I wish I knew

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We've been on holiday for a week in Cornwall, and for some reason, I thought I'd come back with the whole plan sorted out in my head.
I didn't.
I still need a lot of pieces to fix this puzzle.
The time off work was great, but I know I'm going straight back into a very stressful week, with a lot of high pressure stuff going on.

The land is bare at the moment - the sheep moved over a village while we were away to be watched over by a dear old friend who is a retired shepherd.


Little girls with goats - 2006?

This land, on which we have done so much - on which our children played, and rode, and worked. On which they grew up, from toddlers to grown women. The land where they kept their first cute ponies, and I my last, loved horse. The land where we started a business and it grew and fed  people. The land where we grew a big flock of beautiful jacob sheep, and then they were sold. It's still ours - well, the tenancy is still ours, for another 8 years - and it's still there and it's still precious and just now and then when I get to stand at the top of it and breathe, it still makes my heart sing. But it's doing - nothing. It's ungrazed, unworked, unloved. The hay crop which should have come in last month in the heat now stands overgrown and damp. Waiting to know what we will do.

Tall girls far away - Cornwall 2017

It feels quite horribly metaphorical. It's a metaphor for ... well, me.

On the edge of change, with change behind me, struggling to give voice to a new life after all this. After they go away in September - both of them this time - to build their own lives at University. After the long sweet years at home and on the land, trying to come to terms with years locked away indoors. It's a good and worthy job that I do, but it's inside.

I feel the weight of the deep wet hay. Tears rise to realise it had no purpose. It just stands wilting. There is no one needing the shelter of the barn, and the nurture of its provision this winter. For our two goats and half a dozen sheep, last year's surplus will more than suffice.

Where once were lovely, pretty sheep, and goats and kids, and sweet milk and soft cheese. Where once were row upon row of succulent peas, and chubby fingers picking and popping. Where once when we called, heads raised, and nostrils flared, and tiny hooves came thundering. There is an open green space. It's not malevolent. It's blank. It can be what it wants to be?

Surely? It can be something new? Something worth being? Can't it?

As I stare at the blank canvas, sorrow is slowly making space for hope.  I've signed back up to finish my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design, and booked onto a course in October to explore new livelihoods.

Something will have to be done with the hay.
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