The move begins...

For the last several weeks, I've been focused on a pile of poo. Raccoon poo, to be exact. And today I got to throw it in the garbage. It was a good day.

This particular pile of poo was resting atop a stack of straw, sitting in a barn on a farm we didn't own until today. Perfectly good straw, if you could look past that pile of poo. And, in case I forgot to mention it, today I got to throw away the pile of poo and liberate the pile of usable straw underneath it. I moved the straw across our new barn, I stacked it neatly, and threw away the poo.

I think this was a beachhead on the new property. Our farm. I find this a little overwhelming, because we've been talking about this for a long time. And here it is, we are doing it. And it is a lot of work. But good work. They type of work that makes water taste like wine (and wine taste like whiskey).

It is also the type of experience that makes me realize I can't control everything. The dogs will chase horses, a cat will fly out of the moldy, raccoon-poo-covered straw right into your face, and you will scream like a girl when that happens, I'm here to tell you.

But we made the beachhead. Straw as been moved, hay pallets laid, shavings stacked. The dogs are covered in horse manure, mud, and more horse manure. The truck is loaded with dusty, moldy caste-offs left by the previous owners. Tomorrow we'll take several loads to the dump. Tomorrow the dogs will chase the horses and bark at the neighbors cows. Tomorrow we'll clean up and fix and untie and build. Always, tomorrow there will be more.

And we have it now. We are sailing out of the shallows. Finally!