Under the Covers with a Flashlight

Reader Contribution by Angela Pomponio
Published on January 31, 2014
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For many years January is the month of forgiving myself.  I don’t make resolutions, but I do make lists of projects for the year, hopes and goals.  This first New Year on our Pomponio Homestead proved to be the same, but different.  I spent the week between Christmas and New Year cleaning up and out, making to do lists, budgeting, and setting the vision for accomplishments with Dom and Dominic (my husband and 3 year old son.) January I feel is nature’s gift to those who live in tune with the seasons.  January says ‘sure, take a nap,’ ‘that isn’t urgent, it can wait,’ ‘eat some of the prepped food you worked so hard to put up.’  January is for dreaming, resting, and enjoying the fruits of your labors.

I took a couple of naps and made reams of lists.  But after two weeks I started feeling as if my project list was too much to leave to summer months alone, and a bit lazy for napping afternoons away.  I get an urgent feeling in my chest when I am not accomplishing all of my daily regular tasks, at least one not daily task per day, and definitely some sort of project per week.  

The past week I was low on ambition other than the desire for a nap, but my brain was nagging me to DO something.  I got out all of the livestock books that I has previously skimmed and stuffed onto the bookshelf and started nightly reading.  With an inquisitive attached preschooler, our 4-year-old friend Harley who stays with us 3 to 5 days a week while her mom attends nursing school, and a 100-hour work week husband, often 15 minutes after everyone falls asleep is my only solitary time.  Fifteen minutes a night has turned into voracious up till midnight read-a-thons.

It has become very real that spring will bring bees, turkeys, chickens and maybe a calf and pig.  I have to

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