It has been far too long since I have posted. I post the occasional photo and quick comment to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter (@farm2fingers) but far too long since I blogged. I started off well, seeking to post semi regularly to help new spinners with information that I had learnt as a new spinner a few years prior.
Don't think for one minute I have given up the fibery thing. I still have my sheep, many, many bags of fleece in various states of process and I try to spin a little nearly every day. But... life got in the way.
I'm a busy person. Full time employee in a job that has me potentially on call 24x7 but thankfully only 8-9 hours a day in the office. However, that office is a two hour commute each way. I get home at night wanting to spend a bit of time with family but also needing to do the normal home jobs that go with a family and cram in various other volunteer pursuits.
I think this weekend I finally gained some clarity on why I have been craving time at home and more of a focus on hobby farming pursuits. I have to date thought busy to be good, not realising that I wasn't taking the time to enjoy what I was doing. Everything became a task to tick off the "To Do" list. Over the years I would take on various tasks. Be it an extra project at work, resulting in me having to spend a little more time in the office or some volunteer community endevour (or three) that would keep me running from one task to another.
Because busy is productive and satisfying right? Wrong!
This weekend was a long weekend. Great to spend it at home. Time spent in the garden (which I have been cleaning up and putting in maintainable order for the last couple of years), planting new rhubarb plants, cleaning up around the house and shed, lunch down the paddock with hubby (he was mowing and we just stopped in the middle of the paddock and ate lunch on the ride on mower), and of course some time with my sheep doing some sheepie maintenance like trimming toenails, crutching and wigging. I realised why farm life can be slow, or at least appear slow compared to the 'I want it now' culture we seem to have developed into. What is wonderful is realising that this slow pace is achievement driven and deeply satisfying.
Tasks follow a natural pace and order.
You can't rush a sheep. Things must be done calmly and gently. There is no quick way to catch and tip a sheep. Our Chihuahua tries to rush them and they just run everywhere. She thinks she is helping, but no. A proper sheep dog knows when to run and when to stop, wait and move again.
I tried picking my potatoes too early and guess what? Only a few teeny potatoes. I left them a couple more months and voila, lots of good sized potatoes.
You need to plan ahead.
The paddock and yards are a distance from the house. You must take the time to think and plan what you need, pop it all in a bucket and take it down the yards. If you forget something, you trudge back up to the house then back down to the yards. In addition to my clippers and iodine spray today I even remembered to take a rope for the little gate, a hook to hang the bucket on the fence, a coffee and a water bottle for myself.
You turn the compost over, you add to it. You improve the soil and prepare the garden for the next crop or planting.
Things just take time.
One of the biggest causes of taking time is gates. Yes gates. Opening and closing gates so the sheep don't get out takes time. I find gates a humbling thing. Each time you open and close one as you pass through you realise there are no shortcuts. It unlatches and latches the same way each time.
So this weekend, some may say I had an epiphany. I think I have known for some time that to really enjoy the things I love I need to spend time on them or with them. So somehow that means removing myself from the things outside my home that keep me busy. That will be no easy task as I still need to pay the bills and some obligations need to be handed over to others over an extended period. But with realisation comes the ability to commit to a longer term plan. So my quest is to change my mindset from busy busy busy to slow living, good living. This will be a journey and will take time. Hopefully I will return to this blog a little more often to provide and update on the journey.
