I’m not.

My long-awaited book, Family Planting, is now officially out! Today!

I should be pumped and primed, ready to flex a well-developed marketing muscle and share the news. Haven’t I had two years to get prepare–two years since I finished the narrative of our first four on the farm that spans the book. So what is the matter?

Well, I live on a farm and it is now officially summer. In our hay fields, the grass has headed and is ready to cut and rake and bind into bales. In our garden, the vegetables have been planted and are fighting mightily to weather the weeds. In our barnyard, the animals are making the manure and mulch our grasses and gardens need. And in our house, the kids are running about, tossing random items here and there, tracking mud and muck everywhere, while eagerly brimming with ideas about how I can help them spend their vacation days.

A June release? What was I thinking?

Then again, why am I surprised? It is what Family Planting is about: those perplexing paths our plans take as they twist and turn their way into the world, regardless of how well we think we have thought them through.

Moving to the farm six years ago, we weren’t ready for the challenges we faced. We weren’t ready for the emotional eruptions, the floods of fear, the strapping stress involved in separating from our familiar patterns of living. We weren’t ready to have to learn new ways of relating to one another.

But we also weren’t ready for the incredible joy and gratitude and love that such learning involved! We weren’t ready for the beauty that unfolded all around us, as we opened ourselves to perceive it.

Are we ever ready? How can we be? We do what we can. And sometimes, as we do, the fruits are much sweeter than we imagined possible.

I wrote a book. It is ready to read! Ready to enjoy! Ready to be consumed by someone other than myself! Like you!

It is ready, even if I am not.

Time to get those weeds.