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| The agrarian version of coal in my stocking, |
This morning I arrived at the farm at nine, and the Boss Family was in a tear to get out the door for their vacation, so I went over some last minute questions, mostly involving the new protocol for bedding down the goats (they have access to their pasture but will be spending most of the winter in the yard closer to the barn, where we've set up three round bales for them and they can move freely in and out of doors as suits them). After they left, I began half-heartedly ticking off things on my abbreviated to-do list, knowing full well that no matter what, I needed to be there until nightfall when the ducks had to be put to bed. Boss gave me a list of "fun" projects that I could busy myself with in his absence, in addition to the minimal daily chores. These included washing the walls of the milk room (the excitement! the danger!) and clearing some of the accumulated "muck" (read: poop) from the lane that runs betwixt the yard and the barn. Since I'd already decided that today was going to be the day that I was going to clean the chicken coop out (a twice weekly event that never ceases to amaze me with how long it takes), I figured I had an opportunity to give the day some measure of thematic cohesion by tackling all things poop-related. Being that I am effectively entirely in charge of the farm for the next three days, I did what any farmer worth her weight in manure would do and obsessively checked the weather. As today would potentially be the last preciptitaton-less and unseasonably warm day for the foreseeable future, I figured I should capitalize on the warmth and do all the outside chores I could.
Well it sure is weird to be all alone on a farm filled with animals for which you are solely responsible. Lonely? A bit. Boring? Kinda. Nigh on impossible to self-motivate? Holy goddamned hell. Granted, with less essential things to do, all of us seem a little listless and uninspired, including Boss himself. But as I walked out to the pasture to "check on the herd" (aka hug Gar and her consorts) I tried hard to imagine what it would be like if this really was my farm. For a minute I let the sheer satisfaction of such a possibility wash over me. But me being me, I immediately began to consider the implications and obstacles of such a thing. It occurred to me for maybe not the first time but in a more profoundly felt way just how much self-direction and initiative it requires to start a farm and make certain that everything that needs doing gets done. I've never been much of a leader and while I enjoy bossing people around in theory, I think that being the one and only person on whom the success and responsibility of a farm enterprise rests would be a serious challenge. Not to mention it's really really difficult to get anything done when you have a herd of the most loving and intelligent creatures on the planet outside your door. I imagine it's gotta be sort of like when you have a brand new baby and you just want to hang out with it and going to actual work seems like the worst idea invented.
Because the goats are basically my children?
The remainder of the week will involve washing boards, flipping everything in the cellar, putting together an order for the Co-op, caring for the girls and hugging Gar like seventy more times, and then I get to fly home to see my family members/sleep for approximately fifteen years.
Because I'm SUPER PRAGMATIC (read: bored), I've decided to get ahead of my usual yearly evaluation of all the things I desperately need to change about myself. One of the advantages being in a brand new job and a brand new place where pretty much everything is unfamiliar and difficult is that it really attunes you to how and how well you learn and adapt. As I've come to realize, without intending it, I have lied to pretty much everyone I have ever sent a resume to. I am NOT a self-starter (see above), nor do I "learn quickly." I learn only when I've been allowed to repeat something over and over and over, and figuring things out on my own is a skill I've only just now begun to cultivate. I need things explicitly spelled out, because left to my own devices, I am pretty much a modern day Amelia Bedelia (again, as previously invoked). Logic and reason are not innate.
But back to self-improvement. I've tried rather hard to catch myself when I begin to self-doubt and feel insecure about my abilities on the farm, because among many other things, I feel it was an impediment to my growth and success at LLF. I never really considered myself terribly insecure, but perhaps that's because for most of my life I elected to do things that I was reasonably good at and immediately gave up on anything that was hard or did not present near instant gratification. But this last year of being out of my depths nearly all the time, in conjunction with getting roughly zero feedback, positive or otherwise, wound up animating the evil Doubt Zombie that lived inside me waiting to come out. Occasionally Boss has made comments to me, always in a good natured way, that have made me feel ashamed that I learned as little as I did at LLF and worry that perhaps he regrets hiring me, being that apparently I lie on my resume (or really just that he assumed after a year of working on a small goat farm I'd have more basic farming skills - whelp!). The other day, after (poorly) painting the base trim in the cheese room, I attempted to clean off my brush with turpentine or some shit, and did it in what Boss deemed to be an ineffective/illogical way. In his jokey way, while showing me how to first wipe the brush off to get rid of the excess paint (d'oh), he said, "You know, sometimes I wonder ... you must have learned a lot of things that I didn't." Which was his nice way of being like "is there ANYTHING you know how to do?"
At the time I laughed it off but it stuck with me. In my low moments I've asked myself some version of that question, wondering exactly what in the fuck I was wasting my time doing when everyone else was learning useful things like, oh I dunno, which direction is NORTH and how to use tin snips or whattheshitever. The only thing I recall is that I spent a lot of time reading Sassy magazine, listening to the Descendents, dying my hair, smoking cigarettes and scamming on boys. And I'm talking like from age 11 to, um, approximately a year ago. What an excellent and useful allocation of time and energy.
In order to offset the Dark Thoughts and counteract this sort of poo-thinking, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and embark on some very embarrassingly New Age-y pursuits. I am try to meditate every day (so far it has been quite boring and has made me realize how many goddamned useless thoughts clog up my brain every second of my waking life) and am also trying to wrap my head around an experiment in which I vow to not complain for 3 weeks, which should be VERY challenging (and also will likely make this here blob decidedly less amusing to read). I'll say that early on in my tenure at LLF, I noticed that not having the usual channels and platforms upon and through which to vent about every aspect of my daily life sort of quelled my de facto state of near constant dissatisfaction and irritation, so I think there's something to it.
Seriously though who even AM I anymore?
In summation, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and most Joyous Saturnalia (see?) to you all. May your holidays be filled with abundance, delight, goat hugs (or the equivalent) and a minimum of bullshit (unless you're into that).
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| There's Gar |
*The other day I caught myself VERY earnestly discussing a recent podcast regarding meditation and complaint detoxes with the entire herd. I'm treading on very thin ice before I become a full on Crazy Goat Lady TM
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