My Second Chance

I haven't felt this excited to write in so long. Thank you.

Yesterday was a normal day on this farm. I woke up early and went about the morning fuss of coffee and starting a fire. It’s that time of year again, when mornings include caffeine and flames, certain as daylight. The house was cold, but the coffee was strong. It encouraged me to slip on wool socks and boots, dog nails dancing on the floor excited to go outside.

I walk out the lavender door smiling, arms stretching wide enough to feel my ribcage expand, sunlight warming my cold face. My muscles were tight from being swaddled in warm blankets, but reliably sliced through hickory and cherry rounds. I opened coops and told the girls how beautiful they were and the roosters how delicious they’ll be. I carried buckets of water. I threw bales of hay. Not a day passes I’m not grateful my body can still do this work.

I brought in all kinds of wood of varying size and density and stacked them by the fire like Tetris pieces. That’s what they are; options to fit the perfect situation. Some pieces are light and small to catch sparks. Some are big and sturdy to fuel the flames. And some sustain heat for hours. All are necessary.

You see a fire has all sorts of needs. Sometimes you need to coax dying embers with birch or poplar splints to cause a fast, bright heat. Sometimes there’s too much fuel or oxygen and the fire gets dangerously hot, so I keep pieces of waterlogged maple on hand, like picking up a wet brick. You set one of those in a roaring wood stove, close the airflow, and a once-dangerous fire has to get busy trying to break down the new fuel. Steam hisses, flames die down, and all that anger, all that thrashing of flame and light turns into a dog gnawing on a bone in a cast-iron cage. I have learned to use ferocity to deliver entropy to create comfort. Neat.

Over the years fire became another life I needed to tend, and like anything else, the longer you do it the better you get. The wielder of the axe becomes a thermostat. Your presence and efforts, the dial. Heat to live your life in is earned in a way few people still practice. But I swear it’s worth it. Fire is what I need to feel truly warm. I can’t image baseboards ever feeling real again…

Now, when I say yesterday was normal, I don’t just mean tending fires. I mean that the rest of the day was the usual list of farm chores, soap orders, illustration updates, and logo clients. I spent most of that gray day at my computer, only taking breaks to walk outside and check on the animals’ water and general whereabouts, but mostly sat with client work. I left the house once to run errands. I picked up soap fats and bought pig feed and paper towels. I didn’t get around to laundry like I wanted to. I didn’t cook an amazing meal. I didn’t have time, I was working on double the customers.

Yesterday I worked a normal overwhelming American weekday with household responsibilities just like the rest of you. But it felt so different. It felt like the last day at the office before a two-week holiday or the hour before a first date. It felt exciting as all get out, because all that work yesterday was done so this morning I could clear my schedule for my new part-time job:

Writing to you.

This morning was not a normal day on this farm. Not at all. Because today I woke up excited to write and proud of the life I made. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve truly felt that.

All these years, all this time, writing was a compulsion to share my fear and joy. I wrote in a desperate effort to attract like minds so I felt less alone. And all this time I felt I couldn’t ask anyone to pay for the words.But that was twenty years ago and being a professional writer is nothing like it was back then. I never made the blog a paid subscription because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. And if I’m really honest. I was scared if I asked, no one would sign up. It would finally prove my writing wasn't worth anything. It might be good. It might be enjoyed. But not worth the money a woman needs to live.

Holy crow, was I wrong.

I can’t thank you enough. This substack feels like a second chance to grow up and become a writer. I’m 41 and you’ve made me feel like a freshman in college again. You’ve given me tangible hope that I can have the life I dreamed of, not just pieces of it I have to fight tooth and nail for. I’ve been walking taller. My heart is lighter. I’m taking notes on ideas all day and thinking about the stuff I wrote about when I started out. I can’t stop smiling. I feel real hope for the future. It’s been so damn long I forgot how it changes everything.

There’s a return of dignity for the first time in a very long time. You may think of me as an author, but I’ve been making a living slopping pigs and curing mint soap, not writing. It ate away at my confidence, turned every day into drudgery, and left a veneer of desperation coating everything. It’s been so hard.

I can not thank you readers enough who chose to put money on the barrelhead from jump. I’ve been giving away my life story for nearly two decades. I spent all this time on social media, every single pathetic day, spamming threads with anything and everything this farm had to offer and it was getting harder and harder to get a sale and I kept falling farther behind. My writing became so dark. So did I. Maybe someday I’ll write about those lowest moments, but I’m not ready to yet.

But as of this morning, there are 70 people willing to pay me to write since launching a few days ago! And there’s almost a hundred more of you that still might. I hope so. I pray so. Because just like all the different types of firewood I gather, that’s what your subscriptions are; fuel towards something better.

Most of you offered monthly $8 donations, Thank you. A single match isn’t much light, but when a spark has a a bunch of friends right next to it, you’ve got yourself a blaze. Some of you (amazingly!) signed up for a year of writing upfront - that’s the kind of support that can steadily fuel this operation. And a handful of you chose to become Founding Members, which is why I’m delighted to share today that my first payment from substack cover the October mortgage. It won’t cover November. It won’t buy in all my hay. But I get to live here another month because of my writing, and what an honor and show of faith that is. I can’t remember the last time I paid the October mortgage before December hit. It feels like I’m finally getting my life together.

I know a 100 monthly subscribers is not enough money to make a living, but I firmly believe, that if I keep up the quality and consistency of a woman writing to save herself, people will continue to subscribe. They’ll share it with friends or their social media. Word will get around that a fires being stoked.

I am going to write like someone worth a thousand followers, even if I don’t have a tenth of that. If you like a post or essay here, please use the share links below. It costs nothing to help spread the word and could lead to another reader that will become the firewood I need to sustain comfort. Maybe even prove to my agent and publishers that I’m worth another book. Hell, prove to myself I’m worth it.

I feel like in a few months of growth here, I will be able to walk through town again with my head high. I’ll be steadily supporting myself with my writing, and better than any part-time job or roommate ever could.

That’s what your $8 goes towards, folks. A woman’s returned dignity and sense of safety that it’s getting harder to lose her farm. And I promise you, if you folks hire me to write about homesteading, love, and fear in a way that helps me feel safe again, I’ll deliver. Hoo, will I deliver. Because writing from a place of safety and pride is new to me. It’s like I’ve finally come up for air.

And I’d like your feedback and writing ideas? Is there something you want to know more about? Please leave a comment telling me what you’d like to read here. Do you like the posts that are more thoughtful and carefully crafted like Flight Paths was? Or do you want super-personal posts like Rural Romance? Would you prefer love letters to agriculture and country living, such as The Glowing Shed?

All of those posts are different on purpose, to offer patrons a variety. I know all sorts of people are reading this and some just want soup recipes and pictures of sheep and some want to know what it’s like to come out at 35 and some want to just read a good essay that feels like they’re a part of a secret club, which you certainly are.

So, from the depths of exhausted fumes and self-doubt, please know how grateful I am. The stakes are higher now. I feel like I’m writing to help you fall in love with Cold Antler Farm all over again.

What a thing, hope.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.