One of the biggest questions we get asked about our move rural what what do we miss the most? I find it funny, because it assumes we actually DO miss something.
It is a picturesque life living on our little farm. There are baby chicks and goats, farm fresh food and family days. Lots of family days.
The 5 of us are side by side working on building our life, very Little House on the Prairie but without the long skirts, and we talk a lot about what life “used” to be like.
The simple answer to the question “what do we miss” is nothing. We miss nothing, and that is because we became focussed on our priorities, the first and most important one being our family.
It is idyllic our little life, but it is also exhausting.
It is hard to make family a priority, to have time to listen and entertain and support your kids without the city distractions. I mean, baby chicks will only entertain for so long.
It is hard to constantly make choices towards the health of your family. Harvesting food from your garden is wonderful and fulfilling, but the 6 months of tilling, composting and tending can be exhausting.
We live a life that is filled with work. Every morning we wake up, sore and stiff, and drag ourselves out of bed to milk the goat. Each day we collect eggs, wash and sort for keep and sell. We need to cull birds from our flock, and there seems to be an endless supply of rats that get into the animals grain. It is hauling dozens of bales of hay up to the loft so our goats have fodder all winter.
Its trimming hooves, fighting with blackberries and thistles as they overtake the berry bushes, it is pulling mozzarella and picking hundreds of pounds of plums before the rain hits.
It is sitting in the meadow in your underwear after a hard morning of work, having water fights from the rain barrel and hatching frog spawn in the pond.
It is choices, and priorities, and choosing family first.
And it is a choice, friends. And no easy one.
Choosing healthy options is the harder way. Choosing time with your kids is more difficult that turning on a distraction. Choosing talking about those difficult topics is more uncomfortable than ignoring them.
But in the long term…. it is always the better way.
My daughter and I spent the day with the team from Maple Lodge farms, they wanted us to get a better understanding of their companies priorities and values. They wanted us to understand the choices they had made as they built their business.
And they felt the best way for us to understand how important family was to this family owned and run company was to remind US to put our family first.
They asked us to build a sandwich, and easy thing really, but one that represented our family.
And that, brought me back to this story that I had written almost 4 years ago. I talked about how, on my husbands last day of work, we spent the day as a family. My realization that this one thing that in our “old” life was so unique and special, would now become the ordinary. The “sandwich” of our days.
And so, we built our sandwich.
We wanted it to represent our real life, our sandwich days. We wanted it to be tasty too, because we know the time, effort and resources it takes to create the food on our table. And we wanted it to be delicious (which it was) because life should taste wonderful.
We had a selection of Maple Lodge products to use, and although Dad and I are partial to the Black Garlic & Peppercorn, or Jalapeno Chicken Breast Deli slices, our little one chose to go simple and straightforward with the Oven Roasted Chicken.
We have made the choices already to put our family first, and follow our own path and I often wonder if people ask us “what we miss” so they can have a caveat for not chasing their dreams. I wonder if they are looking for a reason to claim that you have to sacrifice too much to change.
Maple Lodge Farms, much like our family, knows first-hand that you get far more back when you stay true to your values than if you fall back on the status quo. I watched their staff interact, speak on the values of the company and share their stories with us. I saw that they felt as part of the Maple Lodge Family, despite the hard work that comes with it, and that they too live the sandwich days that most people would aspire to. Their company is 100% family owned and operated, and 4 generations strong after celebrating its 60th anniversary.
So, what do we miss?
Nothing.. because our days are filled with freshness,family and chicken bacon, and life really is this good… even when I wake with aching muscles and have 4 litres of goats milk to turn.
This post is part of the YummyMummyClub.ca and Maple Lodge Farms #FamilyFirst sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors.