The first February on a farm should be renamed "The Dreaming Month".
Formerly known as "Cabin Fever Month" or the "Dear-God,-When-Will-This-Winter-End? Month", it is different this year. We're out in the barn and the pasture everyday, wandering around and dreaming big dreams in the icy snow.
Pete and I have been taxing the local library system with inter-library loan requests for every book we can find about sheep, permaculture, and beekeeping. Oh, and also root cellaring, pond building, barn repair, flower gardening (for Lupine), and horses (for the kids).
We are in the thick of the dreaming-and-planning-and-trying-to-not-get-in-over-our-heads phase.
And I do so like this phase.
We spent both Saturday and Sunday visiting friend's farms and meeting the sheep that might just come home with us in a couple of months. We met Corridales, Leicesters, Icelandic, Polypay, Merino-crosses, and probably a few I've forgotten.
We're narrowing down our choices and are trying to contain our enthusiasm and start small. But it's hard to not get carried away!
I suspect this will be a big season for our family.
There are so many new experiences coming to us and so very much to learn. To realize that you really have no idea what you are doing is humbling. And on everything we are embarking on we're so very green.
Fortunately we have friends who can hold our hands along the way. (Some are adults, and a few are kids - we know some homeschooled farm kids who have a lot to teach us about this life we're heading towards!) Indeed, we have mentors in our friend group for almost anything we're about to take on. And that's a huge comfort as we close our eyes and leap.
And that - along with the ridiculously enthusiastic seed order I just placed - reminds me that this quiet life is about to accelerate as we move towards spring. We're about to embrace some things we've been waiting to do for years.
It's like Pete said, "It's as if the life we've been waiting for has finally begun!"
Oh, yes. I think it has.
