Watching things grow

The pups as we refer to them are now reaching 80 pounds, They are still bouncing pups but they are simply getting huge. At 6 months I can hardly pick them up and thankfully I don't have too! Its hard to get a good picture of them because their always moving so I get one blurred shot after another. Unlike the goats who will pose for me the pups see the camera and run directly nose first into it.

By all accounts in spite of them just being pups they are doing their job, protecting the livestock. They are in with the goats while I have the llamas in with the sheep, just easier for me and them I think. Its amazing how well they fit in with the goats. Whats wonderful is they stay in the fence, they actually stay in with the goats, So I've done something right.

Patents is definitely a virtue I'm learning to make peace with. Its still such a struggle for me. I plant a seed and I have to wait some times 6 months before I see results, or like garlic, plant in October harvest in June cure till July or August that's nearly one year. Need a guard dog? get a puppy from a breed of proven guards and wait. I am just so accustomed to faster outcomes and results. My cooking background has me in the mind set of a prep list gets finished in a days work and results are immediate. A few things like bread or a slow cooked roast but were talking hours not months. Slow food? Slow life. I learn to wait. My struggle is I don't feel like I have time to wait?

I watch things grow all the while with my fingers crossed. The vegetables, the lambs, the goats, The chickens, the farm, I watch it grow ever so slowly and I try not to get discouraged or entangled in my expectations of how fast things should grow. This is my greatest challenge. I feel in a rush to succeed, to reach my goals, to cross things off the list. To get to that place I feel like I need to be in order to rest, and rest seems to never come. But its the old cliche about the journey isn't it, and its letting go of my attachments to results.

For weeks I've watched a wimpy little transplant of chard turn into a beautiful huge plant. The flavor is delicious far exceeding my expectations. But what I have realized is I missed the middle. I go from transplant to full grown. A to B and I seem to have little memory of the in between. I'm so focused on results. I'm attached to the out come because I feel like I have a lot ridding on the outcome. This is the year I stand on solid ground, this is the year I create some stability in the future of this farm. But I have said this every year since I started nearly eight years ago.

The journey. The act of just being here watching things grow, being a part in how it all goes down. Being present. Much easier said than done. I crave that slow life of being present to the miracle of day to day life on the farm. I'm the only one that stands in my way. There is no one saying I cant do this. But its changing the way I look at things and that is difficult, not because of desire but because of experience and exposure. I'm learning to live way outside of my comfort zone. I think the most fascinating thing about this has been watching myself grow in this seasonal life.