There are days, like today and yesterday and several more since we began this crazy journey — when things are just not going well, when major stuff breaks, when we can’t get stuff accomplished, when the weather sucks or something is working against us — when I wonder if we have made the worst mistake of our lives. There are plenty who would say so. Plenty who would (and have) call us crazy for attempting what we have. Most days, I would disagree.

But. This is not an easy life. Things get HARD. Things get frustrating. Like a lot. But also, we’re kinda stuck here. So, the choices are cry about it, or just keep going. Make a plan – even a bad plan -and make a forward step. Any forward step.

Today, that looked like going out and turning the compost pile. Nothing much went right today –the van is stuck again, it’s been freezing drizzle and wet sloppy snow all day, the driveway situation is awful, there has been no sun in days, so the solars won’t charge...but I made a step. I turned the compost pile.

Spring is coming, eventually. And once it does, I’ll be hot-tarping that pile and letting it bake down in the sun. It won’t be ready this year, but it’ll be beautiful soil next year. Soil for my food forest. Soil for my garden plants. It is the barest beginnings of the improvement and amendment that we have in store for this place. So, goshdarn it, I turned the pile. It is a small act of defiance against the dismals. A small act of faith. In a year, when it is ready, I’ll still be here. I won’t quit because things got sucky for a minute.

Call it determination. Pioneer spirit, visionary drive…mule stubbornness. Some days, that’s all we got going for us. But it can be enough.