The seeds are sown: Why a farm, and how we came to realise it

Sometime in the early days of 2010 Gab and I came to the realisation that something was missing in our lives.  We had done everything we were 'supposed' to do -- we had found success, money, fancy house, lots of stuff.  We had built a wonderful family, beautiful smart and accomplished kids. But still, deep satisfaction evaded us.

I wouldn't say we were unhappy, we had a certain satisfaction coming from the sense that we had done all we ought to be happy, but the feeling wasn't secure -- still something wasn't right.  We were always making tiny adjustments -- kids to tennis instead of karate, new business model at work, paint the walls a different colour.  I could never articulate the hole i was trying to fill, didn't know why things didn't feel as perfect as the picture they painted.  I couldn't have defined it and certainly couldn't find the why or the wherefore, but I was always and constantly searching, poking, experimenting, trying to find the answer.

And thus our adventure to Canada: a one year house exchange with a family in Coquitlam. BC.  It started as yet another experiment, looking for the answer to this niggling dissatisfaction -- maybe it wasn't us, maybe it was living in Italy.  Maybe, if we were in Canada, we would find what we were looking for.

What we found, though, was completely unexpected.  The year away from daily routines and the calciferous build up of habits, patterns, stuff and junk created a space of perspective -- a place where we could look on our lives and see what was important and what wasn't, what came with us and what didn't.  At the same time, we started reading a series of books on global warming, local living, and lifestyle experiments -- No Impact Man By Colin Beavan, Eaarth by Bill McKibben, Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

And it started dawning on us: the problem wasn't where we were living, but how.

We had achieved the textbook standard for modern successful life, and it wasn't enough.  Never enough.  Life felt a bit like a hamster on a wheel.  More work to get more money to buy more stuff.  More activities for the kids, so they can be more accomplished and have more skills and talents, and thus grow into adults that can do more work to get more money to buy more stuff.

Actually living fell by the wayside.  We had lost connection to the earth, cycles and seasons, the things that sustain us, the things we need to actually stay alive.  We felt a profound need to live in harmony with our environment, sustainably and respectfully.  To make the world a better place actually, really and physically -- restoring fertility to the soil by working it with respect.  As Gab puts it, not to make the revolution, and but to simply be the revolution.

And thus the seeds were sown for our upcoming farm project.  We started studying everything we could get our hands on about gardening, farming, chickens and goats, cows and pigs.  I learned how to make cheese and bread.  Gab learned how to tell a Leghorn from an Orpington, a Saanen from a Toggenberg.  The more we read, the more we realised that it was all very definitely possible.  Certainly not easy, but not beyond us either.

So now we are back in Italy and chomping at the bit to get things started.  We are searching for the right property. Gab already has 5 bantam chickens, set up here in our house and being prepared to be the broodies for when the time comes to start raising lots of chickens.  We have learned to cut hay, and the neighbours empty field is somewhat poorer in alfalfa and wild pea, but our chickens (and Mia's rabbit) will be well fed through the winter.

Sometimes i still have doubts: it will be a lot of work, will I feel trapped?  How will the kids feel about being more remote, away from their friends? but at the same time I have a feeling of excitement for the adventure to come.  Where once I felt a vague emptiness, I now feel full and right and light.  That sense of connection, that deep rooted satisfaction that has evaded me all these years is actually starting to unfold --I can feel it, not an explosive arrival, but like a sunrise, slowing spreading across me, into me, through me.  Thus this new day dawns for us, and we are ready to begin!