Gratitude

November was a month to reflect on gratitude.  It started with Veteran’s Day.  I am extremely thankful to the men and women who served and sacrificed so that we may live in freedom and feel safe. Then there is Thanksgiving, where we are meant to come together with family and friends and, like the name suggests, give thanks.  Over this past month, I have spent a lot of time thinking about gratitude and how much I have in my life that I am grateful for.  Like many people I am grateful for things like my family, friends, my health etc.  As I stopped to think about my life, I thought about how grateful I am that I can live on a farm homesteading. 

This life, although hard, is full of so much reward.  I am so grateful that I can live like this.  On those days when I just want to stay in bed and do nothing, it gives me a reason to get out of bed and get moving.  Even on cold mornings when the sun is yet to make an appearance, the animals need to be fed and they don’t want to wait.  Most of the time, after I get outside and start feeding the animals, I am grateful that they made me get up because I get to witness a beautiful sunrise while sitting with my horses. 

For the most part, all our meat comes from our farm, but we are still trying to get to the point where we grow most of our vegetables.  This falls into the homestead failure I spoke about in the last blog.  Every spring I have grand ideas of a large garden that produces food for my family for the year.  Every year I am disappointed with my skills and time management in that area.  I spend hours planting seeds, transplanting them to the garden beds and inevitably my garden always fails. This has given me a perspective on how hard and time consuming it is to work with crops. It fills me with gratitude for the talented farmers that can spend their time and their energy growing nutritious plant-based food.  I am grateful that they put in the work so my family can have delicious fruits and vegetables.  We get creative with meals in our house sometimes to make sure that we waste as little as possible because I know many people worked hard to ensure that those plants made it onto our dinner plate.

One part of homesteading, perhaps the most emotional part for some, is the dispatching and processing of our animals.  We spend weeks, months, or sometimes years caring for these animals.  Making sure they are happy, healthy, and thriving.  Sometimes we give them names, we grow attached and they become part of our family.  It then comes time to do the deed.  Even though the day is both sad and exciting; one of the strongest emotions I feel is gratitude.  I am grateful to the animals’ ultimate sacrifice so that my family can have meat on the table throughout the year.  I am grateful that I can provide a healthy and humane food option for my community.  Some nights when my family sits down to dinner, we talk about the animal that provided the food on our plate.  We talk about some things we remember during that animal’s time on our farm.  One thing I want to pass on to my kids is the idea that if they want to eat meat, they need to know that they are taking a life.  They need to realize they have a responsibility to ensure that animal was happy while it was alive and that they should always be grateful to the animals that sustain them.

Gratitude should not be something we only think about when a holiday comes around to remind us.  We should always be grateful for what we have in our lives.  Take the time today to thank someone who has helped you.  Go out and spend a little extra attention on some of your animals today.  I will try and remember every day that I am lucky and be grateful for it.