Ah, Time.

Dreams sure can be elusive things to chase sometimes. As for us, we know in our hearts what we want and the more we are learning and talking to people the more we are figuring out the route to take to find our heart song . . . but some days one just feels a little lost.

I'm blessed enough to be able to work part-time right now (on an organic vegetable farm, coincidentally) which leaves me with many many open hours each week to research and prepare for next year's season; however, sometimes I just feel that I am lacking direction and wasting too much time. I wish I had something to follow, but alas, we are making our own road as we go.

Given the somewhat transient nature of the rest of our stay in Illinois (3 years, probably), we are thinking about focusing efforts on what we can grow/make and sell online -- eg, dried flowers and his woodworking. I'm researching what crops we should grow for the farmer's market next year . . . thinking just the basic vegetables and strawberries. We're planning on getting chickens, so hopefully we'll have some eggs to take as well. Eventually our plans go much bigger, with livestock and honey and perhaps some row crops to be processed (by us) into grain for market sale. Trying to figure out what we can do in three years while renting from his uncle is the difficult part.

Money is, as always, tight. We're pretty much used to it and we're finding more and more ways to get farther with less, but the difficult part is starting a business with such a small budget. What do we spend money on, and when? Thankfully seeds are cheap and a lot of internet marketing is as well, leaving us with more options in our local community.

I guess I'm just trying to figure out the plan and stick with it. It's September, so we have plenty of time to tweak our business model thankfully. I also seem to be having trouble with the research for my book, but I think that's something that will come with time. Darn us for being so impatient.

On the positive side, we're so much closer to our dreams than we ever have been. I hope that I can do enough internal exploration soon to bring some order to this blog, and our business. :)