farm time

Although the weather says differently here in Chicago, we know spring has arrived when the lambs are born. I say this as if it were our own farm at which said lambs arrived. But, alas, my farm girl dream is played out at the park-district-owned 1800s replica hobby farm. Still, the animals are real. Not to be wrestled, fed or touched, but well cared for and naturally born and bred. That's something in suburbia.

Before my boys came along, I spent a couple weeks each winter farm sitting for friends who own a small farm and CSA in Wisconsin. The last year I did this, they squeaked in a vacation right before the start of lambing season. It was my job not only to feed and water the sheep in subzero temps but to be on the lookout for wayward lambs. I trudged out to the barn three times a day to check in on those sheep, both eager and afraid for what I might find in their crib.

The thing I remember most about those weeks at the farm was how slowly the clock moved. I lived in every minute. Everything I did commanded attention - slogging on my boots, crunching down the lane, breathing in and out. But time never dragged. Every sense was fully engaged and yet totally at rest. A beautiful dichotomy.

I was alone on the farm. That certainly made the weeks-long meditation easier. But what made it possible is that I allowed myself to be fully present in the moment, watching the fire, chopping an onion, dragging a bale of hay out of the barn (to the immense pleasure of a pushy herd of bleating sheep). I never thought about what I wasn't doing, what I wished I was doing, what I should be doing instead. I just saw what was in front of me to do and I did it. I wonder how my life would look different if I lived this way now.

For one thing, I know I would be better at remembering, at seeing and listening. I would be calmer, more patient. My house would be emptier. My mind would be freer.

On the flipside, life is a little more complex than two weeks on someone else's farm. But I'm glad to have the memories, triggered every spring by a visit to see the newest local lambs. It reminds me that it's good to slow down, to listen to my boots crunching, the birds singing, the sheep bleating, my son laughing, if only for a few precious moments.