Military Spouse, Homesteading and Motherhood

I believe that to really see and rejoice in life’s fleeting beauty, one must first understand the pressure and crushing weight of hardship. Then those moments, those bright sunny days amidst the gloom of wintry storms can be seen, felt and revered by the soul. If all of life were sunny days, happy moments and bright flowers do you believe that they would be viewed as beauty? Or would they, like sugar, become an addiction? A must have? Would they become overfamiliar and taken for granted? I believe that there cannot be one without the other; peace without hardship, beauty without plainness, sunshine without overcast, joyful moments without tears, day without night. Without both nature becomes unbalanced. People complain about the healing, life giving heat of the summer sun; it’s too hot they say, it will cause cancer. They whine about the crisp, fridged temperatures of winter that kill the bugs and pests that would otherwise plague us. I can think of so many scenarios but one fact remains: the law of nature is kill or be killed. A wolf must eat a rabbit to survive and in this role there is still beauty. And so in my life this motto governs me; I cannot offer blogs of beauty and joy without first describing my pain and hardship. Then, once all of it is broadcast in the open perhaps it shall be for you an invitation to feel your own pain, the pain that is life and that we share with all of nature so that you may also grow and appreciate those moments that are taken for granted every day.

I only moments ago sat down to write when my son clambered out of his crib to come find more of his trucks to put to sleep with him in my bed. I found him his dump truck, had a short argument with him about not being able to sleep in my bed, tucked him beneath his covers and kissed him goodnight.

So now. To the meat of my blog. The military, motherhood and homesteading. These are three things that don’t exactly fit together sometimes. As a military spouse and mother, life can be extremely lonely, and while homesteading is picking up, and more and more people return to their roots to live the simpler life, there are still quite a few people who look at my particular family sideways and call us redneck or dumb farmers. Maybe that’s true though, I digress. Being a homesteader only seems to contribute to the lonely, for now. Perhaps this shall only be until I figure out how to tap the richness of support that can be found in my farming community. Unfortunately I am a victim of social anxiety which only proves to muddy the waters for me.

My husband was deployed in 2019, it was our first tour as a married couple, in our own farm home and with a child (A lot of firsts to be had!) I have had a lot of people tell me they don’t know how I did it. The truth is; I don’t know either. There comes a point where the only way to find out if you can do something is to, for lack of a better phrase, venture out into the deep end and see if you sink! I didn’t, somehow. I found in myself a certain strength that allowed me to carry on nurturing my little farm and still somehow care for myself and my child. If you asked me if it was a difficult year I’d tell you no. I would tell you it was one of the most wonderful years of my life. You see, you only find out who you are and what you are capable of when you venture out of your personal safety bubble.

Now as a mother of two with my husband working full time but still home I find myself floundering. “Self care” to me means the chance to take a shower at the end of the day… uninterrupted might be too much to ask. On a night like this; showered, sipping a cup of hot Sleepy Time tea and writing my blog, I am in my element and perhaps even being a little bit selfish. Adding homesteading to the mix means more often that not I have some version of poop, puke or milk on my clothes (think twice before a hug…), I likely haven’t showered in 4 days, the braid in my hair is not a fashion statement but a desperate attempt to keep my hair from falling out or being ripped out by my daughter, and a full night of sleep between children, lambing season and too much caffeine during the day is virtually unheard of.

I often wonder, after finally reaching the coveted end of the day where the little ones are tucked into bed and sleeping, how I managed to squander so much time before I had children. Even so, I attempt to find some time in the day to ride a horse, or spend some extra time brushing my horses, training the dogs or bombing around in my jet sled behind the pony (I haven’t done that yet despite having received a foot of snow this week. It will happen. I am determined.) At a certain point you come to a realization that all of the things that you thought were important before children really mostly are of no consequence or even have any relation to your current life. It’s somehow both incredibly freeing and also somewhat anxiety inducing when your previous compatriots, who haven’t gone through the life changes that you have, still think you’re not doing enough and can sympathize with no sleep but not really fully understand. They partied and drank all night. I comforted my crying, sick child.

This is not remotely to say that being a SAHM and homesteading with a military spouse is all bad. It’s not. It does accentuate the good, causes me to really notice those moments that we are all together as a family, safe and happy. It helps me to empathize with those moms on base with full time husbands who are deployed more often than not. There is always someone who has it worse, and we are all given our own crosses to bear, some may say they don’t know how I do it. And still yet I might say I don’t know how others do it. We are all together however in our burdens that we bear and so we must envision them as similarities to each other instead of what sets us a part.

I am blessed in a strange sort of way, by understanding the depths of who I am and what I can be capable of and I owe that to all of the above. Homesteading, parenting and the military have this one thing in common; they build a person not by persuasion and caving to my human needs but by proceeding regardless of. I am able to be challenged in a sort of way that does not allow for excuses. This is the life I have simultaneously chosen and been stuffed into and I would have no other way to live.

The house is silent but the tick of the auger on the pellet stove and the rumble of the train on the tracks out the window and past the Bog. A robotic trill suddenly shatters the peace, “Please charge rhumba” the little vacuum cleaner demands from it’s spot just off center of it’s home-base, nocked there by little tampering fingers earlier in the day. I relish the ability to chuckle and mumble, “Nope!” to myself. “I’ll get it later.” for now, I have given myself the freedom to simply write.