Bee Tree Farm

(*full disclosure – the title is a Hope Floats quote.  And no I’m not sorry about it).

Recently someone commented on the simplicity of our life out here, a statement that, while well-taken, induced thigh-slapping, belly-clutching laughter, until I slid slowly out of the chair where I sat and rolled around on the floor, cackling hysterically.  I strive for honesty here, on a forum that’s not all about getting personal, but all about keeping things real.  For every pretty picture you see, I can share one that is shocking in its un-pretty.  Although I get that the person’s comment had more do to with the philosophy that underscores our lifestyle, the simplicity of eating the food you mostly grow and living simply in that way, the scout’s honor, honest truth is that nothing has ever been more complicated.  Know that before sinking your teeth in and then clamp down with all your ferocious might.  I hope the chaos and dirt never deters someone who is interested in the “simple life.”

With that said, it sent me onto a soul-searching, old-blog-post-reading journey in which I scoured the early days of this place, the drama (disaster) that was the whole house-loan-getting-then-house-building fiasco.  I looked at pictures of animals that are, in these short years, already gone.  But mostly I read posts so electric with hope and frustration I was afraid to stop reading, if only to re-ignite a spark that falters with time and reality.  That level of energy can’t persist indefinitely.

I think getting here was like running a marathon (disclaimer: I’ve never run a marathon, but I did run 2.25 miles back in 2010).  The period since the house build, and raising the baby goats, and the flurry of activity creating their shelter – it’s a period of rest.  We have a to-do list the length of our porch (Just remembered, I need to add “porch railings” to the list), the sort of thing I normally would already have put into a spreadsheet to capture and monitor.  But lately I can hardly muster the energy even to glance at the thing before holing up somewhere with the computer.  Or taking the goats on a walk.  Maybe I’m just recuperating after many years of racing to be at the farm.  Or at least I hope that’s what it is and not that I’ve actually stopped working on this place.  The old posts were filled with excitement about things like chicken eggs.  Owls hooting.  The type of experiences I swore I’d never take for granted but that, already, happen daily without a second notice from me.  Even now as I write this up in the loft I sketched out onto paper 4 years ago, covered in antique pine wood we laid down last October, I hardly notice the storm that’s coming in.  Or the fact that I can see the lightning flash from the windows I so carefully considered.

Last night, I opened up the door that leads from the mudroom to the side porch.  An enormous scorpion teetered over the threshold carrying a load of (H.U.N.D.R.E.D.S. of) newly hatched scorpion babies atop her back.  She fell on the mud room floor and walked slowly towards me, tail curled over, waving menacingly, her pincers out and moving together slowly (think: Edward Scissorhands.  At least that’s what I did).  We killed her and the babies without much further thought.  The next time I opened the same door one hour later, I caught sight of a young rat snake just as it wriggled past the porch door.  It froze and considered me with a quick tongue flick, then slid silently off the porch.  I didn’t bat an eye.  2 years ago, either of these sights would have elicited their own post and now it’s just – well – it’s just my co-habitation situation.  It’s just where we live and the wildlife that lives with us.  No big deal.  Not worth a mention or second thought.

It makes me ever so slightly sad to think the bloom is off the rose, the shine is off the penny (is that a saying?).  You get the point.  The new is old, the exciting mundane.  I swore I would never take these things for granted and yet today, I literally rolled my eyes at the “annoyance” of hearing repeated, high-pitched mooing of Winnie from the window.  We came here in order to hear livestock from the house!  Here is the situation: I’m just tired.  It’s impossible to punctuate every emotion! with! a! !!!  So my love letter to this house, to this land, to this farm, does not include !!!  Instead, I write it with calmer reflection.  Even now, as the storm rolls in and the rain literally thunders onto the metal roof I was so! excited! about! I’d rather just sit and listen.  It’s an endurance test, this whole homestead-y, farm-y, country-living lifestyle.  And I intend to make it to the end.  But every once in awhile, it’s important to remember where we started, with that mentality when I wrote in capitol letters and exclamation marks.  Which is really exactly how beginnings should feel.