I’d like to give a shout out to 8 year old Alison today.  I love you baby girl!  I owe you more than you know.  There have been times I sat and cried over your dream to own farm.  I’ve held heads and paws and said so many goodbye’s that broke my heart, I sometimes wonder if I have a heart left.  Equipment breaks, trees fall and horses get injured, and those times make surviving your choices and staying happy so difficult.  You want a sanity check, lock a horse in a stall for a year of rehab.  That never came up when we were 8. 

I sometimes wonder what we were thinking.  But amidst this new world and the stay at home order issued for 8pm last night, I can’t help but feel like we are living our best possible adult life, despite the crap we deal with daily to keep it all nicely afloat. 

We can still walk the dogs, we have ten acres.

We can still ride our horses, we have ten acres. 

We can still start our summer garden and enjoy summer veggies, we have ten acres.

There are endless farm projects and spring chores to keep us busy in our down time, we have ten acres.

I never thought we would accomplish our dream, and I have doubted so many steps along the way.  I certainly never thought we would live in a time when a poorly planned trip to the grocery store could lay waste to our family.   

I’m more proud of where we are than you could ever imagine.  All the hard work, all the tears, all the times we felt so beaten down we should probably stay there, they were all worth it.  Our life hasn’t changed as much as many, because we have ten acres. 

It all started with an 8 year old girl who thought horses were cool and steered her banana seat bicycle with homemade reins tied to her handle bars.  Yeah, mom and dad were probably a little worried when we would give the bike a break and a bucket of water, but they are crazy too or we wouldn’t be here on ten acres.

We need to thank them too, because picking up all those fire place rocks when we were 12 taught us both the satisfaction of a job well done and the pleasure of waking up and appreciating the hard work it took every day.  A requirement on ten acres.

In a time when we play plague or pollen at the sound of sneeze and the urge to throat punch a total stranger for coughing in our general direction is palpable, I’m so fucking glad we have ten acres. 

I raise my farm fresh peach daiquiri to you kid!   And hey, you didn’t think we ever would, but we found a weirdo just like us, and he knows how to can fresh peaches, so our daiquiri’s are legit!!!

Runs with Scissors….all grown up and day drinking on her days off…

ON. TEN. ACRES.