A LITTLE MELANCHOLY

The clock strikes eleven and I begin. I don't know what to write. That is particularly true this Morning.

It is cloudy today. It was gorgeous yesterday. I got most of my lawn mowed Saturday and Sunday. I found the first wood tick of the Season crawling on me. We don't have too many ticks in the yard I think the chickens keep them down.

We sat out on the deck yesterday afternoon observing an assortment of birds visit the bird bath and admiring nature's splendor. The thought of moving is never far from our minds. The idea that we would leave this place of paradise seems preposterous. Yet we seem to be going in that direction.

It became clear to me only a couple weeks ago that I no longer had the will or ability, or both, to keep this homestead up. I never thought I would consider leaving. I thought I could reduce the workload by decreasing the size of the lawn and have only a few perennial gardens. But even perennial gardens need tending. I can't get down on my hands and knees anymore. If I could I would not be able to get up.

Fences need upkeep, right now there is a place where a tree fell over the fence and the sheep could get out. They found the place once this Winter, I got them in again and they have forgotten it for now, but it is only time when they will find it again. It is a huge old box elder. It would have been duck soup to chain saw it up a few years ago but now it seems daunting. Last year I had a lad I would hire for tasks like that but he is not available this year. And so it goes.

Where we live the land converts, to our climates version of a jungle, very fast. One of the main weeding jobs in the flower gardens is removing the tree seedlings that pop up. At this moment there are several that didn't get removed last year. The second year they are hard to pull up, the third year they need to be dug up.

Part of me is willing and even looking forward to moving and giving up the care and responsibility of a homestead. Today, I feel melancholy. I know I will appreciate the change. We have lived here 43 years and not once in that time have I been able to get up in the Morning and think I don't have to go out today. I can't imagine what it would be like to peer out the window in my robe admiring the weather.

I will be enthusiastic about the move. Even now, I am enthusiastic in moments, sometimes long moments. Today I am reflective. But I accept the path life brings me to and I know it will be good.

I know it is all good.

Happy Monday!

Love and Peace, Gregg