A friend has been telling me about her recent Instagram purges. “Anyone who posts a story about ‘Wake up and Hustle’ is getting deleted.” I’m assuming I’m safe from that purge because my moto has slowly become wake up and make do. Well maybe not wake up and make do but definitely wake up and accept today for what it is.

I distinctly remember a point in this season when I was exhausted. The drought was at its worst, bug pressure was starting, I was trying to organize U-picks, yoga, and subscriptions all while toting along a 9 month old. I told Payton “I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I don’t know how I am going to make this flower farm live up to its full potential and be a good stay at home mom. I feel like whenever I am succeeding at one I am neglecting the other.” Payton’s response was something that has stuck with me. He said “It doesn’t have to be the worlds best flower farm Bayleigh and you don’t have to be the worlds best mom. Sometimes you can just show up and that’s good enough.

Payton was right. A huge part of why I started this journey was so I could spend my days with my babies. Operating a successful cut-flower farm was important, but it wasn’t my only goal. As the season went on I started to see it doesn’t have to be one goal versus the other, they can be part of the same dream. I just needed to change the way I view success. When I am with True, there are some days when I barely get anything done with the flowers. I have been digging up the same 150ft row of tubers for 3 weeks and most of that got done when he went to grandmas. Oh well. Big whoop. He had a blast in the dirt and honestly so did I. The tubers will get dug up, the tulips will get planted. Sometimes I see others in the same profession and think their goals should be my goals. On other farms every tuber has long been stored and replaced with a perfectly planted tulip bulb. They have done this all while recording a time lapse video and edited in the perfect tune. Honestly that’s amazing. That is fire. That is goals, but I need to realize that is just not MY goals.

I am learning to take my dreams match up with what I truly want in my life, instead of what looks best in my role model’s instagram post. I needed to release the perfectionism and guilt from not living up to goals that weren’t even mine in the first place. I can and will have a successful flower farm, but it will look much different than someones flower farm without little kids. I can and will be a good stay at home mom, but I will look different than a stay at home mom without a business. I can take bits and pieces of their inspiration, but sometimes life isn’t about wake up and hustle, sometimes is about wake up take a moment to say this is pretty damn good too.

As a farmer’s daughter November holds a special place in my heart. The change in the weather, the slow bustle of nature in migration, a weeks worth of time spent in the quiet deer woods, and harvest heavy on the shoulder of farmers. I wanted to share John Clare’s poem “November” from The Shepherd’s Calendar. For me it captures the feelings of the month perfectly and serves as a reminder of the unchanging grace of nature. John Clare’s life spanned the 1700 and 1800’s yet somehow the feelings of November have stayed the same.

The Shepherd’s Calendar - November by John Clare

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon; 
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face 
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon, 
When done the journey of her nightly race, 
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place. 
For days the shepherds in the fields may be, 
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace, 
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree, 
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see. 

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose, 
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair, 
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes 
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there; 
The wild colt only turns around to stare 
At passer by, then knaps his hide again; 
And moody crows beside the road forbear 
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain; 
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain. 

The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon, 
And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light; 
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon, 
And small birds chirp and startle with affright; 
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight, 
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay; 
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night, 
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way, 
Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day. 

Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings 
Its murky prison round - then winds wake loud; 
With sudden stir the startled forest sings 
Winter's returning song - cloud races cloud, 
And the horizon throws away its shroud, 
Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye; 
Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd, 
And o'er the sameness of the purple sky 
Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye. 

At length it comes along the forest oaks, 
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high; 
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks, 
And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly, 
While the blue hawk hangs o'er them in the sky.- 
The hedger hastens from the storm begun, 
To seek a shelter that may keep him dry; 
And foresters low bent, the wind to shun, 
Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun. 

The ploughman hears its humming rage begin, 
And hies for shelter from his naked toil; 
Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin, 
He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil, 
While clouds above him in wild fury boil, 
And winds drive heavily the beating rain; 
He turns his back to catch his breath awhile, 
Then ekes his speed and faces it again, 
To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain. 

The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat 
The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves, 
Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat, 
Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves, 
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves. 
There he doth dithering sit, and entertain 
His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves; 
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en, 
And wishing in his heart 'twas summer-time again. 

Thus wears the month along, in checker'd moods, 
Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms; 
One hour dies silent o'er the sleepy woods, 
The next wakes loud with unexpected storms; 
A dreary nakedness the field deforms - 
Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight, 
Lives in the village still about the farms, 
Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night 
Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight. 

At length the stir of rural labour's still, 
And Industry her care awhile forgoes; 
When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil 
His yearly task, at bleak November's close, 
And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows; 
When frost locks up the stream in chill delay, 
And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes, 
For little birds - then Toil hath time for play, 
And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.

This week saw two major events - Halloween and the end of the dahlia tubers! True loved every minute of being a skeleton and the center of attention. Our little town of 300 had three separate truck-or-treats and so many festive houses. Thanks to everyone who works so hard to make this a fun holiday for all the families. We didn’t make it very far trick-or-treating, I think we averaged a hour at every stop. Oh well! Beautiful fall weather and lots of snacks allowed me to finally get all my dahlia tubers dug out. I have started to replace their space with tulip bulbs. 300 are in but 2,000 remain in transport from Holland. Fingers crossed they make it here before the snow. A slow down in flower season has given way to more time spent cooking and running and of course chasing after True.