There is something about my littlest child turning 3 in a couple of weeks that already has me nostalgic for the days that my babies rode out their entire days attached to my body. As I have heard many other mothers report, I cannot count the number of times that I wished this stage to be over. I remember wanting privacy while going to the bathroom, the ability to have a shower without opening the curtain every 30 seconds to check on my bouncing baby in their chair, the privilege to make dinner with two whole functional hands.
Yet here I am, nearly entirely past this stage of complete physical dependence (my little one insists on choosing his entire outfit from hat to socks), and I long for them to cuddle up close again. This morning I even reached over our bed and stole the cuddling two year old from my husband’s arms. Gratefully, Rob has been able to sleep with straying toddlers poking limbs into his mid-section. I, on the other hand, would lie awake from whatever early hour they had called or climbed down from their beds and wait it out until morning light. Now I am unable to sleep for a different reason. The boy is no longer a baby. To prove my point, he opens his eyes, gives me a knowing smile and rolls over to go back to sleep.
I am afraid to admit that my children’s needs for me has at times sent me into a dithering panic. Especially the day that my first was born and the nurse handed her to me saying: ‘she is your baby, not mine’ and promptly walked out of the room. The look on my face must have showed my terror and doubt that I could take care of such a fragile thing.
I had also just spent the better part of three and a half decades doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to. I took on the usual responsibilities of educating myself and earning my keep but otherwise the sky was the limit. At least this was true as far as my time was concerned, as long as it stayed within the boundaries of my budget and my moral compass, I was good to go. My mother had given me a fair amount of trust and freedom as a child as she was a single, working mother who often worked late. I’ve known how to meet my own needs for a while now and have gotten pretty used to it. How did it come to be that the better part of my day would now be taken up meeting the needs of another?
I can’t say I resented this, in fact most of the time I thoroughly enjoyed having these small humans to care for. Yet there was something so unfamiliar to me about having so little ‘freedom’ in a day. When I had only recently had hours of time to fill in a day (and sometimes spent it willingly taking care of others), I now had barely two minutes to rub together to myself.
This is the greatest complaint I hear from hands-on mothers (or is that as redundant as the term ‘working mother’?). Mothers only need 15 minutes but they want it when they want it. When the mother-in-law or the husband finally descends to give Mama a break, it just so happens that the little angel is curled up having a nap in her stroller. When the little one is having a hard time articulating exactly what it is that will stop them from their permanent tonsil display, the helpers are nowhere to be found.
In my ‘free’ life, I used to head into movie theatres to escape the world at the strangest times of day. There was something about stealing this time that made it even more delicious. The dark theatre surrounding me like a cocoon, I would sit in my safe little chair with my pile of snacks and let my troubles fall away. With young children, there were years where this habit was no longer feasible. Before children, I was told that I would learn not to care about missing out on the latest movies. But I did care. To forgo this ritual was to give up my decompression chamber, my sanity retreat.
With my infants, I was still able to fulfill many other past-times that gave me a sense of peace. I would go for long walks in the woods or along back roads with my stroller that would make both baby and me happy for hours. We would visit with friends, ride the escalators in malls, or make an activity of helping Daddy dig potatoes in the field. Our lives were satisfying. But something in me felt like it was holding its breath for many years running. I would look around me and wonder if other mothers were feeling this way too.
Now that I am about to emerge as the mother of a 3 year old (is that when the official definition of toddler ends?), I find myself looking to fill the gap that was once ‘free Julie’. I suppose for some women at this stage, their career would have already swooped back in and made them whole again. I have always enjoyed the work I do, but I’ve never found my identity in it. It was never something that defined me.
With this feeling of wanting something to call my own again, I decided to go back to work. This decision came simultaneously as I worked on some budget numbers, painfully exploring every dime we had spent over the last 8 months, tallying the final farm income and teasing out what could or could not be changed in the coming years if we opted to forgo my second income for longer than a year. By my first calculation Rob would need to work over 200 days in a year to cover off the money we were spending on the household and family (excluding farm expenses). On top of those 200 days, there would be a farm business to run which for about 6 months out of the year looks a lot like a full time job in itself at the very, very least.
In the past 8 months I have completely changed the way that I spend money in hopes of making this new life work for us. I felt so angry and ashamed that I had come so far off track somewhere along the way. Even these writings are meant to be a way to reconcile my old life of frivolous spending with a new one of making intentional choices. I had firmly come to believe that taking back control of how I manage my time and energy was going to help me save money. According to these numbers, I had failed miserably at this attempt.
My daugher’s figure skating lessons were starting and Rob was driving back from a meeting so on the heels of this sinking discovery (that there was no way we could continue doing what were doing financially), I took my heavy-hearted self to pick up the kids and head for the task of getting them fed and off to the arena on time. The whole time I kept trying to imagine that spreadsheet and where I might have gone wrong. How does one find tens of thousands of dollars in errors in a spreadsheet that contains receipts for shoes and groceries?
Hours passed and I let the idea of returning to work in May settle into being. It would be what it would be. When we got home and I sat down for my new daily routine on the bathroom floor reading ‘Stuck Muck’ to my little son as he attempted to make good use of his potty, I grew ever more frustrated. All I wanted was 5 minutes to open my laptop, scan over the spreadsheet and try to figure out if there was something that I had done wrong. I screamed out to Rob that I needed a minute, just a minute, to look at something. I was stuck reading ‘Stuck Muck’ on the floor of the bathroom and could he please come and help? He was busy unloading skates and various hats and mitts from the van and came to my call right away. Right when I needed him to.
But at that moment, I looked over and my little boy had taken it all in – my tone, my fear, my frustration, my blame. His eyes filled with tears, his face reddened and the sides of his little mouth dove down in a frown the way a person does when their sadness really means business. He had caught the book name and in his own little way, realized that I was finding this ritual with him a burden.
There are probably not many moments of being a mother that I have felt this ashamed and regretful for my actions. Ironically, the very thing that had been bothering me was that I was facing heading back to work and losing time with my children before they all grew up. And here he was, Spiderman underwear tangled around his ankles, asking for me to sit with him and help him with this new job that he was so proud to be able to do. And I was yelling. Not at him. But about him. And that was enough.
The numbers were wrong. One small but significant error had me including the purchase of our car twice. In fact, what we had spent, including our payments and investments, and what we made came out even pretty much to the dollar.
Once the kids were asleep, together Rob and I made a new budget for the year and discussed possibilities for improvement. It was going to be possible to get by on one income if that is what we chose.
In 3 weeks my little guy will be 3 years old. Maybe in time, my need to have what I want when I want it will catch up with that of a 3 year old. Until then, we’ll make the best of this time while it is still here.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Learning to Kill
I have often come across folks that assume because I am interested in wildlife and nature that I would be against hunting and eating the meat. This is not true. I have a great respect for people who can harvest their food from the wild. What I do not appreciate is when people do this in a wasteful or gratuitously disrespectful or greedy manner. Harvesting within what is sustainable for a wild population and using all of what is killed is to my mind the most efficient way to procure meat for one's table.
Needless to say as we raise animals for meat, I obviously accept ending an animal’s life to make my food. As I watch our very small cattle herd grazing on our pasture throughout the summer, I often imagine that they have the best life that a cow could have, even one that is headed for slaughter. But I can’t know what an animal prefers.
There are many people in my life that I am very close to that forgo animals or animal products in their diet. Some people choose not to eat meat as an ecological decision. It can take more energy to raise meat than the calories it provides. Some feel hypocritical if they are not willing to do the killing themselves. Many feel that meat is not healthy, and is the cause of much disease in our bodies. Beyond these reasons, there can be animal welfare questions which I feel are far too personal to address here. These people know what they require to be comfortable and I might better move a few mountains than expect everyone to seek out the same diet as me.
Sourcing the meat for our table involves more than just feeding the animals and giving them a good home. To be fully responsible, I feel I need to lift the veil between the animal’s life and death. I know the animal grazing in our picturesque pastures and the guy who accepts a pat from me in the barn. I also know what arrives wrapped and labeled in boxes for our freezer and how it tastes done up on the barbecue. I have purposefully not spent much time sorting out what happens in between.
Aside from mosquitoes whose presence are the only thing that makes me yearn to return to the city, I am not quick to escort anything to its death. I do not feel I have the right to end the lives of anything including flies in our windows, mice that have chewed through our winter stores, rats that have infested our house, beavers that have flooded our fields, ants that have colonized our cupboards, coyotes that have eaten our cats, foxes that have taken our chickens and chipmunks that have raided our greenhouse. This doesn’t mean I don’t do it. It just means it takes a lot for me to go this route.
Needless to say, I have not used my own hands to take the lifeblood from any of the creatures that became sustenance for my body. This to me is the ultimate act of hypocrisy. One of the reasons why I was unable to raise pigs again this past spring is that I hit a roadblock with my inability to see this animal through to its death.
I recall my days as a vegetarian in university where I simply didn’t eat anything I wasn't willing to kill. I followed this rule in my diet strictly (and easily) for more than two years. Then along came an intense weight-training regime for my university rowing team, a doctor’s diagnosis of anemia, and I was ready to wring every squirrel’s neck that crossed my path for its blood. Isn’t it amazing how your body will tell you what it needs? In the interest of health, budget and time, I returned to eating meat with the agreement that I would one day know what it is like to be responsible for killing a beast.
I have it on my radar to get a firearms license. I do not idolize Sarah Palin or anything. I just want to figure out how to be brave enough to participate in the experience of an animal taking its last breath – particularly one that I intend to eat. Why should somebody else bare this burden for me so that I can blindly consume whatever I want whenever I want?
All I know is that we will all die one day and living a rich and complete life can make death make some sense. At least it can fill out the story a little. Being responsible for the food that I eat not only includes the life that I provide for the animal but for me it must now include the uncomfortable death.
I apologize for these inconvenient and graphic associations about food. I have a habit of naming the elephant (or cow) in the room. There are many who appreciate when I pipe up the name of of the fellow who provided our hamburger on any given day. Some just don't care to hear about it.
Today I made the call to make an appointment to see off our 6 month old bull calf. He’s a little young for my liking but we haven’t got enough hay for the winter to keep him around and soon he will start to show signs of aggression due to his intact dangly bits.
Perhaps I will ask to watch and learn as he is taken apart and packaged up. For what it is worth, this will also tear me apart. But I figure it is the least I can do out of respect for the offering.
Needless to say as we raise animals for meat, I obviously accept ending an animal’s life to make my food. As I watch our very small cattle herd grazing on our pasture throughout the summer, I often imagine that they have the best life that a cow could have, even one that is headed for slaughter. But I can’t know what an animal prefers.
There are many people in my life that I am very close to that forgo animals or animal products in their diet. Some people choose not to eat meat as an ecological decision. It can take more energy to raise meat than the calories it provides. Some feel hypocritical if they are not willing to do the killing themselves. Many feel that meat is not healthy, and is the cause of much disease in our bodies. Beyond these reasons, there can be animal welfare questions which I feel are far too personal to address here. These people know what they require to be comfortable and I might better move a few mountains than expect everyone to seek out the same diet as me.
Sourcing the meat for our table involves more than just feeding the animals and giving them a good home. To be fully responsible, I feel I need to lift the veil between the animal’s life and death. I know the animal grazing in our picturesque pastures and the guy who accepts a pat from me in the barn. I also know what arrives wrapped and labeled in boxes for our freezer and how it tastes done up on the barbecue. I have purposefully not spent much time sorting out what happens in between.
Aside from mosquitoes whose presence are the only thing that makes me yearn to return to the city, I am not quick to escort anything to its death. I do not feel I have the right to end the lives of anything including flies in our windows, mice that have chewed through our winter stores, rats that have infested our house, beavers that have flooded our fields, ants that have colonized our cupboards, coyotes that have eaten our cats, foxes that have taken our chickens and chipmunks that have raided our greenhouse. This doesn’t mean I don’t do it. It just means it takes a lot for me to go this route.
Needless to say, I have not used my own hands to take the lifeblood from any of the creatures that became sustenance for my body. This to me is the ultimate act of hypocrisy. One of the reasons why I was unable to raise pigs again this past spring is that I hit a roadblock with my inability to see this animal through to its death.
I recall my days as a vegetarian in university where I simply didn’t eat anything I wasn't willing to kill. I followed this rule in my diet strictly (and easily) for more than two years. Then along came an intense weight-training regime for my university rowing team, a doctor’s diagnosis of anemia, and I was ready to wring every squirrel’s neck that crossed my path for its blood. Isn’t it amazing how your body will tell you what it needs? In the interest of health, budget and time, I returned to eating meat with the agreement that I would one day know what it is like to be responsible for killing a beast.
I have it on my radar to get a firearms license. I do not idolize Sarah Palin or anything. I just want to figure out how to be brave enough to participate in the experience of an animal taking its last breath – particularly one that I intend to eat. Why should somebody else bare this burden for me so that I can blindly consume whatever I want whenever I want?
All I know is that we will all die one day and living a rich and complete life can make death make some sense. At least it can fill out the story a little. Being responsible for the food that I eat not only includes the life that I provide for the animal but for me it must now include the uncomfortable death.
I apologize for these inconvenient and graphic associations about food. I have a habit of naming the elephant (or cow) in the room. There are many who appreciate when I pipe up the name of of the fellow who provided our hamburger on any given day. Some just don't care to hear about it.
Today I made the call to make an appointment to see off our 6 month old bull calf. He’s a little young for my liking but we haven’t got enough hay for the winter to keep him around and soon he will start to show signs of aggression due to his intact dangly bits.
Perhaps I will ask to watch and learn as he is taken apart and packaged up. For what it is worth, this will also tear me apart. But I figure it is the least I can do out of respect for the offering.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Monster Inside
As the farm settles into its winter sleep and the chores become very straight forward, I now have energy to focus on other things. I have been spending more time with the kids, doing a bit more writing, socializing and finishing our house.
So in this ‘down’ time, I’m trying to nurture a little creativity. These days I’m like a sponge for inspiration and I seem to get ideas flooding at me from everywhere. It is really quite an awesome state and I’m feeling pretty blessed about it. Nothing in particular being created - just a different way of approaching everything I do. I have learned that indeed something bigger than me is responsible for my expressions in the world. Yet I find that with this creativity comes a little dose of crazy. It means experiencing the extreme highs and lows of every situation. It means turning things around one too many times and looking at them from every possible angle. If I get too close, it can sometimes feel like I’ve created a monster.
Farm work is often repetitive or monotonous. It does not require over analysis and can actually save you from self-created monsters. The daily work at the barn consists of bringing thawed water to the chickens and cats, filling the water trough for the cows and laying straw out in their shed, collecting eggs, offering up a bucket of grain to the lactating mama and throwing down some flakes of protein-rich hay from the mow. Once a week or so we drive a large round bale out to the cows (and we’ve learned the hard way that you can’t be late with this or they will wander into the neighbours yard on a warm day to find some of the grass that is coming up).
Soon I will be heading out to milk our mama regularly when her calf leaves. To be totally honest, I’m dreading getting out there to milk her again. The cold and early hour does not worry me. What I am afraid of is my cow. You see she and I have not been getting along that well lately. The last few times I milked her she developed an excellent kicking habit (excellent only in her accuracy at being able to hoof straw (or worse) clear into my bucket with great finesse). I think she hates me. And who said one couldn’t get neurotic over farm chores?
It turns out the loving, intuitive relationship I thought I had with my bovine beast was really just her using me for the bucket of way-too-large fruits I was bringing her from our fields during the growing season. I am now giving her dairy ration which is a sweet mix of grains but she eats this much too quickly and lets down her milk much too slowly (on purpose, I believe) to last the duration. When the bucket of grain is done, and I’ve just finished washing off her udder, we both have a problem on our hands. Mine is having no milk yet. Hers is having a dense person trying to partake in her bounty without offering up sufficient goods.
To get a few liters of milk takes me about 15 minutes milking by hand not including preparation and clean-up. It depends a lot on how willing she is to give it up, how long it has been since she has been with her calf and how accustomed my hands are. It is not easy to fathom how much cramping can occur initially and over time with this repetitive process. It is also an incredibly intimate act. Your face is pressed right up against their flank taking in the musty smell of their fur while your arms are outstretched below. Of course it all just becomes a chore in time and eventually it is about going through the motions. (In case your mind is wandering to parallels here, get back here will you?) But if you ever stop to think what exactly you’re up to down there, it all seems a little weird, yes?
They say that being insane is the only sane response to an insane world. I’m not sure that I believe the world is insane. And whatever it is, there may be no such thing as a sane response to it. I think all we can do is get out there and on a bad day we may get poo kicked into our face. That’s just life when you’re down in the dirt with living things. All at the same time I am surrounded by the peace and chaos and fullness and I respond while still only playing the role of a witness. I don’t decide how things are going to go. No wonder I feel a little nuts.
Soon I will be out at the barn collecting my milk every day. Some days it will be my favourite thing about my day. Other days I am going to wish I could go to a torture chamber instead.
This will mimic every other part of the day as a mother, a farmer, an artist, and a human. Oh, so good. Oh, so scary. Oh, so uncertain. Oh, so worth it!
But whatever I do, I won’t cry over spilt milk.
So in this ‘down’ time, I’m trying to nurture a little creativity. These days I’m like a sponge for inspiration and I seem to get ideas flooding at me from everywhere. It is really quite an awesome state and I’m feeling pretty blessed about it. Nothing in particular being created - just a different way of approaching everything I do. I have learned that indeed something bigger than me is responsible for my expressions in the world. Yet I find that with this creativity comes a little dose of crazy. It means experiencing the extreme highs and lows of every situation. It means turning things around one too many times and looking at them from every possible angle. If I get too close, it can sometimes feel like I’ve created a monster.
Farm work is often repetitive or monotonous. It does not require over analysis and can actually save you from self-created monsters. The daily work at the barn consists of bringing thawed water to the chickens and cats, filling the water trough for the cows and laying straw out in their shed, collecting eggs, offering up a bucket of grain to the lactating mama and throwing down some flakes of protein-rich hay from the mow. Once a week or so we drive a large round bale out to the cows (and we’ve learned the hard way that you can’t be late with this or they will wander into the neighbours yard on a warm day to find some of the grass that is coming up).
Soon I will be heading out to milk our mama regularly when her calf leaves. To be totally honest, I’m dreading getting out there to milk her again. The cold and early hour does not worry me. What I am afraid of is my cow. You see she and I have not been getting along that well lately. The last few times I milked her she developed an excellent kicking habit (excellent only in her accuracy at being able to hoof straw (or worse) clear into my bucket with great finesse). I think she hates me. And who said one couldn’t get neurotic over farm chores?
It turns out the loving, intuitive relationship I thought I had with my bovine beast was really just her using me for the bucket of way-too-large fruits I was bringing her from our fields during the growing season. I am now giving her dairy ration which is a sweet mix of grains but she eats this much too quickly and lets down her milk much too slowly (on purpose, I believe) to last the duration. When the bucket of grain is done, and I’ve just finished washing off her udder, we both have a problem on our hands. Mine is having no milk yet. Hers is having a dense person trying to partake in her bounty without offering up sufficient goods.
To get a few liters of milk takes me about 15 minutes milking by hand not including preparation and clean-up. It depends a lot on how willing she is to give it up, how long it has been since she has been with her calf and how accustomed my hands are. It is not easy to fathom how much cramping can occur initially and over time with this repetitive process. It is also an incredibly intimate act. Your face is pressed right up against their flank taking in the musty smell of their fur while your arms are outstretched below. Of course it all just becomes a chore in time and eventually it is about going through the motions. (In case your mind is wandering to parallels here, get back here will you?) But if you ever stop to think what exactly you’re up to down there, it all seems a little weird, yes?
They say that being insane is the only sane response to an insane world. I’m not sure that I believe the world is insane. And whatever it is, there may be no such thing as a sane response to it. I think all we can do is get out there and on a bad day we may get poo kicked into our face. That’s just life when you’re down in the dirt with living things. All at the same time I am surrounded by the peace and chaos and fullness and I respond while still only playing the role of a witness. I don’t decide how things are going to go. No wonder I feel a little nuts.
Soon I will be out at the barn collecting my milk every day. Some days it will be my favourite thing about my day. Other days I am going to wish I could go to a torture chamber instead.
This will mimic every other part of the day as a mother, a farmer, an artist, and a human. Oh, so good. Oh, so scary. Oh, so uncertain. Oh, so worth it!
But whatever I do, I won’t cry over spilt milk.
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