Chapter One: Rumination

I've decided that if I don't write it now, I'll never write it.

My book that is. The book that my mind is continually writing and rewriting. I write it as I fall asleep. I write it as a I drive my brood hither and tither. I write as I read other people's writings -- loving a way they captured words and hoping I can do it as eloquently. 

As I move around our farm, my mind writes. It's how my brain has been wired since I was a little girl.

I write words in my head.

And if I am really focusing, I am t-y-p-i-n-g those words. 

It's an out-of-body experience of sorts. My fingers fly around the keyboard, hitting the letters as my brain says the things I want to say. I picture the fingers moving as I let the words flow silently through the recesses of my mind. 

I returned this afternoon from a weekend away -- some time with my childhood friend, Michelle, and her three children and husband. Her oldest was having a birthday, and my Sidge has become his good friend. So we drove the five hours to North Carolina to celebrate with him.

I returned this evening from a weekend away and was swept into the paddock nearly immediately to catch five sheep. 

Catching sheep is a game. It's a chess board. There are moves you can make. And moves you can't. A bad move can put you in checkmate nearly immediately. And if you are really on your game, you might be able to win in just a few choice steps. 

But the chances of success with the "easy choice" is usually poor. Tonight, I knew it. John had an idea using Jacob and Anni and myself out in the open field with only one hard fence to use for "trapping" the sheep. There were some cattle panels available, and he thought we could use those and win the battle.

It's always a delicate dance out in the paddocks ... not wanting to shoot someone else's idea down to quickly. Pretty sure an idea will be successful or trying not to be pessimistic that it's doomed from the beginning. Tonight, I told my husband I thought we'd be better off skipping to plan F. We've done this so many times, I knew what A thru E would be, and I didn't think they would work. 

While we didn't skip immediately to F, we did move there quicker than normal. We spent just a few minutes taking a step at A and B and C before deciding to forego D and E and jump to F. This means taking twenty extra minutes to set up some netting. It's winning the chess game by making thirty extra moves, and your body instinctively wants to find an "easier way" to do it. You want to find the faster way or the easier way. 

But the slower more deliberate choice is often more successful.

That sentence holds so many layers of lessons, I know it would take me more hours than the few minutes I have before bed to unravel them. I am sure while I am in bed minutes from now, my fingers will start flying around my imaginary keyboard, typing thoughts I probably won't be able to recall come morning. 

Returning from my friend's house, I start to second-guess our life, taking my husband on an emotional roller-coaster. This farm. These sheep. Michelle doesn't have these. And her life is simple.

"It's not simple," my JB reminds me. "That was a weekend. It was not reality. Reality is real. And real is not simple. It's messy. It's challenging. It isn't fixed by getting rid of sheep or living in suburbia or quitting the real life you have been chosen."

The slower more deliberate is often more successful. 

Like a sheep, I must go ruminate.