The last few mornings, I’ve woken up in the morning with the strangest feeling. It takes me a few seconds to figure out what it is I’m feeling in my groggy, half-asleep state. Once I realize that what I’m feeling is hapiness I spend another couple of moments trying to figure our why. Is it Christmas? Do I have the day off? Oh I know! I’m happy because of…well…everything.

I’m happy because I’m building a life for myself that I love and I get to do it without compromises. I’m happy because I get to live on the most magical 11 acres in the world, with a home and a farm that couldn’t meet my needs better if they had been custom built just for me. I am happy to have  Kenny and Diane, the couple that own my house, who are so kind and caring and invested in what we’re doing here that I refuse to call them landlords. They are the friends who own my house.

I’m happy that my flock is thriving in our new home and that my dogs are so happy and healthy. The peace I get when I know that all the animals in my care are well and fed and content is immeasurable.

I’m happy because I have great friends who know all the bad stuff about me and still love me anyway. I’m happy because I have a family that loves me enough to make sacrifices that any competent financial planner would have strongly advised against. I’m happy because I have someone in my life who makes my heart leap up and gives me butterflies in my stomach every single day.

I’m happy because I have learned over the past year what  I am capable of, that I have reserves of strength that I didn’t know I possessed, and because even if the worst happens, I know I’ll be okay.

Now, by nature, I am a skeptic. And I am more than a little suspicious of all this happiness. I won’t lie to you- I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment. But whatever happens tomorrow or next month or next year, I will always look back on this adventure as the greatest time in my life and I will know that I had an amazing group of friends, family, shareholders and readers who made it all possible. I quite literally couldn’t do this without you.

I am so grateful to all of you for giving me a chance to live this life. I don’t say it often enough. Thank you. For the very bottom of my heart.

When I was in my twenties and early thirties I was crazy about clothes. I was making a good living as a network news producer and, most weeks, I just signed my paychecks over to Anthropologie. I window shopped at Barney’s and learned what it means to covet something.

These days I could care less about clothes. Most days I’m lucky to find a top and pants that aren’t manure stained when I need to go to the grocery store. 

Now the objects of  my desire are barns. Big, beautiful, wooden barns. Barns with haylofts and room for a dozen kidding pens. Barns with weather vanes and those cool sliding doors for driving in a tractor. Swoon. 

So when Sand Creek Post & Beam contacted me about becoming a sponsor of this blog it was like hearing from Yves St. Laurent himself.  I squealed, actually squealed, as I read the email. Then I spent hours pouring over the photographs on the Sand Creek site. Then I fainted. Then, in my most dignified tone, I wrote back said that, indeed, we would be most pleased to have Sand Creek Post & Beam as a sponsor. Then I fainted again.

I have used this space in the past to chronicle the grief I feel when I drive by an old barn that has been allowed to fall into disrepair and ruin. Well, looking at Sand Creek’s barns is the exact opposite of that. To me they look like hope. Hope that “family farm” won’t become an anachronism. Hope that people will continue to care about where there food comes from. Hope that one day “Farmer” will rate right up there with “Doctor” and “Policeman” when children dream of what they will become.

A new barn is a powerful thing, my friends.

Welcome Sand Creek Post and Beam. I’m awfully glad you are here.

Thank you all for the kind emails and comments about Biscotti. I was surprised by how comforting it was to me that so many of you were thinking of us and sending us prayers. Surprised because I thought nothing could make me feel better.