Week One: New Year Res…t

We rang in the new year slumbering away, blissfully unaware of balls dropping or fireworks popping. This is no different than usual for us. My focus isn’t so mainstream as to ring in the new year and reset with resolutions; it is rather rest, reflection, and rumination.

Winter has just come and I am being very intentional to let it embrace me as it does the trees, shrubs, pastures, and fauna. Everyone is existing and observing, no one is flaunting and flourishing. I am trying my darndest to keep my energy, emotions, dreams and schemes percolating in my core, where my energy should be to keep me warm as I start to see the forecast become more true to winter!

Snow has fallen twice this first week of January! Temperatures have been in the 20’s most of the nights, but daytime temps are still quite comfortable. The forecast shows zero degree weather coming… I am ready. It is finally time to deworm the horses; as they shed any parasites in their manure, the larvae will be properly frozen in those temperatures. After, Nathaniel can use the tractor to scrape all the manure into a big pile so it can decompose in the freeze, thaw cycle of winter and be ready for gardens in the spring. I am happy that they are showing no signs of parasites, but I like to stay on it with them, deworming once a year, twice if need be.

After the holidays, weeks of no schedule and poor Livi suffering through two molars erupting from her bottom gums, this first week of the year has felt like such a gift. Sleep is still not great for us, but waking at around 5 and nursing Liv until 6ish and then being able to get up and have the house to myself until just after 7 is all I can ask for right now. Even when Clancy wakes early, he doesn’t disrupt me as I write.

I’ve been able to start each morning by doing a brain dump—writing it all out. It really only takes a page or two and then from that I make a “For Today” list. Usually when I make a to-do list, those actions go there to die. Like, all bets are off that I will do it then. Not this week though, no I have been slaying! Shipping packages, making calls, cleaning, baking, all the things.

I know I said rest is my priority, and it is. I haven’t been staying up after the kids go to sleep at 7:30-8:30; most nights I fall asleep putting Livia down and so, I get a lot of interrupted, crappy sleep right now. I am also not taking on any big projects or setting resolutions that include exercise. There is a certain amount that just has to be done so we don’t live in squalor, or become stagnant without mindful movement, and of course we all have to eat—10 chickens, 5 cows, 5 goats, 2 horses, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 grownups all included!

Anyway, I haven’t felt this balanced in quite sometime and I am very mindful of that. Writing all the clutter out of my brain, having the right mindset, and our kids just being in a good place (helped, obviously, by us being a good place) has us in a rather symbiotic personal and family state.

This first week has been a long week in the best possible sense. I’ve journaled, or as I call it, did my daily pages each day, and as I date the top of a new page each day, I think, “Is that all?” The kids keep me going, but I feel a shift in Clancy taming down and maturing and Livi becoming this bundle of complex toddler emotions. Thank God one seems to finally be getting easier (or I’ve surrendered enough to enjoy the wild boy energy) as the other one ramps up.

It isn’t often that January 1st is a Monday and I love it. New week. New Month. New Year. It started by taking down the Christmas tree and Nathaniel doing the yearly Christmas tree toss where he javelins it out the open top of our dutch door. Hallelujah, out with the past, lets sit in the present until Spring and then it is go time!

We also went another hike up Big Rock. I say another because we went on one the day before aswell. We really savored the beautiful final day of December and 2023 with that exploration up Big Rock and burning down the tumbleweed pile in the arena. A final purge to start the New Year off.

The week's theme was bread and goats. I baked a lot of gluten-free Sourdough bread from sweet Cordelia, packaging her up, and even selling my first loaf and gifted a loaf to our friend who came for a welding project. Our tractor bucket is now functioning with our quick-connect system and is back in action! Nathaniel also got to learn some basic welding on the project!

We also spent a lot of time in the barn with our nigerian dwarf goats. We got two doelings last March and they are not friendly. Well, I have had enough of that. I caught them three days in a row and had them just exist in the stall with Liv and I. Now they have a couple days off and then I will do three days in a row again. I believe the break away is just as important as the time I ‘work; with them. This is how I would work with a horse. Today(sunday) Livia dragged me out early, she always wants to go outside, and we did chores quickly. I’ve been able to hand feed Mabel and Kya but not pet them at all. Today I was able to offer Mabel grain from one hand and truly pet her all over with the other. IT IS WORKING!

Kya and Mabel

I’m trying really hard to not be impulsive, especially as I surrender to winter and rest from new projects and excess work… But I have family milk goat on my mind. Taming these does to milk or to sell so that I can buy a tried and true milking doe is the first step I see to pursuing this. I digress, though.

I read a fantastic book by Ruth Stout to kick off the New Year, Gardening Without Work. The book was published in 1961, and I cannot believe how relevant it is to today. Already, there was this frustration that gardening without chemicals in the way that was always done had to be labeled something because even then, chemical fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides had so rapidly spread. I found her to be so witty and genius. If I was pregnant with Livia and reading this book, I’d likely name her Ruth; I am that taken by this woman’s personality and narrative.

Below, we take the spoiled hay created by the goats and apply it in a thick mulch on the garden rows. The dogs like to find little bits of yummy grain left over! Implementing Ruth Stout’s gardening method.

Now it is Sunday and we turn our attention to a new week tomorrow. The weekends do go by too quickly. We are enjoying Nigerian goat milk and yogurt from the women we got our goats and Jax from and doing farmy stuff. Building a workbench in the barn is the focus right now. We moved my beloved green cubby out of there and into the “Room of Requirement,” which is a storage building we have. I have been organizing the kids books and toys into the cubbies each morning and am so pleased. I go out and do chores and, on my way back, spend 5-10 minutes putting their things away on the shelf for easy rotations back into the house. I am so glad to have an organized system!

Life is good. It is a good way to start a new year.

Happy New Year!