somebody better call the wah'mbulance
I am really waffling about whether to post this, but seeing as how I haven't written anything except this in nearly two weeks, this is the best I can do.
I am feeling totally overwhelmed. People ask me how I have time for everything and my stock answer is that I do a bad job at everything which makes it quicker. I deflect with humor, whether it’s actually funny is debatable. The truth is that I work as hard as I can for as long as I can until I kind of crash. I don’t really like that term, I don’t like to think of my life as a traffic accident, like it’s out of my control, but I usually get sick or hurt myself which forces me to take a break. This, obviously, is a terrible life strategy. I do try to take care of myself, everyone who knows me is used to my nap schedule and strict bedtimes, but apparently sleep can only get a gal so far.
The last two weeks of the fence build and all of the excavation work have been exhausting ones. There are what seems like a million small decisions to make every day, the extra work needed to feed sheep while they are trapped in the barnyard, and just the pressure of having a bunch of people around the farm all day. I have been working from home - alone for more than 3 years at this point and let’s say that my standards for appropriate wardrobe and hair are extremely low, which I couldn’t get away with for the last two weeks. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s like one of the straws on the proverbial camel’s back. One day this week the fence crew was off for an Amish holiday and I was so excited to be alone again I put my pajamas back on after chores. Then mid-morning two carloads of Greeks from down state (they told me, this is not an assumption) pulled up the driveway like it was the Cross Bronx Expressway and tumbled out of the car all talking at once. They were looking to buy a live lamb. This is endlessly frustrating for me. I do not feel comfortable selling live animals for consumption. For me, the last minutes of these animal’s lives are just as important as all of the other parts of their lives where we work like crazy to make it as stress free and pain free as possible. Riding / living in a dog crate for an indeterminate amount of time (potentially days) to be killed by whatever method (potentially inefficient and painful) does not fit in our farm model. At The New Farm we are somehow more visible than we were at the old farm and we have had a number of people pop in to try to buy live lambs. We did not lamb this year because we aren’t set up yet, so that’s an easy way to say no, but when I’ve offered these people whole frozen animals or cuts, they aren’t interested! SO FRUSTRATING. I told them (they were lovely, they didn’t know that this is a request that triggers me) that I would be happy to deliver lambs to a processing facility and they could organize what they want from the processor and I gave them a card and I really struggle with marketing and need all of the customers I can get, but I will not sell live lambs!! And why don’t people want frozen meat?? All of the other meat that they eat has probably been frozen at some point! So upsetting. Well, that ruined my very exciting lounge wear day.
That was kind of a big tangent for a relatively small thing, but I was supposed to be able to focus on my off-farm job in my comfy clothes with my hair sticking in every direction and instead I had to defend my farming practices while feeling self-conscious about my appearance and that stinks.
The fence isn’t finished, there are 7 gates still not hung and the hot wires are in progress. They plan to be finished on Monday. We really wanted to get at least the ewes grazing this weekend, but we would have to set a whole bunch of nets in order to make that happen and it seems like a lot of effort for two days of grazing. I have a couple of things in progress that I haven’t written about here yet; The farm-stay accommodation, and the garden shed; and we have a ton of garden work to do to be ready for the plants arriving later this month. There’s also the extra work of watering everything that we’ve already planted constantly because apparently it doesn’t rain here anymore. I want to set up some drip irrigation that would be fed from a tank that we hope/plan to fill from the dug well that is basically in the garden. It’s a job that would eliminate a lot of watering work, so I want to get it done, but setting it up is going to be a big project in itself. The list is kind of endless and I am used to that, but this week I haven’t been feeling well and I am tired and it is overwhelming.