Now we are Five

Now we are five.

We’ve added a little boy to the farm family, born at home into his father’s arms as the sun rose on a February morning. What a blessing a baby is, what a blessing life is! What a blessing you are, little Noah!

As we expand our nest we are watching the life around us build theirs. During chores in the morning our world is full of song: cardinal papas staking their tree claims, mourning doves cooing in the savanna, meadowlarks in the new prairie heralding the arrival of spring, a chickadee that sings above my head in the spruce tree as I prepare for morning milking. On a hike last week we watched a flock of 30 sandhill cranes spiraling high against the sun, calling in their haunting, ancient voices and our hearts leapt up to join them.

With this joy comes its opposite in a little seed of doubt. The world around us is eagerly preparing for what’s ahead, reminding us that we must do the same. We are about to get busy. The to-do lists will become mind-boggling and daunting, the daily tasks running us from sunup to sunset with hardly time to catch our breath. If we aren’t careful the farm and its work will consume us. Folded in this glorious blossoming of spring is that little worry in my mind: how will we get it all done?

The truth is, we won’t—a life lesson hard-learned by myself especially. Learning to let go and surrender to the entropy around me has been one of the great and necessary skills of parenting and farming alike. When I pause and look down at three healthy, content, beautiful children, I feel gratitude, I feel success. The garden will sprout weeds, the animals will constantly need tending and moving, the produce will need to be harvested and prepared, someone will always need my attention. But also the buds will swell, the ferns will unfurl, the killdeer babies will run in the creek, life will march on and on.

Here I am now, surrendering to motherhood, to nurturing, to caring for all the life on this beautiful land and welcoming spring and all it brings.

We were four little humans on this Earth. And now we are five. <3