2014 hasn’t started in the most stellar manner. I spent the morning up to my ears in numbers. I have a real love hate relationship with them. While I find a lot of satisfaction from sorting out a complex problem in Quickbooks, I also find them seriously anxiety provoking. It is like looking at a train wreck at times, while others the footing looks secure for a short time. There are still messes from 09 when everything just tanked for my family. there is no way around them. Just as I started to get everything cleaned up new disasters hit us. Today our most important and most used piece of equipment on the farm broke. It has been having problems for a while and thousands of dollars later a different problem demolished it. So, after a lovely but brisk run I returned to the farm to that news. It has really sent me reeling. Not because it broke. It is the reality that we are truly hanging by our finger nails here. There is ZERO margin for this kind of thing. I am faced with the reality that a $12,000 piece of equipment needs replacing. Seriously??? I cannot even fathom that this is just acceptable. Who the fuck builds stuff like that? 9 years is just okay for life expectancy? I am pissed off, but most of all I don’t really know what we are going to do without it. I can’t magically make 12K appear. Just this morning I spent hours staring down piles of bills trying to figure out who can get paid what and when. The stress of that alone is enough then add in this. I can’t catch a fucking break. I just want to come up for air. To have a moment of feeling okay about this place and my life. I don’t feel okay about it. I am worried sick about the dog and count each passing day waiting for it to be the end for him. I am looking at this place and wondering what am I doing and is this all worth it? I am looking at a herd of horses that need feeding, and vet visits, and eventually a hole in the ground. This is my reality, our reality. Instead of loving what I do I have grown hard and cynical. I have grown bitter and nasty under the constant looming pressure and the impending disaster that is always there waiting. Today’s events just reinforces that type of thinking. NOT what I needed. So what is the best course of action? I just don’t fucking know at this point. Why have a farm and animals when you cannot afford these unforeseen expenses, either medical or mechanical? I don’t think it is all that responsible to run a farm like this but I have no choice. Back to that knife edge of stress. I chose this, right??