Plaid Puffs and Farm Days

Although I haven't turned on the t.v. to watch the news in several years now, I've heard it mentioned by friends and acquaintances that it's not just our little part of the world that's been feeling this arctic chill but rather the whole country. While we only had perhaps an inch of snow, the temperatures were double digits below freezing which creates some challenges in both farm and city living.

The city roads are rarely in better shape than ours, but they do see the plows much sooner than we, so getting to work is often delayed longer for us than it is for our urban and suburban counter parts. While the loss of income from being snowed-in isn't something I look forward to, especially with spring fashion launches just around the corner and me trying to save every extra penny, it's very often necessary to have at least one person stay home on such days to make sure that all the animals are kept warm and fed.

Snow days such as this create a unique and pleasant blend of busyness and boredom, of frenzy and rest. The water freezes within minutes to an hour of being placed outside for the animals and so must be constantly broken up in the trough or else carried inside to thaw by the fireside and then taken back out again. Their housing must be checked so that any layers of insulation torn off by rough winds are replaced immediately, and of course, they must be fed extra to replace all the calories they burn in the cold. In the human world of year round abundance of food and warm clothing, we forget that animals need to spend the spring and summer saving up extra fat to tolerate the cold seasons.

As much as we try to prepare, there is always the risk of a casualty. This particular storm already has cost us the life of one silly, sneaky chicken who separated from the flock and froze to death, which is a sad loss but not so bad as it could be considering just how cold it has been. We're hoping that this is the end of our losses this winter but since winter is really just beginning, that may be too much to hope, and so it means we must be extra vigilant to care for creatures who are sometimes too foolish to care for themselves.

Living on a farm is time consuming work, but so purposeful that we hardly notice. At the end of days like this my fatigue is satisfying because it means that my work has meant something to someone, even if that someone is a chicken or a pig. And even though the snow days could easily lead to cabin fever, we have to snow-suit up and go outside and face the cold multiple times a day, so we never really get bored being inside.

At times like this I feel myself torn between two worlds. Lately, with one child driving and another learning, both of them needing their own cars, the double (soon to be triple and then quadruple) cost of our car insurance, college tuition looming, the fact that we still haven't built a house, is all adding up to pressure to work full time so that we'll be a little more financially comfortable. But on these days, and maybe more often than this, it is absolutely necessary that someone be here tend the home fires both literally and figuratively.

Before we had a family, Mr. Bleu and I both remembered how our home lives had suffered when our own mothers went to work full time and we agreed that when we did have a family, one of us would be at home as much as possible, including through the teen years, to keep our home running smoothly. Easier said than done. The teenage years are notoriously difficult as attitudes and egos erupt from previously darling human beings, but these years also become exponentially more expensive. Since the attitude already makes it easier to be away from your kids when they become so unpleasant, and finances are so demanding most people use this age as the time to return to the work force. I believe that even though children this age are pushing their parents away as hard as the possibly can, they still need them much more than they will admit and this is why we've persisted to some degree in having a keeper of the home.

Temporarily going back to work never seems to be temporary. There is always one more expense that pops up and demands the extra income and I'm rather afraid that if I give in, I will miss these last few years of my children being at home and I will be like most of the older women I meet who wish they'd given it just a little more time before going back to work because they can't ever get those years back. And if the children weren't a big enough factor in my decision, there is also the farm to consider. I'm afraid that we would have to give up many aspects of the farm for lack of time and energy to care for it. It's a lot to consider and there doesn't seem to be any right answer.

As we start this new year, there may be some big changes here, or some big decisions that nothing should change just yet. I'm not sure how it will all work out, standing at the beginning of last year I never could have guessed how things would turn out, but this is life. Sometimes we take the lead and sometimes we are simply swept along by it. I hope this year brings more prosperity and less grief than the previous, more meaningful work and less wasting of time, but I suppose we'll just have to see where it goes.