Blessings in Disguise on the Farm

It is funny how things can mount against you when you most want/need to be out working on your homestead. I mean, the last couple years it seems the harder we work, the more goes wrong. Our first year on the farm we had an awesome garden-bumper crops of so many things. I kick myself thinking back-I didn't preserve nearly as much then,and would it ever have been nice to have a lot of that in the freezer.
The next year was not as great-we were trying our hand at running a CSA and all things were working against us-the weather, I found out I was pregnant which meant backing off the amount of work I could do and things just weren't growing like they had the year before.
Later it was more weather, I managed to burn down a chicken coop, there were turkey catastrophes involving a water pan I forgot about, broken tillers, surprise llama babies and other family health issues. No matter what plans we made-Mother Nature and God had other ideas. I found this especially true when involving endeavors that were money making in nature.
Through all of it, though we keep on doing what we do. It can be very easy to be discouraged. This year I have dealt with a very serious sinus infection that involved a lot of time on the couch and now have mysteriously sprained an ankle. This is prime planting/planning/spring grounds care season, plus we have bottle babies that need fed, trees that needed pruned and deep bedding that needs cleaned out and replaced and yet I sit here in a chair on the computer because I am not supposed to be on my feet.
I think life lived on the farm, or homesteading, or just trying to be simple works this way all too often. We do so much, and thus so much more can go wrong. It would be easy to just stop-mow a gigantic lawn and never do anything with the land we have because every time we do something goes wrong. I don't think I could do it, though. I am too much of a do-er. Living off the land just feeds my drive to need to be doing something, something for my family, my friends or community all the time. To have to reset the way I do something because it just isn't working anymore, to rebuild after a tragedy, to sit still in order to heal is all difficult, but I do it, we do it, because we love what we do. I can't imagine life any other way. It is almost painful (and not just because of this stinkin' ankle that spontaneously sprained itself) to sit here and not be *doing* something while spring marches on, warm and beautiful and fairly dry at the moment-perfect working weather. I also know that there will always be something to do around here, and sometimes God forces me to sit still and rest, as it can easily get the best of me and I scurry around trying to do everything and anything to keep the place running. Life on the farm is most certainly an adventure, and one that never fails to keep me on my toes as I can never see what blessing, whether obvious or hidden in a sprained ankle, may be around the corner next.