starting over

Before we moved out here to NC, I spent a lot of time daydreaming about my new life as a farmer. I read books and magazines and imagined the new improved, rugged Jon in overalls pitchforking straw into the compost pile and leading a herd of happy goats from pasture to pasture. While I may still enjoy these activities sometime in the future, I admit I was woefully unprepared for the worst winter in 30 years up here in the mountains. Some weeks start start off with weak sunshine poking through the clouds and the mercury at a tropical 40 degrees. I don my green Carhartt jacket and manage to be somewhat productive for 10 hours on Monday. Pruning back the fruit trees from 5 years of neglect, cleaning out the barn and coop stalls, gathering old, dead wood into a future bonfire and fallen leaves into big heaps of future compost. Then Tuesday morning comes with an ominous gray sky the color of a donkey's belly, meaning SNOW...again. I do what I can to tear up some stubborn grassy soil with the hand tiller where the raised beds will be until it starts falling in chunks and I decide to make a run to Lowe's or the grocery store before the roads get ice slick and my California winter driving skills confine me to our house on the ridge. Once I return home, I make a PBJ and pour some Bright'n'Early orange drink and check out internet gardening forums to see whether it is possible to build the raised beds right over the grass or whether I need to dig it all up with a shovel. I may make a detour over to Godlike Productions where the latest debate over unemployment extensions is raging. Those still employed tell those without jobs to get off their lazy asses and go work at the local Taco Bell or Wendy's; the unemployed respond that they have applied there but salespeople and engineers with college degrees are not in high demand as taco assemblers right now and BTW just wait until THEY lose their jobs. I break out Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens and review the chapters on housing and how to care for the chicks that will be arriving in a few weeks, I add brooder lights to the list of things I need to get my hands on before they get here. Otto and Clyde lay napping on the rug at my feet making noxious smells from the leftover nachos I let them finish off against my better judgement. Hours pass and I feel like I should do some laundry and dishes before April gets home, I load the washer and then descend into the basement to check on the seedlings under the fluorescent grow lights. A few spritzes from the mister and a few snips with the scissors to thin out the slow growers allowing the healthiest sprouts more room to build up their roots. I steal a glance out the basement windows as the snow continues to fall building into a thin white blanket over the earth. Earth I was supposed to loosen and hoe into the beginning of raised beds today, the railroad ties lay covered by a powder dusted tarp that means yet another project will have to wait. Wait until I can get back out under the Carolina blue sky and know the happy satisfaction of a hard day's labor. I realize the biggest difference in this new life is being on God's time instead of an Outlook calendar. No complaints though, I finally have time to put some of these feelings down to words while I wait for my wife to come home & expect the promise of a sunny, productive tomorrow.