I realized after we had company this weekend that I’ve changed so much since April when we started this crazy homesteading adventure. My thought this weekend was on snakes, and how I reacted the day we moved here and saw a snake on the back porch within hours of arriving. Now, probably 50 snake sightings later, we are less phased as is obvious by my “it’s okay, it’s not a venomous snake” thought over the weekend. What a change.
This life, as I tell people, is not for everyone. It’s not an easy way to live. It’s hard and overwhelming on the best of days. Some days I want to throw in the towel, but the days that are great make up for those bad days tenfold. This life feels, deep in my bones, like it’s right; like this is how we were meant to live. We work hard. We sweat hard. We laugh hard and cry hard. We sleep hard, too. The rewards of this way of living, both with goods and with the health of our bodies, minds, and spirits, are great.
Speaking of rewards…eggciting news…one of our two free chickens that the nice people at Cackle Hatchery added to our order when we purchased four ducks and eleven chickens turned out to be an olive egg layer. For those who don’t know, olive egg layers are highly sought after because, well, the picture says it all! We’re beyond thrilled about this free bonus chicken.