It's 6:30 in the morning. I peek out my bedroom window and a chicken pops its head up to gaze at me. I am awake and giddy with ideas for the day. Where should I start - baking sweet potatoes, weeding the garden, writing in my journal? I let my English Shepherd out and warm air tumbles toward me. I settle on starting with my outdoor work before it becomes too hot.

This year, I decided to let most of the gardening go. When most people were pouring over seed catalogs in the winter and early spring, I was preparing to have major surgery and training my new employee Lindsay. Now, I return to the overgrown asparagus bed and begin pulling a wheelbarrow-full of overgrown plants. I slowly break apart a stubborn patch of grass from the roots with my garden trowel. The ground is hard, and I tear away one small bit of root at a time.

In time, I empty my wheelbarrow, and head over to the old piglet hut. I pause to allow our ducks Iris and Hilly to parade their newly hatched 19 ducklings to the old piglet wallow for the morning. Life on the farm is filled with moments like these, where you are invited to pause, marvel, and observe instead of constantly just barreling through life. It is the fertilizer for a life well lived.

It has been many months since piglets have lived at this farm. The hut is filled with a finely ground dust of manure, straw, and dirt - perfect for a garden bed. I am slowly amending my garden beds and preparing them once again for the year to come. I carefully navigate my wheelbarrow around the volunteer curcubits coming up in the yard, which our pigs inadvertently planted. I scoop up the precious garden gold and haul it over to the garlic bed.

Next, I settle down with my journal and a cuppa on the porch. Most days, my cuppa is a good cup of tea, but today I whiz up a fresh peach with dark leafy greens and some ice. The complexities of my inner world seem to settle themselves out on the lines of my journal, and I feel more at peace.

Today, I spend most of my time in and out of the kitchen preparing food for the week to come. It shouldn't take this long but I allow it to become a meandering task doing a little here and a little there. I enjoy the aroma of toasty millet, make a rather basic pot of beans (forgetting salt & seasoning all together), whip up a batch of veggie soup, and put up turkey meat from the lovely bird we raised here on the farm. As I gather herbs for the quinoa salad, I find a few hidden blackberries left to eat that have reached perfection.
...and I let myself rest and work slowly in the kitchen, an indulgent pleasure fit for a weekend.

My sweet farm dog, Gilly and I make it out to the side porch for a "spa session" while the storms roll in for the afternoon. This girl has been collecting all kinds of seed heads in her fur, so I sit and comb her out. She's a rough and tumble farm dog. She's also my heart dog and always by my side every moment she can get. When I do video consults, she's not allowed in the room so she sits right outside the door waiting. The spray from the storms start to blow over her coat and we head inside.

As the sky darkens with storms, I think I'll make myself a cup of tea and watercolor to the sound of music and thunder rumbling. This is how I unwind on the farm. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet all very extraordinary at the same time. Oh happy day!