Barefoot Journey, Heartfelt Home

 I haven't written a blog post yet this year. Oh I've written aplenty in the last three months: journal entries, feverish notebook pages filled with thoughts and plans and dreams. Budgets and lists and notes scattered around my room. None of it is irrelevant, even if some of the words just remain penned thoughts. For I can say that one thing I have learned to live: The journey is the journey. I'm unconcerned with destinations. Success to me is a life lived to my utmost heart-strength. I have written this blog for approximately four years now, with ebbs and flows in my step. If you were ever looking for a woman with a definitive, linear path, this is certainly not the story to follow. 

Now, I find myself poised for a turn in my journey that might appear off-track on the surface. Let me explain. In the next month or so, I will be moving to the NY/PA border to live and work on a farm in partnership (on multiple levels) with someone I can truly say is meant to be a part of my journey. I've been drafting this post in my head for this whole month since I met him. It isn't all that complicated really; I fell in love with a farmer. I met someone who shares my life dream. What else can I do but follow my heart with these bare feet to a place that feels like home?

I began this blog almost four years ago while living on a farm with a dear friend. The original name was Baking, Beekeeping, and Barefoot Gardening- my three dearest hobbies at the time. Other than a lapse in being able to keep bees, that hasn't changed. I explored ways to farm on that land; the timing wasn't right. I took a leap of faith and left my federal job to open my gardening service, a move I will never regret. I had a wild and passionate dream to open a coffee shop/bakery/farm co-op in Arcade which due to circumstances out of my control, I had to abandon- for the time being. I found a farm training program to attend for Veterans, and met the most wonderful group of farmer Vets that I am now grateful to call family. While there, I felt as a single person I was not in an ideal position to farm alone. Now, I will say this: if Bonnie sets her heart to something she CAN do anything, but I truly did not want to farm alone. Farming to me is about family, community, and working together on the land for a shared purpose. Most of the joy derived is from the efforts and time spent with other like-minded people working towards a common goal. 

So I decided my best course of action, or what was originally called Plan B, was to help my Veteran farmer friends on their farms until maybe someday, I found my place in the farming world. Thus, the Van Plan was born. I would travel to Veteran farms, blog about them, offer content writing, tell their stories, work on their farms, and help bring them together through my journey. This plan has been in the planning stages for 2+ years. I took a loan out in 2019 to have cash on hand to buy a short bus at an auction when the right one came along. After sifting through many road-weary buses, and heeding the advice of mechanic friends and my ex-husband who is a truck driver, I shifted focus to buying a van. Then, the pandemic hit. My life wasn't much affected, but Van Life would have been extremely difficult in 2020, and I am grateful I didn't pull the trigger last year. 

This winter I worked my tail off in 3+ jobs to save money for the van. The down payment money is sitting in my savings account. The goal was at the start of landscaping season where I would be pulling a heftier paycheck I would buy the van and begin buildout, when I would have cash flow for payments and building materials. This summer I could live in a semi-built van and take short trips as the work progressed. As is normal, distractions came and went, yet I remained focused. This was the dream, the journey, and I was all but in the driver's seat. 

Enter Kellen. Yes, I'll put his name right in here, unlike past posts where I would talk about a figure in my life without revealing identity. Why? Because they were transient I know in my heart he is part of my journey. I have no doubts this is where I am meant to journey. It happened fast, which if you know me is nothing unusual. One day I'm at a desk, the next I'm leasing and tearing apart an old building to open a store. One moment I am journeying alone ready to travel the country in a van, the next I find myself in love and on my way to a place that feels like home. My best friend says that she cannot go too log without talking to me otherwise she will have too much to catch up on in Bonnie World. I have been affectionately called a vagrant, and I'm sure less than affectionately called similar terms to describe a life few understand. No matter: I believe life is meant to be lived to the fullest, and as I find passions and opportunities that call my heart, I listen and follow. This is the barefoot journey. I feel the life-earth through barefoot living and follow where I'm called. While it is true that I have led a rather transient life for most of my adult years, I was pleasantly surprised to hear my mother voice who I truly am when I called to tell her I was moving to live and love a farmer and the van plan was on permanent hold: a soul that seeks to be grounded and close to the earth and a place I can call home.

I want to farm. I want to tend the earth. I want to have a family and community that I tend with all my heart and soul. This includes my veteran farmer friends, and I will continue to pursue my mission to tell their farm stories. I still have plans to travel to veteran farms to network, help, and write. I also hope to someday be able to open my doors to farm friends as part of the plan as well. Maybe there will be a van, but know this- whether we see it clearly or not, or even understand it right now, there is always, always a plan. 

In conclusion, I will continue this blog, for its purpose has never changed. Neither, truly, has mine. I have been on a journey to find home, to find my place, a place where I can live out my life-passions for both myself and my community. And I can hear quite clearly, the farm calling my bare feet home.