Time Flies Like An Arrow. Fruit Flies Like a Banana.

I often wonder where the time flies off to in between my blog posts.  I mean, it's been over a week since my last one, for goodness sakes!  What the heck have I been doing with all of my spare time?

Driving 8+ hours a week back and forth from our Little Farm in Mayer, MN to the Big Farm in Ontario, WI takes a chunk of it. Throw in packing, laundry, grocery shopping and cooking a weeks' worth of meals and the remaining hours of the few days I'm at home every week quickly shrink.

And then there are the other normal things - dishes, errands, paperwork, tending animals, weeding, watering, learning to use our new scythe, moving the coop, moving the boys' grazing area, and the hours diminish even further.

But hey, you ask, what about all those hours you're at the farm every week?  You should have lots of time in the evenings, without your family there to distract you.

Yes, I should indeed.

But Sunday evenings I arrive from MN right around dark, and after a hurried unloading of the car, there are chickens to be put away, including a few minutes standing on the hillside in the gathering dark, watching and listening to the night gather in around me.

After that, and that 4-hour drive, I'm beat, and I retire to bed early, sometimes with a book.

Week nights, after the Radloff's retire to their own homes for the night, I have dinner to warm up, then the chickens to feed, then a wander over to the hillside pasture where the large female herd is hanging out, to check on the pregnant dams and watch the babies pronking.  This task alone can sometimes take an hour, especially if I sit on the hillside among them, watching and listening to the night gather in around us.

After that, the chickens need to be tucked in for the night, which requires another long climb up a steep hill, stopping afterwards to inhale the clean valley air and watch and listen to the night gathering in.

Then it's time for a shower, and then, it's almost time for bed, and long past the time I feel productive or creative.

The days are always full and busy, with farm chores and my regular job. No extra time to write or read.

So, this living life in two pieces.  It has its benefits, for sure, but it has a price, too. It has severely cut into my available hours of writing time.  And reading.  And that makes me sad.

But I know this too, shall end.  Summer is almost over.  Days are hot but nights are getting chilly. Soon it will be time for us to pack up the Little Farm and start the next part of our Big Adventure - somewhere hot and sunny for the winter. And when we return next spring, hopefully it will be to begin our adventures on our very own farm.

I watch my farming friends here and I see how hard they work and what long hours (they joke, "I only work half a day.  12 hours at the most!). I truly hope PB and I can create a farm life that doesn't require working all the hours of every day.

Because there is always another story that needs to be told, photos that need to be taken, critters that need to be enjoyed. 

And what would a farm life be without the time to enjoy it?  Just another job.  

So my friends, please be patient with my lapses.  I am still thinking of you all, dreaming up stories to tell you, even when my pages remain silent.

I am still snapping photos, hundreds of them, that I can't wait to share with you.

And on the nights that I am silent, I am probably still high up on a hillside, watching and listening to the night gathering in around me, breathing in the clean valley air.

Blessings -