The Learning Curve

Life is an endless lesson.

For someone addicted to adult education classes you would think that this would be a good thing, but lately I've been finding myself overwhelmed with the number of things I have yet to master.

Having taken the plunge and thrown ourselves in the deep end; bought the land, the horse, the pigs and got chicks on order (hatching as we speak), we now have to learn how to take care of it all and keep it alive long enough to turn it into sustenance for ourselves.
We also have to learn about growing crops on a clay/calciferous soil, putting up a polytunnel, erecting various small wooden buildings to house compost toilets and showers and make platforms for our yurts. And how to dig out, install and plant a horizontal reed bed system. How to plant a willow plantation which will provide fencing, sculpture, basketry and ornamental willow. How to build a chicken house that will be fox-proof, not harbour red mites and yet still be aesthetically pleasing.
We are committed to replanting about an acre of woodland that the previous owner seems to have raised to the ground. He removed the oak wood (presumably to sell as firewood) and left us a load of Scots pine lying on the ground, no good for firewood but it will lend itself nicely to cordwood building seeing as it is now seasoned. So we're cutting it into appropriate lengths and putting it under cover to dry out, in order to build a horse shelter from it.
And somewhere along the way I decided to teach myself how to make wooden shingles from the wood on the land, so that I can roof both the cordwood horse shelter and a couple of small lean-to structures to store our firewood out of the elements.

That's just for starters.

I haven't even begun to think about the small flock of sheep I'd like to raise for their wool and the plants that I can grow and use as natural pigments to dye the wool. Or how to make our own smoker for the bacon, or how to make a small scale charcoal burner.

When you look at it altogether like that it all gets a bit much and I feel compelled to go and sit somewhere quiet, stare at the trees and remind myself of where it all started.

As we stumble from one new lesson to the next, hoping not to make too many mistakes along the way I have to remind myself to stop, look around and remember how blessed we are to have the husbandry of this ten-point-five acre slice of earth.