Living Deliberately

Leaving the hectic city for a life in the country as the idealism of youth fades and wisdom grows. Life seems to go full circle taking us deeper into our inner selves. It's like the snake who sheds its skin as it grows larger continuing to shed each time it grows. The shedding snake gets irritable during the process of change. Until at last it's able to sigh with relief as it's bonds are loosened and it can breath once again.

Giving up possessions and career to enjoy what remains of life requires growth on many different levels. Leaving ones comfort zone is key to success. Money isn't happiness! There are many benefits to living with less deliberately. No traffic, not being able to see the neighbors house, building campfires whenever we please, and breathing the fresh country air. Growing our own vegetables, tending our small flock of chickens and collecting their eggs provides great satisfaction. There are always plans being formulated to enhance our homesteading experience.

Photograph courtesy of https://www.pexels.com

Nature has paid us back in full for what we have so freely released offering us beautiful sights every day. It's nice to get up in the morning being surprised by a small herd of deer just mere feet from the front door. To see their tiny spotted fawns grow. Sometimes a lone buck appears with the velvet still on its horns.

There are so many opportunities to observe creatures going about their lives undisturbed. Deer, Possums, Armadillos, Coyotes, Bobcats, wild Boar, Otters, and Fox. Alligators, Snakes, Frogs, Turtles and Tortoises. Butterflies, Luna Moths, Fireflies and other insects. Owls, Woodpeckers, Eagles, Bluebirds, Sandhill Cranes, Wood Storks, Ducks, Cardinals, Kites and all manner of birds.

The oddest thing I have ever seen were two colorful Scarlet King snakes on a tree wrapped in a knot, like a twisted braid of a woman's hair. It looked at first as if they were fighting, but alas they were mating. An otter scurried across the yard going from the creek to the pond, an alligator sunning itself in the driveway and a bobcat moving briskly from a open area deep into the woods.

Graceful Kites circling the field, Barred Owls perching in the oaks and Sandhill Cranes strolling by with their young. Not long ago a "Wren" laid her eggs under the porch, all 3 baby birds hatched and fledged the nest. Watching them practicing their newly found freedom under their parents watchful eyes was a welcome treat.

Fire flies in early summer flickering in the night, Luna moths as big as your hand seeking the bright light, and butterflies searching flower petals for nectar. These things go unseen in the daily lives of so many who struggle just to live and feed their families.

Feeling like Henry Thoreau living in the natural surroundings on Walden's Pond, I finally found home. Living well doesn't mean living large. Nor does it mean isolating yourself from the world, it's simply living deliberately on your own terms.

Thoreau states it better then I ever could in "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"...

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
-Henry David Thoreau-

All text and photographs owned by @mother 2chicks