Hard to keep your head up

3/31/10 Wednesday
Yesterday Cherie took a day off work and we attended a conference, that cost us 60 bucks, that we thought was geared to help us learn how to grow and market stuff on the farm. So we sat all day listening to how children are obese and should eat healthy food grown locally, and learned how these people got tons of money from grants to study this. But there is little money to help us build a farm. It’s there but I am having a hard time finding it or getting help accessing it. We listened to Matt complain about not having enough “producers” for his farmer’s market and grew frustrated because we desire and work so hard to be “producers”. Over all it seemed a waste of time and money though we did meet some people who might offer some guidance.

More manure that I'm composting. We had a talk with Alan yesterday. We were worried because he decided not to attend the conference even after we triple checked and paid his way so that raised concerns. It appears that Alan has been letting his fears and worries affect his decision to move out here on the farm. He’s worried we might not get along and would have to leave but more legitimately he’s worried about our finances and ability to pay him. I tried to convey some hope for a future here, that building a farm is an investment in time and labor that will one day pay off but don’t know how well that was received. Alan was, and is for the moment, a bright spot that gave us hope we would be able to achieve something this year. If he chooses to not be a part of it that makes things hard again, it reverts back to just me alone struggling past the paralysis and pain to try and accomplish something.

Last year depression froze me and cost a lot. With my dad’s death I received the small inheritance he was holding from my grandmother’s death forty years previous, and we were able to advance a few steps with it. That’s mostly gone now, spent on a good tractor and then for labor. If I can sell the truck and trailer we bought with it to haul the tractor and stuff back from Ohio, that will help but we haven’t gotten many bites on it. I was going to put an ad in the paper but did what I do every day, forgot. That’s the frustration that comes with a traumatic brain injury. Everyone tells me how they forget too but I don’t think they understand that it’s much worse for me and the reason the government declared me disabled. I hate that, being declared disabled, and hate even more constantly struggling to get something done and not succeeding. And now I am alone again, regarding this farm. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got Cherie, the love of my life, so from that perspective I’m far from alone and in fact blessed, but she works full time and thus pays the bills, so she has her hands very full. I suspect there are some who would delight in my failure and that spurs me to keep going, and I pray that God will deal with them, leave it in His hands. But it’s hard sometimes and I really enjoyed Alan’s company here. It really helped. We started every morning with prayer and a bible study and that’s a great way to start a day.

Enough of that. There’s work to do. I’ve got the dogs for company though Rascal and Trixie are in trouble for chasing the neighbor’s truck when he pulled in. I really need to break them of that. None of the seeds have come up and I worry that the well water has gotten so bad it will poison them. We need rain bad now, to wash the chloride buildup from the well water away. Putting in water filtration and treatment is one of the necessary expenses we have. Sure wish we had some advisors to help us. We’ve contacted many and reached out to friends but haven’t heard much back, though I might have forgotten if they did. I hope depression is not coming back. It’s just hard to keep your head up sometimes. I’ll get to work and try and focus.