Not Now, but Back When

I suppose instead of speaking of my current experiences and challenges, it would make more sense to give the background of how I got here.  My name is Sylvia, I'm 52 and currently live solo on 30 acres in the Ozarks of Arkansas in a small community of around 80 people outside a larger town of about 450 people.  How I found my way here is a bit of a long story, but it didn't come without price.  I stumbled upon this area with my life partner almost 10 years ago who subsequently passed away from melanoma at the young age of 46.  I didn't give up on our dream and bought this land 3 years ago, worked like mad and moved from California 6 months ago walking away from a thriving business and comfortable home in the rural part of San Diego county.  I brought with me my two goats named Queenie Bell and Benecia (not nice and nice respectively), my barn cat James and two dogs CJ (lazy) and Artie (short for Artemis).  Added to the menagerie 4 months ago have been some chickens and two barn kittens named Screech and Dasie Mae.

My goals?  So many and they've been a lifetime in the making.  I can only hope to be blessed with enough time to fulfill them.  I've learned as much to know plans can be altered in a moment of time but I hope to grow a prolific garden and sell at the farmer's market, build a sauna, get more animals and build needed shelters, have a root cellar, build a community and generally learn to live off and from the land. The list is too extensive to really try and put down in writing because it's always growing and retracting as i learn more or of what is possible and not possible.  But, with me, not much is not possible.  I welcome this challenge of living independently off this beautiful piece of land! I've learned that life is more like a spiral and not a line.  I hope I can roll with the challenges and create meaning and purpose through adversity.  It's difficult doing life alone but also a blessing. Life is good and life is hard.  I'm an outsider, but accepted by many.  I have the good fortune of working from my home but isolation can be an issue.  I do well, but I've just started and haven't yet hit the mid point of winter... and not much has broken that needs to be fixed.  I live in a 575 sf cabin and have a well and wood burning stove.  I have a garden plot of about 4000 sf plowed but I still need to disc and fence it... not to mention plant and grow it!  I get lonely.  I am grateful.  I smile and I cry.  I dance in the cabin and curse.  I remember my soul mate and move forward each day growing from what we had and who I am because of our relationship and because I don't have it.  Grief lets you know what you're made of and every day I wake up and try to bring meaning and purpose to a blank slate.  It's up to me.  God gave me the blessing and burden of choice and I'll gladly take it over the absence of life.

Me at the Cadillac Ranch while making the trip cross country to move out.

CJ, the true lazy dog with kittens Daisy Mae (left) and Screech (right)

Artie,(Artemis), the "not so lazy dog".

Mybarn

My New Holland 40hp tractor and bush hog

Queenie Bell (Nubian) and Benecia (La Mancha)

James, the California transplant

View from cabin

Queenie Bell

My 1970 International Scout