My interests and hobbies are quite diverse, but I am somewhat a Jack of all, master of none. With our adventure in farming, I have lost the ability to dabble in a little here and there and feel like I was honestly making some progress in each area. Therefore, I have been taking a hard look at each individual activity and asking, how much have I done that in the last 2 years, how much do I want to do it to feel satisfied, is that possible. While it seems a little extreme to completely stop doing things, that is where I am at emotionally to dedicate more time to what we currently have defined as important in life. The current example is fine wood working. I made the hard choice to sell most of my wood shop that is related to fine wood working (furniture, picture frames, etc). I am keeping all my basic tools for construction type projects on the farm, but I don’t have time to build furniture with everything else going on. Therefore, the shop space and money can be better spent elsewhere. What else will go be the wayside?
Making changes isn’t always easy but it has to be done. We decided last year to let go of the beekeeping and most of the chickens. Not easy decisions, but there are only so many hours in the day and spreading ourselves too thin was causing everything to be managed poorly. Better to focus on a few things and manage them well.