Brianna Walker

The stockings have been hung, the tree has been decorated, it’s beginning to snow — which means lambing season must be upon us! The first snowfall doesn’t changes one’s age — the cold flakes just better illuminate it. You can tell the aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never have the urge to throw a snowball!

A toddler presses their face to the window in delight, a child rushes to put their snow gear on, youth seek out friends and sleds — and the adult begins mentally checking off which heat lamps need replacing and which animals need to be moved to shelter. Did all the vehicles have sufficient antifreeze or get winterized? Do the water tanks have heaters? Are the pipes insulated enough? The older the adult, the longer the list seems to be.

Meanwhile, the kids are outside with their faces turned heavenward, catching snowflakes in their mouths, making snow angels and building forts.

Recent conversations have centered around when the best time of one’s life is: childhood, teenage years, college days, young families, middle age or the golden years. Most older people seem to agree it was when their kids were still home. I’ve given this much thought. I have not reached the golden years yet — and except for when snowfall makes me think first of lambing instead of sledding, I don’t feel old enough to be middle-aged. I do currently have kids at home — and it is my favorite part of life. But before we had kids, I thought being newly wed the best time. Before that, I felt college to be the best time. High school was — OK, so high school was less than pleasant, but when I first got my driver’s license, I felt that was the best time of my life. And when my little sister was born, that also felt like the best time of my life. Which makes me think that while we may reminisce with greater fondness about some periods of life than others, the best time is right now. Because yesterday is a memory, and tomorrow is potential anxiety — now is the best time of my life.

“There may never be a day quite like today,” has kind of been my mantra since I was a teenager, because life is just too short not to take an adventure. Recently I came across a passage in a book that read “mono no aware.” It’s a Japanese term that can be translated as a sensitivity to those things that will not last. The idea speaks to the impermanent, ephemeral nature of all things. It’s a sweetness tinged with sadness, because everything we care about is beautiful and fleeting — but this fleeting quality only makes things more precious.

When we have something delicious in unlimited quantities, we may take it for granted, but if we know we will only taste this for a short time and it would soon be gone, we might taste the sweetness with more depth and vividness that ever before. It is its brevity which makes life particularly poignant.

So while my husband and I were breaking ice in the tanks and moving the cows to difference pastures, I kept thinking about this brief time of “now” that we’re living and how to make the most of it. All occupations have their challenges, and farming is no exception. One never clocks out, and climbing into bed doesn’t always mean your day is over. There is always something that is imperative, something that needs done, things that should be done, and a whole list of maybe-someday-it’ll-get-done. It’s the perfect occupation for a worrier — for there is never a shortage of things to stress about.

Coming back from the cows, we found both our boys in the yard teaching the dogs to climb the tree. I had a whole list of things to do. But what’s the most important “now” that I can make? What will wait? What shouldn’t? What can’t? The answers to those questions will likely be different every day. But I’m going to make a conscious decision to ask them daily to be more Mary and less Martha this holiday season. It’s hard to find that balance between farming and family; but today, I’m going to pretend I’m no older than the kids: forget the worries of the world and the stress of lambing in cold weather, and go outside to play together in this magical world of snow and ice.