It’s quiet and peaceful on our farm today. The harsh cold of winter has been replaced by sunshine so warm it feels like a hug. Soft breezes rustle gently through the gum trees, lulling animals and humans alike into cozy sleepiness.

Bear and I have done a lot of resting the past week. The previous six months were full of stressful situations, some hard, some good, but all tiring to body and spirit.

Camping medievally for 8 days was wonderful, giving us a chance to get away from everything and just be. We had such a nice time hanging out with each other, reading aloud at night by lamp light, building fires to make cuppas, taking afternoon naps, working quietly on different projects then coming together for meals to chat all about what we’d been up to.

It was good. So good.

Now we’re home and it’s a different kind of good as we let go of the craziness of the first half of 2017 and settle into our new normal, embracing new routines, figuring out a new rhythm.

We’ve transitioned from a goat farm to a small hobby farm with an assortment of animals. We loved our goat farm experience, but we’re so happy about this change. It’s much more manageable for us and gives us time to pursue other projects that are important to us.

I’ve transitioned to full-time freelance writer/photographer/artist. It’s been a scary and daunting process, but I’m in a good place now and loving it so much. It gives me such a thrill to wake up each day and know I have work ahead of me that will provide for our needs and give me an outlet to do the work I enjoy and am good at. It will take more time to be at the place I need to be, but I’m so close now and that fills me with hope. Looking back, seeing how far I’ve come, we’ve come, gives me courage to press on.

I’ve also shifted to a new place in my healing, and I think that is the most precious thing to me. To look at my mind and heart and see peace and courage and hope and confidence where once there was so much fear, pain, grief, and anxiety, well, it makes me tear up with happiness and gratitude. I will be healing and growing until the day I die – I know I’ll never arrive at some magical All Done Now place – but I’m taking time to celebrate these moments of recognition, where the Now Me is braver, kinder, stronger than the Old Me.

These days I’m really loving being home. Before, home was my escape, my place to hide while I healed, but now it’s my haven, my place to love and be loved, to create and build and thrive. Bear and I had to have a teary-eyed cuddle about that this morning as we reflected on how much has changed since I first showed up at the farm gate nearly six years ago. I’m so thankful.

So today I wandered around this haven of ours, with all its messy bits and projects waiting to be completed, and basked in the feeling of being truly at home, no more hiding, no more fear.

I led our last six goats to their new pasture and walked through the trees with them. I fed the pigs and hung out with the dogs, picked peas in my garden and harvested pineapple sage and hung it up to dry. I took cuttings from the elderflower hedge and put them in water along the kitchen window sill to give them a chance to root before spring.

Now it’s time to work. A bowl of peas beside me for snacking on, sunshine streaming in the window turning the old wood floors a burnished gold.

It’s good to be home. xo