For The Love of Country Living

I was milking the cow this morning, watching the milk froth as the jets of creamy milk hit it. It suddenly struck me that until nine months ago I had no idea how to milk a cow. When Missy calved in October, I had to learn how to milk through trial and error. There were sore hands from the exercise they weren't used to, tears from spilled milk and proud reports of the amount of milk collected that day. Now milking has just become part of the daily ritual, it's no trouble and it still makes me smile.


And so I began thinking of all the things I've learnt over the past few years, since becoming the owner of animals, way back to when we rented a quarter of an acre in town and we become the proud owners of a trio of laying hens for the first time.
I didn't know a thing about chickens, what would happen if we let two clucky hens share a nest (in case you're wondering, you'll end up with chicks squashed or pecked to death by the hens fighting over them), what those noises were they made after laying or even what "that red thing on top of their head" was called.
Until a few years ago I'd never seen a cow give birth, halter broken a bunch of weaners or eaten home grown beef.

When I brought home a chunky little Border Collie puppy nearly three years ago I never thought it would lead me to being the owner of a flock of sheep, with plans of breeding them and hopes of eventually buying stud stock.
Not so long ago my disdain for all things "sour" flavoured had me screwing up nose at the words sourdough and lacto-fermented. Just the other day, however, I enjoyed a sandwich that was spread with cultured butter and had a few lacto-fermented cucumber pickles on it. My loaf of sourdough is cooling on the bench as I write.

How did all of this happen? How did so many ideas turn into reality and so many "no way, I'll never do that" exclamations get shoved aside? How did I turn into a sourdough baking, cheese making, clothes knitting farmer, hippy, self-sustainability-focused person?
In all honesty I don't know when it happened. It's happened slowly, over many years. From deciding to bake your own bread, grow a few veggies and keep some laying hens can lead so many exciting, daunting and crazy things.

The romance of country living has been brushed aside from me as I've been forced more often than not to face the harsh reality of mother nature. From mildly upsetting things such as your veggies being eaten to the shock of animals dying. People say that if you have livestock you'll have deadstock but I don't think you really take that on board until reality hits.
And then there's all the unromantic unappealing things in between. That smell of the cattle yards after too much rain, an egg exploding under a clucky chook so you have to snip it out of her feathers, the heart rendering experience of having a taipan slither over your bare feet...the list goes on and gets worse.

But at the same time the romance of it all has grown and proven to me that some of it really is like the books say.
There will be slices of thick bread spread with farmhouse butter; your cow will give you jugs of thick cream. There'll be chicken pies you raised yourself, a pantry full of homegrown potatoes and homemade preserves crammed on your pantry shelves.
There'll be beautiful dewy mornings, tiny seeds sprouting to life and the delight of finding a bunch of eggs in a nest. There'll be fluffy baby chicks, bouncing new lambs and cheeky sweet calves.
 There'll be foggy mornings and a whole enormous sky filled with sparkling stars.  And they'll be sunrises and sunsets like you can't get in town - glorious golden things that you can watch from start to finish.

 I never planned to go this way and in another year or two's time I'll probably be looking back again and saying "I never foresaw this!". But I'm so happy with all the things that are going on and I'm looking forward to the future of more unexpected things. Because I think life will always be like this, unplanned, unmapped out and truly unexpected. It's scary and it's exciting, and the only thing to do is embrace it and enjoy the ride.

xx