If it were easy

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: this lifestyle is not easy.  However, it thrusts your hands down into the roots of food so that every experience is visceral.  It will hurt your body – muscles that you never used before will strain and throb; the strongest sinews of the heart will ache.

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I chose not to live the rest of my life protected by a desk, something that (for me) started to feel like a shield.  It offered stability but was also a barrier from the life I wanted to jump into headfirst ever since my first memories.  I’m in this for food fresh enough to taste a heartbeat, so the smell of dirt can’t be washed away entirely.  This was never about cheese-mongering, a profession I don’t aspire to achieve.  I’m here because of the animals and the dusty winds and purple sunsets.  Last night as the moon rose, a solitary coyote howled it up from the east in welcome.  There’s no going back.

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Although I will never Photoshop the pretty into what is sometimes a harsh balance here, I will never discourage a dreamer.  I take encouragement seriously; what is given and received.  If you want any tiny part of a life less tamed, more uncertain, less tidy, more treacherous, I’ve got your back more than 100%.  I hope to never let any hard knocks trickle down to discourage others with a twinkling eye, sighing out their city windows into the distance.  If it were easy, would more people try?  Maybe.  But just because it’s not straightforward and comes with no instructions – that isn’t a reason not to.

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Categories:

Barnyard, Dairy, Motivation

2 Comments

  • Sheri Rowe Langford

    October 22, 201310:48 am

    Great post!!!! You are so right! This is hard but so much more rewarding. And every little nugget of encouragement is a drop of rainwater in a drought!

    • jennakl

      November 1, 20139:22 pm

      Every little bit counts, you’re so right!