60

This is my 60th post.  I remember that warm day when it first began.  The words, how hard can it be, were popping in my ears.  We had been at this life for over a year, but finally into the full swing of it.  After giving a workshop at our diocesan Fall Conference about being an imperfect follower of a perfect God, a friend said to me, "you really should start a blog."  Others had said it before, but there was something about it coming out of her mouth at that moment that was like a zooming lens and an echoing voice.  So I went home and started this blog the next day.

Before we began this life about a year and a half ago, I had been in full time ministry for over a decade.  During that time I wrote a book, lots of articles for local newspapers, and a few articles for national newspapers and magazines.  I wrote a lot.  It had become just as much a part of my ministry as the work I did in an official capacity.  But then I stopped writing.  I just stopped.  I was busy, but there was a heaviness on my heart that held the words down.

After only week at this blog, I had written more than I had written the previous two years.  My year with the land had worked away the heaviness and there were words again.  A cork had been pulled.  Now the words were spilling out of me, from that mysterious source that I have come to think of as a best friend.

Thank you for being part of this journey with me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for telling your friends about it.  Thank you for leaving comments. Thank you.

We finally moved all those squash from the basement into the root cellar.  The kids ran them upstairs and out to the garage while my husband arranged them in the cellar.  Remembering that they shouldn't touch, we filled up shelves, filled up slotted boxes, and just as we were out of ideas, the last of the squash appeared and we were done.

We have snow on the ground, freezing temperatures, and it finally occurs to me that we should eat the food in the freezer.  When we freeze it in the summer I think to myself, don't eat these right away, we need to save them for winter.  I just keep thinking that way.  I suddenly realized that I'll be starting the early plants for next summer's garden in only a month, and that it IS winter. So now I tell myself, it's winter, eat it up.

After the big snow snow, we finally got the snow blade on the baby tractor.  We don't have the chains and weights that you're supposed to use with it and last year it worked out.  After half an hour of pushing and bracing with boards, we finally gave up.  It's not working out this year.  One more thing we need to buy. 

Milking still has a new feeling to us.  Christina is peeing and pooping at least once a day during milking.  I think it started as an accident, but now it seems like a habit.  This never happened last summer before she dried off.  When she does it, we whip the milk pail away in time, but it's gross and we want her to stop.  We are catching her business in a bucket and yell at her, like we've read, but it continues.  Yesterday she started to pee, my husband grabbed the bucket and yelled, "Christina, stop that" with a whack on the back.  She stopped immediately.  But this morning, she was at it again.  Any ideas would be welcome.