week 1: another round

this week on the little dream farm

tea please!

Dear Friends,

Happy two thousand and twenty four and welcome to a brand new year of the Farm Note…of the weekly goings on here on the Little Dream Farm. Most of y’all know that I am several years sober, but here’s to another round of the Farm Note! Chin chin!

You may recall that in last year’s Week 1 Farm Note we talked about the fact that the average human lifespan is about 4,000 weeks. That number hits different, doesn’t it? If you joined us at some later part in the year, I suggest going back and reading that very first Farm Note when you have a moment. It was one of my favorites to write…the first one…the “taking the leap” one…the one that got us here.

Recently, I read in a newsletter the concept about a Time Billionaire. I’ll share with you the quote from Graham Duncan who was a guest on The Tim Ferris Show and said this,

“A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is slightly over 31 years…I feel like in our culture, we’re so obsessed, as a culture, with money. And we deify dollar billionaires in a way…And I was thinking of time billionaires that when I see, sometimes, 20-year-olds—the thought I had was they probably have two billion seconds left. But they aren’t relating to themselves as time billionaires.”

The newsletter author went on to say,

“When you’re young you’re literally rich with time. At age 20, you probably have about two billion seconds left (assuming you live to 80). By 50, just one billion seconds remain.”

This concept made me think the same thing as last year—the larger number somehow sounds smaller…shorter…more urgent? It zaps you a little differently and makes you think about life and time through a different perspective.

That’s what this Farm Note has done for me. That’s what this farm has done for Chris and I. We run our lives by the rhythm of the seasons, the sun and daylight hours, the growing season, the quarters, and for me and this Farm Note—the weeks. Numbering the heading of this Farm Note each week and knowing exactly what week we’re in during the year has brought a sense of presence I was missing until now. I hope that as you hang out here with us this year and the numbers of the weeks are top of mind for you too, that it helps you make sense of the timing of your life and your days, too.

So…as for the goings on here on the farm this week. By the time you read this, the farm should be blanketed in snow. It’s a wild guess as to how much we’ll get—our weather apps say less than an inch but the weather forecasts in the region say 6-8 inches. So we’ll wake up and be surprised!

Happy to report our year got off to a nice and steady start this week. Chris and I are both back at work (me more grateful than ever!) and back into our usual weekly flow—up well before dawn, a slow morning with the Furmers, morning chores for Chris, the gym for both of us, home to get a fire going in the wood stove, have some breakfast, and get ready for our day, and then following our work day, evening chores for me, and some time to wind down. We either each have lunch on our own as we go about our day (I generally make it in the morning and have something ready for midday) or maybe we sit down together for a meal in the early afternoon, but we generally save sit-down meals together for the weekends.

Our winter routine is like a steady drumbeat with lots of refilling chicken and donkey water buckets with hot water to keep them from freezing, bringing wood into the house from the wood shed, lots of mugs of hot tea, getting into pajamas once the work day and chores are done, sitting by the fire, hot baths in the evening, and sneaking off early to bed.

I’m not much for winter, but I don’t hate the slow quiet rhythm we get to enjoy this time of year.

While it might feel like the rest of the world is starting off the year with a bang, we’re over here easing into it, preparing not for a sprint, but steadying ourselves for a marathon. If that’s more your style this year—easing into it—then you’re in good company here.

I touched on this briefly in a recent Farm Note that the themes of this year for us here on the farm are:

• Making the most of what we have.

• Doing less, well.

• Tapping into the beauty that is already all around us.

I’m excited to slow down here on the farm in some key ways, like not adding more animals this year, not expanding our growing spaces, and not taking on any big farm projects. I just took another deep breath and felt my shoulders drop. I can feel deep within me this is the right move, and I’m proud to be at a place to recognize and follow what my intuition is saying. Ahh…that feels good.

It means we’re geared up to have a fabulous year enjoying what we have!

On a more personal note, this was also a very life-giving week for me.

Early in the week I met with my naturopathic practitioner and got a lot of eye opening answers from a recent comprehensive test as to the root causes of what is likely responsible for my thyroid numbers and recent symptoms. She and I put a regimen in place that requires me to make some food adjustments and add a supplement protocol for the next few months and I am giddy with excitement and hope about how good I’m about to feel—headed in the right direction of healing.

Additionally…and maybe the most monumental news of all…after 36 years of thinking I know better and could just figure things out on my own, I began therapy this week. That sentence took me 15 seconds to write, but it took me more than 15 years to be ready to make a move. So what finally changed? Well, 2023 was a year of massive change, massive healings, and a huge wake-up call. As I was reflecting on this last year in the final weeks of 2023, the resounding thought that stood out to me was, I’m no longer willing to go backwards. So, that’s all I’ll say about it for now.

I’m really proud and happy about these two things and y’all make this feel like such a safe and welcoming space to talk about the real stuff, so I was wanting to tell you…and I feel like you’d tell me you wanted to know.

Let’s leave it there for this first Farm Note of the year. We might be keeping things toned down here this year but that doesn’t in any way mean I don’t have a heck of a lot of good stuff up my sleeve. I trust y’all know this by now!

Catch you in Week 2, you filthy rich time millionaires and billionaires!

What’s this! A new section?!

Friends…I’m writing more. Like a lot more. Like just about every day I’ve been writing. And I’m trying to get the guts to start sharing that writing on my personal IG (@sarahbergstein) and perhaps on IG Threads (also @sarahbergstein) as well. So, now and then I’ll share some of those words here with you before the rest of the world sees them. These words are my offering. Take what you need and leave the rest.

The older I get…
The more deeply I understand that life is not about fixing yourself to be this perfect version of who you expect you should become. 
Instead…
I’m finding it to be so much more about unbecoming all the burdens you’ve carried so that you can rediscover…reawaken…re-meet…who you’ve been all along. 
Maybe this is the year you let go. 
Maybe this is the year you surrender…
Surrender to the true nature of You.
Maybe this is the year you come home to yourself.
To the You who was always there.
To the You who has been inside you all along. 
And I pray that if you do find the strength, the courage, and the grace to let go and re-meet that You. 
That your Homecoming is the most real, pure, and true feeling you’ve ever known. 
I pray that once you’re Home…you decide there’s nothing here on this earth, that could ever make you leave yourself again. 
Be well on Your journey back Home. 

xo, Sarah

This week’s Sarah’s Favorites has a theme…tea time! We’ve had tea brewing around the clock over here these last few weeks and I can’t get enough. Here are some of our favorite tea-related things as well as some of our top teas we’re drinking right now. Feel free to share some of your faves in the comments, too!

1. This electric tea kettle has been our ride or die for about eight years now. It’s a must if you want boiling water fast, and I always love seeing that blue light glowing in the evening when we’re ready to sit down and relax an have some tea together.

2. We’ve been venturing into a lot more loose leaf teas lately so these tea brew infuser baskets are perfect for a one-cup steep. I’ve been using this every single day for a liver detox tea and nighttime tea I’m really enjoying.

3. It’s all about the pretty mugs too, right? I originally got these gorgeous ribbed mugs for making lattes at home but they’ve since become my go-to mugs to use with that infuser basket above. The non-ribbed amber variety they come in is also such a good find!

4. We generally get local honey from our neighbor up the road but I always have a bottle of this honey and a jar of this honey on hand because I can’t get enough of either of them—trust me, they’re both worth a try!

5. Ok and now for the tea part! Here’s a list of teas I’m loving right now and when I drink them:

• AM: Lately I like to have tea before I have coffee so first thing in the morning I’ve been having: this tea and this tea.

• AM: We’ve gone 90% decaf coffee and mostly caffeine free, but if I ever want a caffeinated tea I’ve been drinking this tea lately.

• PM: I had this tea at my uncles house during Thanksgiving and my sister and I can’t stop drinking it! I love to have it in the afternoon sometimes between lunch and dinner.

• PM: In the evening this tea and this tea are my go to teas if I’m not having a nighttime tea.

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