Here we go!

BabyOnHerBack will follow me, and my children, through our adventures on the farm that I manage here in Taos, NM.  I have a four year old, Wren, who is quickly becoming an old hat on the farm scene.  In the past she has mostly spent time harvesting with me, lots of veggies and flowers and also sussing out strawberries and raspberries to enjoy along the way.  We now have a new addition to our family, Aya, who just racked up an entire month of life and who will be spending much of her next few years on my back or at my tow on the farm, if all goes according to plan...Ha!

Wren and a bunch of zukes

A large reason that I am starting this blog is to become a better Farmer Ma ie. learning to farm better while maintaining a healthy relationship with my kids by becoming more adept at incorporating them into the farm work with out loosing my cool.  On a good day, I have been able to have Wren by my side, encouraging her inquiry and inspiration through the life that proliferates all around this gorgeous landscape.  She has an amazing aptitude for remembering plant names and I try to fill those compartments to the brim with other little plant facts that come to mind while strolling around the farm yard.  On a not so good day, I am frustrated and uptight about how she may engage with the plants; stepping on, pulling up, bending of and all together acting her age but not always fulfilling my sometimes rigid needs for things to maintain a specific order.  Perhaps some of you moms can relate?  So, here I am, wanting to be a better Ma Farmer, wanting to have many more of those "good days" and to figure out ways to turn the beginnings of those "bad days" into productive AND meaningful experiences for me and my girls.

The arrival of the new baby coupled with the need and desire to keep on working makes this awareness of myself even more important to work on.  I am in the market for some like minded and motivated mamas to perhaps gain some insight myself into how to live this ideal farm life, which I can see in my minds eye, but can't, for some reason (???) always translate into reality.  As well as asking for input from any of you out there in blog world, I also hope to encourage and inspire mamas out there to attempt to live out your dreams with a "baby on your back" regardless of how impossible it may seem at times.  The greatest piece of advice that I have given my own self is, as a mom, to never doubt myself, to never assume that I can not do what it is I want to do just because there may be a little girl who needs me to do something else, sometime, in the middle of whatever it is I may be attempting to accomplish.