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Solid Footing
November 6, 2005
Days of rain have transformed our farm to mush. Puddles are everywhere, the ground is saturated and mushrooms are sprouting in the most unlikely places. It's even too wet for the trumpeter swans who glean in the nearby harvested cornfields, filling up on dropped corn kernels. They now are flying overhead to head south to drier places, noisy, their wings swooshing the air as they pass over.
The wet weather makes chores more challenging on the farm. Moving the horses out to paddocks for the day means braving wind and rain and soppy footing in the paddocks, so the horses step gingerly about without the usual squirreling, bucking and snorting as that is a good way to end up down on one's backside! At the end of the day, they eagerly walk back to the barn, soaked and dripping, diving into fresh shavings for a good roll and shake. I can appreciate the relief they feel as I like getting back to solid footing too at the end of the day. Much of my day also seems to be spent navigating slippery slopes and muddy terrain.
It isn't always apparent what ground is treacherous from appearance alone. The grassy slope heading down to the barn from the house looks pretty benign until I start navigating in a driving rainstorm in the dark, and suddenly the turf becomes a skating rink and I'm finding I'm picking my way carefully with a flashlight. The path I seek is to find the patches of moss, which happily soaks up the water like a sponge so is carpetlike, not slick to walk on. Even if moss ordinarily is not a welcome addition to lawn or pasture--I appreciate it now!
Another adventure is pushing a wheelbarrow with two 70 pound bales of hay back up that slope to our largest paddock for the day's feeding. There is no traction underneath to help my feet stick to the ground for the push uphill. I feel particularly foolish at this futile effort--my feet slide out beneath me, I land face down on the ground, soaked and humiliated, and the wheelbarrow goes skidding right back down to the barn door where it started. Now is the time for a gravel path to ease the walk down and the push uphill, but somehow we forget the need once the weather and the ground dries. The rains will always return, but we seem to forget this year after year as we struggle with the footing on our farm.
Trusting the footing underneath one's feet is crucial day to day. If we are to get our chores done most efficiently and make progress, we need solid ground to tread. But the stuff of real life, like a farm's ground, doesn't come made to order that way. Some days are slick and treacherous, unpredictable and ready to throw us to our knees, while other days are simple, easy, and smooth sailing. Waking in the morning, one is cannot know what one will face that day--whether you need your highest hip boots to wade through the muck or whether you can dash about in comfy house slippers. My own attitude has something to do with it too--sometimes my "internal" footing is loose and slippery, tripping up those around me as well as myself. That is when I need most to plant myself in the solid foundations that I know will support me during those treacherous times. I need my faith, my need to forgive and experience forgiveness, my family holding me as I fall, and to help pick them up when they are down. Without those footings every day, I'm nothing more than a muddy soiled mess lying face down on the ground wondering if I'll ever walk again. There is a reason we end up on our knees at times. It is the best reminder of where we could be full time if it were not for the hand that lifts us up, cleans us up and guides our footsteps all our days.
Emily
http://www.briarcroft.com/emily.htm
emily@briarcroft.com