We were invited to have supper at Cycle Farm in Spearfish last night by Trish and Jeremy and we also had the chance to meet another CSA farmer, Harold Gray from Nisland. We had a wonderful home-cooked supper prepared by Trish and Jeremy which centered around one of their farm-raised lovingly herbed and roasted chickens. I contributed a couple sides consisting of tomatillo salsa verde and chips and a new recipe for sweet potato/ginger/miso dip and celery. The food was absolutely wonderful, but the conversation was what dreams are made of......well, at least my dreams.
When you make the decision to change careers mid-stream (okay fine, mid-life) and go into full-time agriculture, you are basically also making the decision to drop most of your social life. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just the way it is. And as we gradually add more parts of our "grand plan" to the picture, spare time becomes more of a rarity. So having the opportunity to spend an evening discussing exactly what we are doing with three other people who completely "get it" is really an honor and a blessing. We came away from the evening feeling validated, renewed, challenged, and.........special. I think what we're doing at Bear Butte Gardens, Cycle Farm, and Harold's farm is really pretty special when you consider we're growing top quality, healthy food for approximately 50-60 area families during the summer plus the extra people we meet through farmers markets, etc., and that number will keep increasing as we gain more knowledge and experience. All of our farms are relatively new, so just three years ago none of this was happening. That's pretty amazing.
So, getting back to my dreams--a few nights ago I had a dream that I was the happiest I have ever been in my life. In the dream I kept telling Rick over and over and over how happy I was. The next day, about midway through, I remembered the dream and it made me smile because it wasn't just a dream, I truly am right now the happiest I have ever been in my life. Everything is just very, very good with family AND I'm working my dream job with my favorite co-worker, my husband!
Rick and I have been a part of many, many projects over the years and in retrospect it seems that all of those projects, good or not so good, have somehow prepared us for what we are doing right now and what we hope to do over the next several years. The point I'd like to make here is that maybe you're in a job or a relationship or a situation right now that isn't ideal, but set your goals and move ahead and in time you'll be able to look back and see what you learned from this situation. It WILL make you a more intelligent, more understanding, more experienced person for what lies ahead.
So, next summer when we're again in the middle of a drought and the temperatures are staying around 90-100 every day for a month or more and I'm picking the umpteenth bag of beans and looking forward to dealing with some quirky CSA share member, I'll have to stop and re-read this blog to remind myself how blessed I am.
So, Trish and Jeremy, thank you so much for having the wisdom to plan this mid-week meeting of like dreamers. It was a counseling session, self-help group meeting, and motivational session all in one! Rick and I are very lucky to have such a strong support group around us, cheering us on, of not only the other CSA providers, but also our kids, our families, our friends from all of those past projects, and our community. Yay for all of you dream enablers! It is important for all of us now living our dreams to figure out a way to share how we are doing it with those others who might be just starting to form their own dreams. Good stuff!
