Filling Holes

At the start of my adult life, way back when, at the dawn of time, all I really wanted from life was a farm lifestyle.  I wanted to rise by the sun, and watch the skies for rain and know how much snow was falling, and be tied to the earth in the way that only a farmer can be.  

Mr. Needles and I did have the honour of doing it for a while, but with one thing and another (all connected to banks) we left the farm in the early 90's and moved on to a sound country lifestyle and a city job.  It wasn't the farm, but it was a great way to live and bring up a family.  

Like all times of life, some things work for a while, and then they don't.  My dissatisfaction with the city part of my life was fueled by too long of work hours, no space to breathe and feeling as if there was no way out of my middle management hell.  I did not thrive.  But I did discover knitting and knitting gave me the strength to change my life.  Once again, my life looks like the thing I planned for so long ago.

Mr Needles and I have just sent off the final part of our down payment for a piece of good farm land.  All the conditions are met, the financing is in place, the work, the investigations and the deal are done and sound. We take ownership at the end of August.  

We owned land before when we farmed.  We own 3 acres now, acres of forest, cool, shaded and ancient.   But there is something about having land this time around that feels different.  It feels like I am complete again, whole, when I did not even know a part of me was missing.  The holes feel like they have been filled.  Perhaps that feeling is no more than knowing next spring I will have a garden, knowing that I will plant fruit trees and potatoes and that I will feed myself instead of buying it from the store.  

There is a crop on it.  It is actively being farmed and we cannot disturb the crop till after harvest.  We cannot plan where the garden will be without talking to the farmer who currently rents it.  (We sure hope he wants to rent it again, or I will have a heep, a big, big heep of weeding to do next summer).  There is nothing I can do right now, till all the paperwork is final and it is completely ours.  

But there is something just a little more solid than a dream.  There is a plan I can make and there is a new, old way of life to look forward to.  It feels very, very good.