Some times you feel like you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.. you are snappy and cranky or weepy or explosive.. sometimes you just feel so full its got to over-flow and sometimes you feel so empty that you wonder if you can find even one more drop to get you though it..

I read a post this week about how this relates to the homestead, it was a sweet little post about all the tough things that no one tells you about homesteading, you know the things that when everyone is dreaming on paper that don’t just register the way they should..

Nothing will go as planned, Each year and growing season is different, that animals, and gardens, that high price fruit tree you just had to have will die and there is not a thing you could have done different to prevent it, that things are in some cases out of your hands

or even more so, that everything is in your hands.. that there is no break, that good weather or bad you still need to do chores, that taking holidays together or as a family is a thing of that past, that you will lock your days plans around chores, birthing or milking times.

That it’s a grind, that you never leave work, that when you come home from the pay-check work (because lets face it most of us need and do have off-farm incomes) that the farm work is always there waiting.

It ended with the note that it was all worth it..

I get their point, I do.. and I don’t disagree with it.. there can be no quit..

But that does not mean that there are not times where you just have a melt moment.. this morning, I had a total melt moment over a hot sock.. (now for those that are not living in Canada, a hot sock is a specially made sock, its thick, its soft and it reflects heat back to the wearer) its how you can go out into so cold winter weather or in a cooler old farm-house how you can keep your toes warm) and I wanted my pretty heart spotted hot socks and I could only find one..

I was in a right snit and even when it was happening, I knew, I knew that it made no sense.. it would be fair to say that my hubby would agree with that statement. As he was taking the verbal brunt of my search while my laundry room as taking the physical.

He finally looked at me, and said the perfect thing.. What do you want from me?

I looked at him.. paused and really looked.. took a deep breath and said, I need a moment, I made a coffee and drank it, he hummed around me, pausing, looking but waiting..

I was grateful for that pause, for that break.. for that moment of stillness and then I said, to tell you the truth, I am upset, I am hurting, I have held it together for the past few days, you see our daughter was born on Feb 2 but she passed on Feb 7th and our first meeting date is Feb 11th, I was so busy with the farm, the work, trying to just push though it one more year that I had not allowed myself the time to breath and grieve this year.

It all came out in a flood, Its such a strange thing to love your life, to be grateful for it every single day, to be humbled that you are so blessed to have your mate, your family, your friends, your farm and your so loved critters and yet to feel so deeply that something is missing, something that should have been, will not be..

There are many things in life like this and on the homestead, you will live closer to the earth, closer to the dirt, the wind, the weather, to the cycle, all good things but you will live closer to the other side as well.

It has to be faced, it has to be felt, it will get its teeth in you and it will dig in deep..

So for what its worth, its up to you decide if it will be a bad moment, a bad hour or a bad day. You need to look that moment, hold it, see it, bleed with it, let it happen, grab it with both hands, dig it out and give it the time it deserves.

Then…

Well.. Then.. you need to let it go..

and get back to life in the here and now..