The last several nights have seen me spending my hour of writing time on other things (utter failure for my monthly check-in when I will clearly not have written every day for one hour). I finally got to see The Biggest Little Farm (Hulu) and it was epic. I loved every minute of it. I laughed and cried and it reminded me of my dreams ten years ago. Dreams I’d given up on, and now have sparked back to life, but in a different, more achievable/manageable form.

My family and I have been talking about moving for four years, and moving specifically to Oregon for three years. Every year we think we’re going to make the big move and every year we end up putting it off, there are just too many other things to do, there always are. It’s like when people want to have a baby but are always saying “now’s not a good time.” Hey, guess what? It’s never a good time. A Good Time is a mythical construct meant to make you feel better about not achieving your dreams.

Or at least it was for us.

Not anymore. This virus has been awful for so many reasons, but it’s also been a bit of A Good Time for us in that we:

• have loved being all together as a family every day
• decided there was no better time than now to paint the house and list it for sale
• are looking at property to purchase in Oregon once our house sells
• decided to create a mini-farm, a self-sustaining/organic/biodynamic farm

I have been caring for chickens for over ten years, so while I know a lot, I don’t know everything. One of my favorite things to do before making a big decision, like purchasing the chicks for a new flock, is to go back through and research all my options. I’m always glad when I do because I learn of new breeds, or remember that I have always wanted to have Cuckoo Marans but could never find them, etc.

In other words, I’ve been spending my time researching chickens (again!) and it’s so intensely gratifying and exciting and optimistic. We will likely wind up with a flock of only ten or so laying hens, which seems woefully tiny, especially when I once had a flock of nearly fifty. Going through and finding out which birds to purchase soothes something in me.

I can’t wait to do the research on the pigs…the cattle…the goats.

I miss having goats so much. Not ducks or geese, but goats. Sigh.

Off to research some more….