Shifts Happen

As we grew into adults with careers, life got busy. I’m sure you can relate – running from one engagement to another, taking another quick day or weekend trip, and likely some of you have had children and pets which complicated the busy.

Our lives kept that busy pattern even after we moved to the farm. It was a different kind of busy, but we were still busy. If we weren’t securing fences, we were constructing pens in the barn, putting a new roof on the house, taking care of the garden or something else as equally demanding. Nice weather only lasts so long to get these items crossed off the list, and then for the last few winters, we were running non-stop on our few days off. Winter weekends became one small adventure after another. Small, only because we had to be home by sunset in those short days to take care of our animals.

And we were always tired.

So we shifted.

Somewhere in the late fall, we decided to slow it all down. We now take one day a week to blow off steam, let go of outward obligation, and take care of ourselves and each other. Of course we are still responsible adults and make sure the sheep and hens are taken care of, but now we say no to going out on Sundays. We reserve that day for something we each want to do. Yes, sometimes that means a day trip into Toronto to go to the museum or art gallery, but mostly it means we are at home. This is the time that I spin and knit and read for me, not for homework or customer orders. This is the time that Jeremy experiments with making lip balms and hand lotions and games on his computer. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with sheep, bees, wool, honey, gardens or fences.

Today, I spent three hours separating a fleece, lock by lock for the wash.  This fleece is going to be a special project for me to work with, because this fleece came from our wether, and he’s one of my favourites (but don’t tell the other sheepies that!). As I pulled each lock and placed it into the bags, I was able to feel connected to my sheep, admiring the crimp and lustre in the fibre, smelling that earthy sheep smell of health and wellness, pulling bits of vegetation out of the wool and wondering how he got into it. At the end of those three hours, I had nine mesh bags full and only a third of the fleece sorted. Oh well, it was a meditative time.

I found Jeremy in the kitchen trying out a new lip balm recipe with his beeswax. I’m always an eager tester! He’d been focused in his own world too. Then, because he had the wax-melting equipment out, I rounded up all of my candle stubs from the last few months and together we made candles in a few of my Grandmother’s teacups. They will look nice on the table tonight when we sit down to dinner.

We didn’t vacuum or dust or run into town for groceries, all the things we should have done. In fact, on Sundays, if we start a sentence with “I should” or “We should”, it means it’s time to back off and reconnect with ourselves. 

As the days lengthen, we are going to get busy with the farm and keeping things going. There’s always something to do and something that needs fixing or finishing. We are, however, going to keep Sundays low key. Events will come up that will interfere with this plan, after all, we have animals and they don’t care if it’s Sunday when they break out of a pen, or it may be the only day in four days that it hasn't rained and the garden needs tending. We will just have to roll with it and keep shifting back to this plan of quiet.

Today has been a very good day. I feel productive. I took care of me and that will allow me to take care of the rest of my little corner of the world.