New Dreams

When I was a little girl I never dreamed of owning a home. My dreams were smaller scale than that - I pictured myself living in a bustling city, married and raising a family in an apartment. I've just never needed that much space. And from my days as a youf in the country, I wanted to raise my children to be a part of the world, not separated from it as I felt I had been. Any errand necessitated at least a 15 minute drive to Manchester. Candia is a spread out small town, so there was no central location for youth to congregate at. Staying after school to hang out with new, city friends became an issue in high school. My thoughts were if only I'd grown up in the city, I would have been so much cooler, freer to do more. No child of mine would have to deal with the separation of interests like I did.

Many moons later, here I am living my youthful dream - minus the husband, the family, and owning an apartment. I'm living with my hunny in a bustling city, loving our apartment, everything to do at my fingertips, and you know what I want to do with my spare time now? I want to raise chickens. Two chickens. And I want a garden. I want to build a cold frame with old windows I salvaged from a sidewalk as the top cover. I want a compost bin and a vermiculture bin too (this is a worm bin). Almost none of these activities I can do in my current living situation. Thank God for community gardens or I would be limited to growing things that can survive in about 2 hours of sunlight a day and small pots (ie aloe, jade, and other shade tolerant house plants, of which we have many, but I can't EAT them).

Now I see the benefits of space and the potential benefits of a house, with real land. Even if I had a backyard that consisted of more than a porch, this is not my property. I can't do what I want here, I have to ask permission. And not only would my landlady have to approve, but so would the city through its laws and ordinances. Owning a home on land, even an acre, it would be MY land. I could have no grass only garden if that's what I wanted to do. I'd have a yard to build things in and places to leave them. Moving to live in the country, to own a house with land has more to do with the lifestyle I want to live, not just the hobbies I want to pursue.

Another new dream of mine, well, not so new since it's been around since 2003 now, is to live on a farm and be a farmer's wife. A farmer's wife has the best position on the farm. She is usually the assistant manager on the farm and she has two worlds she moves in - the house and the land. From my stint as a farmer's apprentice, I know the responsibility and the work load of a farm manager/farmer. I can honestly say that is not for me. But to support that person, to be able to work on the farm on an as needed or as I want basis, would be perfect for me. Farming makes work not just a job, but a way of life. Out of all the jobs I've done, no other has left me as satisfied in all realms of my existential and physical self as farming. To make this dream a reality, I need practice. These hobbies I want to start are ways to practice, and I need room to do them.

I don't know if "getting older" has something to do with it, but I recently had a revelation brought on by a few things - 1) I told Sobe over at Pass the Chalk that if she wrote about her dreams, they would come true. Once I'd written that down, I said to myself, what the heck am I writing into life? 2) I read Michael Pollan's book, a great reminder of why I started my food journey 4 years ago 3) I found some small farmers' blogs. With all these kicks to the head, I decided if I want to be a farmer, I have to be pro-active.

What am I doing to get there? How am I keeping up my practice?

This does not mean I have to be farming because it is not possible for me to farm right now. What it does mean is I can focus more. I can focus on how to make my every day goals, time, hobbies, everything to be a part of leading me toward farming/my bigger dream. I feel naive writing this, like I'm old enough to have known this already. Like I should have set goals and started living them before now. Instead of continuing in that vein, I'm going to realize that I was indeed young before and there was a lot of life to live. If I'd asked myself at ages twelve, fifteen, and twenty what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answers would not have included farming. My path to here is what has prepared me for entertaining that notion. If that is the case, it was all worth it! Thank goodness I see a life goal at this early age.