Resilience

Sometimes I think our lives on the farm is viewed as this idyllic, picture perfect scene.  Which, to be fair - it is a lot of the time.

What you don't see in the picture-perfect social media post is the "behind the scenes", those moments where things didn't quite go as planned.  If only you knew how many times I cleared off one small part of my counter for a perfect picture in the kitchen or I've cropped the weeds out of my garden photos!

It is important to remember that we all have our "behind the scenes" failures.  In fact, we learn MORE from our failures than we do our successes.

The process of growing your own food and making food from scratch is not an easy one.

It takes an awful lot of patience.

It takes an awful lot of diligence.

It takes an awful lot of grit.

I've always been someone who rarely gives up even when things get difficult.  I've always been someone who if I am set on something, I will make it happen.  I used to think it was a side effect of me being a fairly stubborn person...I can dig in with the best of them if I want to make something happen!

The Cambridge Dictionary has two definitions of resilience:

1. the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened

2. the ability of a substance to return to its usual shape after being bent, stretched or pressed.

I don't know when the lightbulb turned on, but the definition of resilience...it stuck with me.

That defined me.

How does resilience apply to a garden or kitchen?  I can't even count how many failures I have had.  There have been many times where something did not work as originally planned...

...the many jams that didn't set quite right.  Those stubborn weeds that no matter what I did always came back with a vengeance.  Those plants or trees that I wanted so badly to succeed and they didn't.

Despite failing over and over, I keep on forging ahead.  I dust myself off and pick myself up again.  I continue to try something new.

I still choose to grow my own food.  I still choose to make food from scratch.  I still choose to run our farm business.  I won't let one blip in my journey on our homestead change the direction of my end goals.

I encourage you to challenge yourself to not give up.  Keep going, keep trying.  You can and will achieve the goals you set for yourself - but it might take a bit of resilience.