An interlude of feelings

Some days I feel like I should announce my defeat and set aside this homesteading fantasy. I went into this full of hopes, instead it seems like disaster stalks me. My days are filled with heat and injuries. I have yet to be able to reap any long term rewards, not even the satisfaction of a day’s hard work, for I am too sore and tired to enjoy it. Maybe if I didn’t have children, maybe if I didn’t have deadlines, I could enjoy things more.

It’s tough when you have no one to show you the ropes. When the experts enjoy seeing you struggle more than succeeding. It’s like you have to pass a very hard test, that not only takes years to complete, but the questions have been covered in white out, and it isn’t multiple choice. All I have is books, books and the occasional person trying to help after the fact. Of course I appreciate that help, I truly do. But the books, they are written by others, people that have grown up on a homestead, or spent years perfecting their ways. No one seems to be able to agree on things. Each book, every story is written from experience, from trial and error, and once they have discovered the secret for their own success, they put it down on paper and forget that they too had once been a neophyte, even if that time was when they were a toddler.

I write my blog with humor and a sense of the over dramatic. The humor is my way of dealing with the overwhelming stress of the daily chores. So many things to do. Maybe I have taken on too much. Possibly I belong in the convenient world of fast food and insincere people. I have dropped down too deep into this, drowning in mud and weeds, goat pee and goose manure. The over dramatic come from the way I feel. A way to vent.

Yet when I go outside after a very short nights sleep, and my teenagers, my adults and my bantams {chickens}, and lets not forget my turkey, come running as if they are happy to see me {not starving to death} I smile. I giggle as my stiff fingers type out the mistakes I made earlier in the day. I can feel the pride that comes along with growing your own food as I look down on my dinner plate and realize that nothing on it came from the store. But those feeling are fleeting, and I am back to being grumpy, over worked, and lonely.

If I was the reader, and not the writer, by now I would be rolling my eyes and thinking that this girl needs to get over herself. What was she expecting it to be like? Its hard work little girl, deal with it or go back to the city. As the writer, I would have sucked it up by now, and wrote about how I messed up something else, laughing about it. Yet, unfortunately, I am not the only newbie out there that feels this way.

I’ve seen the old timers {the experts} in their environment. They have made it work, they seem happy and not overly stressed. This is where I would like to be at some point. But until then, I have to fumble along with different opinions and try to make the best of what I have. I never thought that any of this would be easy, I knew it would be hard work, so I am not complaining. {ok, maybe a little, but I do suck it up and move on}

I have decided that I will make this homestead work. I will get over my feeling of isolation. Until then, I will not whine about it, nor sulk. I will keep my head up and not allow others to cause me to feel the defeat that looms over my shoulder. I will keep it at bay. I will be strong, and happy.


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