Five weeks I have been here at the farm and five weeks I have been working non-stop from early morning until almost dark – until my legs give out and my soul is tired.
“So much to do, so little time” my father use to say. Never have these words been so true to me.
We arrived on the 26th of July. We took a brief look around the farm to check for growth and map out a spot for the trailer to go once we pulled it from the workshop. We checked out the progress on the barn and then left for the nearest Best Western.
We were tired then – after nine days on the road, most of them through flooding in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and with a ten year old boy tired of sitting in a car.
The dog was the optimal traveller. She kept quiet just inside the hatch – slept most of the way and ran around gas station green belts in brief spurts before surrendering to the heat in the Kia for another long haul. The occasional Milk Bone seemed to make the trip bearable.
Once we were here, though, our juices began to flow again. We breathed with more determination and spirits lifted.
Set up took much longer than any of us anticipated. New equipment needed to be assembled and inevitably tested before we could get started on the mountain of work to be done.
This part is the most frustrating in any new enterprise and my advise to those in the planning stages of anything of this nature is to wait before inviting company to join in the “FUN”.
We had a bunch of family “helpers” join us during the first weeks of our arrival. We purchased the land four years ago, but this is the first year there is both water and power, making visitors more comfortable and work a lot easier. However, learning our new vocation and how to operate its necessary equipment is unquestionably easier to do without an audience. No matter how eager to help and patiently they await direction, it can be very frustrating for them, as well, when you haven’t the first clue how to start a project until you get in there and try it yourself.
That said, it was gloriously busy and in many cases easier to have someone laugh with you at the end of the day.