On the Right Track

Well....this story starts back in 2010....I was reading the book "Animal Vegetable Miracle" which had been recommended to me by my supervisor because I had a fantasy about having goats.  In this book I read about eating local, and learned, for the first time that you could make cheese in your own kitchen.  So....I had lost my job and was living with my best friend on 5 acres.  And so....in the midst of reading this book, I planted asparagus.....planted a garden which I spent all my time in....I learned to make cheese, pizza and experimented with jams....I became pretty good at these things.....and I think this was the first time in my life I started to find my passion.

Well....my friend had a girlfriend who lived on Whidbey Island.  This is where the conversation about Gordon started.  Her first time over, we talked about Whidbey Island, I told her I had an old friend who had a restaurant somewhere on the Island.  She asked me his name, and I told her it was Gordon....well....that was where that little thing in my heart started working...I'm not sure what I can call it but that "still small voice" that we follow....and when we follow it, things work out well.

And so....with her push....and by following the nagging in my soul, I reached out to him.  And in July we made a lunch plan.  As Gordon and I sat at Double Bluff Beach we talked, connected, and discovered that we were exactly where we were supposed to be....and another thing I learned was that food can make you quiver....and there are flavors I never knew existed.

What I loved most about this time "the courting" was that I learned from Gordon that dreams are real....and you need to dream....and when you dream you need to follow it with real plans....and when you do that....the sky is the limit.

Fast forward 2 years....after moving to the Island, marrying Gordon and becoming friends with a real goat farmer, Gordon got me 3 beautiful dairy goats for Christmas.

All this rambling to share that in the time since I connected with Gordon....married him....and moved to Whidbey Island I have had moments where things came together....where I am humbled by the fact that for some reason, the Universe has led me on a beautiful path....and because God takes care of fools and children, I have had my heart and soul and mind opened up in ways I never knew were possible.

And so our little "farm" is coming together....slowly....but in a way that works when you have limited resources and are building it up from scratch....and I have loved the journey.  And then a couple weeks ago I went to an event called "St. Disdaff's Day Spin In"....and it was there that this thing in my soul grew even more....I guess for the lack of a better word it is called passion.  The day I made my first batch of cheese, when I visited Little Brown Farm, and eventually got goats of our own, and then spinning fiber into yarn, are the moments that I knew exactly how Gordon felt the first time he really cooked....and how Julia Child felt when she got her letter from Knopf....passion but it's a passion for what you know you are meant to do.

Today at work a mom who's son has just started in our classroom and I were talking....she mentioned that she spun and we began a conversation about fiber, yarn, jams and Etsy.  We talked about "Living off the Fat of the Land"....I felt like Anne meeting Diana....and so I met someone who can teach me how to spin....and who seems to be a Kindred Spirit....as I was helping the friends in our class go to sleep, I realized that I can do the things I dream of.....there are ways to make concrete plans to make it so eventually I can be a "Full Time Farmer" spinning....making cheese and butter, beer and cider, growing beautiful flowers and veggies....spending time caring for the little patch of land I share with my talented, passionate husband and our growing herd.  And now I know that, I am...in fact...On the Right Track

....and all because two people fell in love