The Farm (Part 1)

Those two words: The Farm-- has stirred feelings in me from as far back as I can remember. Before my farm were the memories of my aunt's farm, the aunt who started the ball rolling with the shoebox containing the two baby ducks. Over the many years on their farm, they raised dairy cows, sheep, all manner of poultry and fowl,some mules, horses, dogs, cats and huge gardens of vegetables fertilized by whatever form of livestock was being raised at the time. It was a magical place to me as a child and that magic never left me as I grew into adulthood.  No one ever denied the hard work involved, but even when that farm was in its most primitive state, it was always tidy. I had no idea just how much work was involved. Yet, I craved it for myself.

When I moved out here from the city, it was a little over a month before my 38th birthday. The time was ripe: I'd felt at the time that if I hadn't made the move then, I never would.  I'd spent the ten years in the city, after my husband had died, reading everything I could get my hands on of people chucking it all and moving to the wilderness, modern pioneers, if you will, surviving -40 degree winters and worse in the wilds of Canada, or the north woods of Maine. Reading what these people endured and learned about themselves in the process only fed my obsession until I knew I needed to find that special place for myself.

Living in relative comfort where we were, in the city, we none-the-less began "roughing it", pulling the thermostat down and burning wood instead of natural gas, first in the fireplace, but later with an airtight woodstove (we bought firewood, but had to cut it to size and split it). We'd grown a garden every year, but in addition to the vegetables and fruit trees, I learned about and grew a large variety of herbs. Having raised the ducks for two years, I was becoming somewhat of an expert on this variety of fowl. I felt that all these things were valuable skills to learn for my future.

And so, when the house in the city eventually sold and this place had been found, we moved to this perfectly magical, gently rolling small-acreage on the edge of the woods and I thought I was prepared for anything. I was Woman, I was strong. This was the '80's! Man, was I mistaken...