I haven’t written much for my blog over the past few years. I guess I’ve been busy.

I did write a book and have continued with my freelance writing. But I’m a passionate journalist—who loves writing about my own observations in life—so it seems strange I haven’t been more focused on this blog.

Yes… I know I’m a digital dinosaur, so perhaps that’s why I am so seemingly far behind. Or… maybe it was all the after-effects of covid…or almost being evacuated during fire season….or perhaps my distraction was somehow related to my finding my birth mom (who promptly dissed me).

Ahhhh….maybe THAT is why I have shied away from writing more?

Nah….

Actually, the major distraction in my life over the past few years was selling our family home of some 30 years… downsizing all our belongings… and then moving.

Research tells us that moving is a very stressful thing… and it was.

Research tells us that selling a home is a very stressful thing! And, boy, was it!

Research tells us that buying a home is a very stressful thing! Yep!

And let me tell you… moving 3 cats some 8 hours in a car was a VERY stressful thing!

And finally… moving from “city life” to a “rural life” was a very… oh, wait… it was NOT a very stressful thing. It’s been wonderful.

I went from a gated community—with a larger home and a small yard—to a very rural town—with a small house and a ½ acre yard with 27 fruit trees.

The house came with its own John Deere tractor. I now have my very own “Green Acres” with the exception that I don’t have Arnold the Pig. For those of you who may be too young to know about this show, google it…but don’t listen to the theme song! You won’t be able to get it out of your head for days.

While I did always love “gardening” in my previous city life, that really meant planting and watering some pretty flowers, trimming a few bushes, and doing a bit of weeding… yes, I loved it… but I was only “gardening”.

Today?

I’m a farmer! And let me tell you, farming is hard!

First, you are at the mercy of the weather.

Second, you are at the mercy of the critters.

Third you are at the mercy of how well your body will hold up after toiling hours out on your land!

Fourth, did I tell you that you were at the mercy of the weather and critters?

I am becoming quite the critter hunter. Who knew I would become such a good gopher trapper and that I’d get so much enjoyment out of trying to outsmart fruit-robbing squirrels?

I actually caught an opossum one day; he was not pleased. I did manage to let him out of the cage without getting bitten.

I’ve come across mating snakes… a tarantula wasp (a painful bite)… a few rats, bats, several swarms of bees (just resting for a few days), and more…

Getting the “hang of farming” has kept me out on the property (you can’t really just say “garden” anymore… now with 31-some fruit trees it is the “property”) for 5 hours a day, for weeks…and then, the first “injury”, a pulled hip flexor.

Physical therapy and then back to work….

The next injury…tennis elbow (not due to tennis but due to shoveling…LOTS of shoveling)…

The physical therapist is now on speed dial… I have every known icing product and the Aleve bottle is always close at hand.

Down the hill I have a gopher problem I’ve been working on. I have been known to do a dance with a dead gopher still on the end of the Gopher Hawk trap, swinging it wildly in the air while whooping loudly!

My neighbors are beginning to wonder…

But there isn’t such a thing as complete rodent extermination. They just keep tunneling in.

Each day I set the traps in a different place, playing a game of chess with a mindless rodent. My husband laughing that the rodent is apparently smarter than I! One day the gopher actually pops up not 5 feet from me… takes a quick peek in my direction and darts back down… How dare he! I start humming the Caddy Shack song while meticulously resetting a trap. And less than an hour later he is mine. I have won.

I love all of the rewards of farming, literally seeing the “fruits” of one’s labor. I give a lot to neighbors. Maybe it makes them more easily tolerate my gopher dancing…

I secretly hope my body won’t give out and that all the stooping and other contortions I make on a daily basis will instead keep me flexible and moving.

But farming may kill me. I’m just not sure.

I just know that I’m loving it.

And interestingly, in finding my biological mom I did learn that I have farming genes (no, not jeans….genes!). My granddad was a farmer as are other relatives.

So maybe that’s why I’m loving it? Who knows…I just know that once I said goodbye to “City Life”… that Green Acres song has really kicked in…

And I’m loving FARM LIVING for me…