

I just wish we had another warm day… what I wouldn’t give for one last burst of summer.