A sense of place

2 comments
I've been walking on fire a bit lately.  Deciding I should get a third job to help the economy around here. Signing up for the hours. Then realising with a sickening thud that it just can't be done. Today I had to stand down off that and face up to the fact that I'm going to have to make the best of what I can do around here.
The days go by in such a flurry though. Today after two weeks Easter Break for the girls, I really needed to attack the paper mountain and that took - on and off - all day.
I did however, manage to reduce mountainous piles of paper from all over the house to these four varying stages of  'to do':

Then down to the field to move the ewes and lambs, and a few chickens, clean out the layers ... and get time to think.
There's a magic that takes place when I'm there. It is its own world. I fight against the need to be there, and yet when I get there, everything is right. Chatting away to the ewes and lambs out at grass. Chastising blooming Mr Drake, the duck who thinks he is a bouncer.  Nattering to the layers as I substitute woodchip for straw in their roost and wonder if it will stay more hygienic.
Then before going to fetch the girls from their first day back at school - H's last full term ever! - I took a break in the shade. There's a chair in the barn, lambing time - in case you need to be there a while, you know. It's an old plastic chair and it currently sits atop the foot high bed the Oxfords built up while they were in. That needs clearing.
Meanwhile however, the chair, with the lambing supplies to hand, the crook against a nearby hurdle, and the pens for ewes who have just lambed hard by, is a quiet place to dwell on what a truly fabulous life it actually is.
Milk had been drunk, and nap time was approaching as I settled in for a few minutes to meditate on what it is about that place ....



2 comments:

mel said...

i'm a Fixer, myself -- i've always figured that i'm the one that needs to swoop in and take on more hours, get another job, make more sacrifices etc etc -- until i got to the point where i realized here i am, working 6 days a week again after i swore i'd never do that. [after having worked 7 days for many years when we were in racing].

it took some time, communing with the birds and the trees...to realize that when i stop fighting, stop trying to out-maneuver the Next Financial Catastrophe [usually imagined], and just let things be...it all works itself out in the end. "something always turns up Mr. Macawber" <--- favourite family saying. :)

i hope you enjoyed your time in the shade with the sheep...sheep, i've found, are very Thoughtful creatures, when you pay attention....;)

xoxo

Old Paths Cottage said...

Lovely blog post ! A xxx

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