As the Rooster Crows

It's still dark outside and not quite 5am, I can hear Rodney crowing in the distance and know he's crowing back and forth with the neighbor's rooster several acres away.  They go back and forth for a while and then stop, it's not a loud or obnoxious crow but is a country sound I like to hear in the morning.  I'm up early and already started the fire and made a cup of coffee, everyone will begin to wake up in another hour or so and our day will begin. It's interesting how as the cold and dark of winter begin again this time of year I slow down and have a desire to write.  I've been keeping journals and writing off and on since my early 20's, most of the journals I still have and sometimes I'll pick them up to read about all those years ago.  Through some of the tough times in my life when I wrote out my inner feelings I did go back and rip out pages and burnt them not wanting anyone (namely my children) to read of my hard times. 

Anytime you write a journal there is a good chance someone may read it and a blog even more so, people from around the world have the opportunity to find it and read what you've written.  I haven't been good about writing here lately and for that I do apologize,  if you are still following along after my long absences and technology fasts... thank you for still hanging in there with me.  When you write a blog you secretly hope someone will read it, and that you have something  interesting to say.  On this blog, especially in the beginning I'd agonize over my writing, it would take me so long to write a post and proofread it, then I'd hit the publish button with a little wince and hope I didn't have too many errors.  There have also been posts I've deleted, then regretted, and there have been times where I've added or taken something out months later, thinking I said too much, or didn't want to show pictures or talk too much about my children because I wanted the focus to be a farm and garden blog.

Then I'd think I'm sharing too much I don't know if it's good to show the world where I live and what I think, I  didn't even share my blog with friends for a long time because I kind of like being private and can be a real hermit at times.  Once I had someone mention my pictures were too dark and wondered why, and people would want to come visit and I worried it wasn't all pulled together perhaps like I made it look here.  The garden had weeds, I didn't have homemade bread made to serve them, the house wasn't finished or clean enough, and on and on I could go.  I've decided to just keep going forward here on this blog, sharing from my heart what I'm learning and doing. 

Now that I'm done working at the nursery where I worked for two years Spring through Fall I'm going to focus my energies on building my own business.  Work took me away from home 2 days per week, which isn't alot, but with all I'm doing at home along with raising children, it affected me and my desire to begin my own business making money from home.  The last time I made soap was right before I started working there, before I began there I was really focused on writing and had written out some big goals for myself and the business I wanted to start.  Now with the end of this nursery season I let my manager know I wouldn't be coming back next year, I knew when I started there that I was suppose to serve her and work there for two years, my family all knew that was part of the plan.  I'm so thankful for that job though as we needed the money and that's how I was able to buy the goats, rabbits, and get some wonderful new garden plants.  I also learned many things about landscape design and met some great new people.

Plans are now in the works to begin again, one of the first things I'll be doing is making goat's milk soap and lotion for Christmas gifts and practise batches, then I want to continue to make it and get setup to sell online through etsy.  I'll also be focusing on Applegarth Farm as a permaculture center for learning.  That means my home, farm, and garden will be open this next summer to come visit, perhaps some classes and I'll have baby goats, goldens, rabbits and edible plants for sale come June.  I have the excitement and energy in me again to keep going forward with my dream.