Bee Tree Farm

I’m a big Kacey Musgraves fan, (hence the title) and find myself blaring her songs with the windows rolled down whenever KOKE FM plays them, which almost always happens to be down some dusty road in the country with the sun shining and pastures rolling.  It’s the most appropriate way to hear that kind of music.  Anyway, today the sun isn’t shining.  It’s a damp and cool, early fall day here, and I’m bundled in a scarf and light sweater since anything below 70* makes me shiver.  I’ve been working on a spreadsheet to try and tally the equipment expenses for this venture that seems, increasingly, to be a pie-in-the-sky kind of pipe dream.  Starting from scratch is expensive or, as Jer’s aunt would say, “It’s expensive, boy howdy!” – the most articulate way to punctuate a statement this serious.  The expense is basically unfathomable, except it is fathomable.  I just got off the phone with a Canadian supplier who chirped off a list of prices for standard essentials, “Would you like to place your order today, eh?” she asked cheerfully.  “No, no thank you” I stammered in response, trying to swallow the lump of debt that’s formed a knot in my throat (and in my future).

There are probably many ways to simplify this equation that’s started to feel like a cross between statistics and advanced calculus.  Lately, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night with that clenched-jaw-balled-fist kind of momentary panic.  Why, why can’t I be content to just jump in the car each morning for a desk job and a 9-5pm existence, with plenty of time for some “hobby” animals in the evenings and weekends?  What is the reason I am so driven to try something this difficult?  But those questions are futile as throwing paper in the wind.  They will always come back to me.  Instead, I’m clinging to signs and omens, stirring milk in the kitchen like a scientist (without applying much science), opening fortune cookies with bated breath (“It is sometimes better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”  Hmmm), pacing, and tallying numbers.  Then I force myself outside momentarily to sit alongside the reasons I’ve filled a notebook with scribbles and numbers and recipes and floor plans.  I scratch the heads of all the reasons, or let them lick my hands, or listen to their feet crunch leaves as they plod behind me on a walk through the woods.  I have enormous uncertainty about my sanity when it comes to this particular project and these particular goals.

But I’ll never be unsure of my reason for trying.