Thoughts on 5 acres

When Michael and I moved we set out to get one acre.  We thought that it would be a dream to have that kind of space.  We never imagined getting five!  It was a blessing and an amazing deal to get this place.  So now that we are 4 years into trying to beautify our little piece of heaven,  here are some thoughts.

I love the fact that we will not run out of "project" space for a very long time.  Being here has allowed us to experiment with horses, goats, bees, chickens, rabbits, pigs, and many stray cats.  Its been fun, but also a lot of work!  (Wow, I did not realize all the would go into keeping up property....and yes, we were warned.)

I have been able to have a HUGE garden, plant lots of trees and put in a good chunk of grass.  I can yell at my kids and not really worry if anyone can hear me.  I can go outside knowing that the neighbors can't pop their heads over at any time and talk when I am working. There are a lot of really amazing blessing that come with having space.  I am thankful for them and I don't think I can ever go back to subdivision living.

However, there is always a flip side to things.  As much as an opportunity this land is, it is also a constant source of overwhelm for me.  If you have a tinge of perfectionism in you, you too may be prone to this.  When the snow melts and you never really did a good fall clean up.....ugg, the worst feeling to see so many things that need to get taken care of!!  Weeds are a constant battle, trees need to get fertilized, along with the berries, fences need to get fixed, sprinklers need to be replaced from damage done, the grass outside of the yard needs to be mowed down, projects that were half way done need to get completed, garbage that gets blown in needs to get picked up....I could really go on and on and on.

I am so thankful that we are not doing pigs for 4-H this year, and that our 17 chickens are down to one (yes, I am sad that our neighbors dog picked them off one by one this winter but glad to have a little breather) but am going to take this year to just focus on clean up, fix up and chilling out.

We don't have any major outside projects this year so I want to clean this place up!  Fix some things we put up quickly just because we were pressured by time,and then come up with a schedule to routinely do things so I don't have freak outs because I let weeding get out of control.

I am not as overwhelmed as I was a month ago because little efforts done consistently have made a big difference around here.  I am in day 4 of painting our fence.....so almost done.  I can't wait to get that finished so I can go onto weeding again.  I want to hurry so I can  get to the fun stuff like planting a garden!

So to sum up this long post.... i love my 5 acres, it overwhelms the heck out of me at times!  But if I can keep reminding myself  that small things done daily will bring about great change....I will be okay.