Echo Farm

 An extraordinary night finds me alone in my house. I haven't been alone in my house since Covid hit our country 9 months ago. I have been with my family. Constantly. I say that tonight I am alone, but I should clarify that I am only bereft of people, not animals. Covid has turned my lovely, Georgian home into a muddy farm. And I am thankful. 

Rowan kicked off the spring by planting 2000 pumpkin seeds. A 40 row garden went in next. 

We built a barn and Rose got a pregnant cow. Rowan began raising, butchering, and selling chickens.

We got a piglet.

Geese were added to protect the chickens and barn kittens were secured to keep the barn in order.

Turkeys were someone's bright idea and 6 of them gobbled in the field. 

I started to go a little crazy and wore overalls and straw hats every day in the summer.

I have had many dreams in my lifetime but I'm pretty sure this was never one of them.

But I try to take what comes, listen to my kids ideas, and if at all possible, help them make those ideas happen. Sometimes, like when the cow tries to trample me, I think I may have gone too far. But then, nothing really bad has happened yet and our bacon tastes great. We are not completely self sufficient, but close. We eat our own meat out of the freezer, drink our own milk, crack our own eggs, and saute our own veggies.

Rowan and Rose are the driving force behind everything. Dave comes home from work and helps when he can. Grant just shakes his head and mutters that we only got him frogs. Avonlea is always willing to help between her school and work, but almost everything falls on Rowan, Rose and me. Rose and I get up every morning to milk. I strain and play dairy maid while she cleans stalls and sees to ducklings, rabbits, chickens, and kittens. Rowan feeds dogs, meat chickens, geese, turkeys, and quail. I go back out and give extra milk to animals who had 5 gold stars for attitude and obedience and then I distribute pumpkins (although we sold hundreds, we still have a few (hundred) left over). The chickens and the cow love overly ripe pumpkins ripped open for them. I love feeding and nurturing so we are all very happy. 

We named our farm, Echo Farm. I believe that the words we say and the actions we do will live on through our children and echo down through the generations. This summer as my mom, Avonlea, and I weeded the garden together and Rose and Rowan wandered by feeding and walking animals I knew that none of us would ever forget the sound of this particular echo. That my mom, who sacrificed time and money we didn't have when I was growing up, so that I could become a dancer, enabled me to sacrifice my time and dislike of dirt and dirty animals so that my children could realize a dream. 

Maybe having a farm was never a dream of mine, but whoever said we have to only make our own dreams come true? This echo of sacrifice started long before me or my mom. It started with our Father God and it is echoing still in this world. Echoing in places we'd least expect to hear it. Like in a barn. 

Although maybe, that's the most natural place in the world to hear it. 

Merry Christmas.

A Story and a Dream

The story goes....

One summer we felt the need to forgo traditional church and spend Sunday mornings with the kids in the woods. We'd pack a lunch, hike a trail, park our bottoms on some rock outcropping or next to a waterfall and do a devotion and pray. It was 2011 and our kids were 4, 5, 9 and 11. By the end of that summer two things were clear: our family needed more time together and we all absolutely loved the Columbia Gorge wilderness.

So we started dreaming. Like most dreams ours started with a "what if". What if we could find a house in the woods somewhere were we could vacation? What if we could find something small and low maintance with a creek and a mountain view? What if....?

So we looked and we found something that changed our lives....

I loved the cottage and the view and the creek....but it came with something I didn't anticipate but something I loved more than the other three put together.

An orchard...

I had never been in an orchard before and there was something so symbolic and beautiful and mysterious about it that I fell hard. I can't count the amount of times I've walked those rows praying my children and friends through mission trips and heartache, knowing that my prayers would bear fruit, heavy boughs of ripe God goodness.

Avonlea was 11 when we bought the cottage. She had never been in the woods for a prolonged period before, the cottage changed her life. During the last 7 years she has become an avid birder, animal tracker, mushroom hunter, and outdoor enthusiast. It's not unusual to wake up at the cottage and find her bed empty. She gets up early and stays outside in her camo with binoculars around her neck for hours. The peace and beauty of nature has become part of who she is.

Grant and Rowan slept in a tiny room together at the cottage. They stayed up late scratching backs and telling stories. The spent the days exploring with BB guns, machetes, and knives. They tried every kind of weapon they could get their grubby mitts on and they grew together tied by the bonds of a million adventures. They built forts and went sledding. The adventure and wonder of nature became part of who they are.

Rose was four when we bought the cottage. We would race down the long avenues of pear trees. She played Barbies in her room while the older kids were skiing. She'd come downstairs and ask me to make cookies and tea with her and I delighted in our quiet time together. She grew bolder as she grew older and learned to cross country ski, snow shoe, and sled (which one fateful Thanksgiving landed her in the emergency room). She grew up outside under the trees, under the stars. The joy and excitement of nature became part of who she is.

And so the story goes...

Avonlea's adventurous heart led her to New Zealand where she is thriving in Bible school and learning to unicycle. Every time she face times us she is outside with the blue sky over her head.

Grant starts community college this fall, on top of a part-time job, where his love of exploration will land him (in two years) with a high school diploma, AA degree, and his limited electrician's licence.
Rowan starts 8th grade next week. The curiosity and perseverance he learned in nature inspired him to write a documentary about iPhone usage and kids ("they need to get out and explore!"). He's interviewed professional doctors, psychiatrists, and brain experts. He will take bee keeping classes and raise a pig for the fair.

Rose starts ballet four days a week this September. Her love of the outdoors keeps her in the woods at our house when she's not dancing. The joy of nature has led her to love animals and she is currently saving up for a milk cow.

This weekend we said good bye to the cottage. We signed the papers, washed the floors, had a garage sale and drove away. Another family is coming there to grow and farm and fall in love with the woods. And we are glad. Mostly.

I stood in the orchard with Rowan on one side of me and Rose on the other. I told them this is my favorite view in the whole world. We see these trees pruned in February, small, reduced, and dead looking. We see them bloom into color in April. We see the elongation of limbs and the heavy fruit that grows in the summer, and I tell them, this is what will always happen when God prunes us. He cuts us back so that we can grow more fruit. Every.Single.Time. He is faithful.

For us, it always starts with listening and obeying in the every day. That's the foundation for our dreams, then we ask "what if..." and then we watch God change our lives.
Because He is always Faithful.

Living the Contradiction

"So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it."

-Wendell Berry
taken from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

I thought of this poem many times in the last month. I've loved it for a long time. Loved the idea that we are not computers, that the very ability to do something that doesn't compute or make sense, is the very thing that makes us human. That our life can be a great big contradiction of sorts. A parable. 

So for years I've done things that don't make sense (I envision many nodding heads here). I filled my house with animals. I ran through every field I could. I danced when my feet hit sand. I drank out of china tea cups with four small children playing tag through my legs. You can fill in the rest.

But this year I took it to a new level. Our family signed up for foster care. I didn't feel like I could do much more than respite while homeschooling the kids so I thought I'd just get my feet wet. There is no such thing in foster care. Our first child came in November and was difficult and turned our family life on it's head. He was brutish and I decided we needed a girl next. 

So last month a little five year old skipped up my walk and threw her arms around me. 
Ahhh this is more like it, I thought. 

I wasn't thinking that the next day when she threw a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich at me. I wasn't thinking it when a water bottle brushed my head and she proclaimed, "I am little but I can throw hard." I wasn't thinking it when she screamed and spat and called me something to do with a donkey's anatomy. Nor when she laid her head on my counter and said in a little tearless voice, "My mommy hates me." Nor when I spent my nights stretched across the doorway into her bedroom so that Jason, Freddie, and Annabelle the murdering doll didn't get her. 

I was thinking, What am I doing? This was living a life that didn't compute with a vengence. Why would I bring this out of control, raging, terrified little child into my home? I have no experience with this. I have four children of my own. The only word that echoed in my exhausted brain when I asked these questions was "Jesus". The romance of living a poem worked very well when running through fields, but Jesus takes our gift of humanity, of non-computing, way further. I danced on the sand and Jesus walked on the water and that was the difference I was experiencing. 

The first 10 days she was here were long and hard for the whole family. But we all loved hard and gave generously and forgave quickly and we saw amazing fruits come from our little sacrifices. She started to speak the words that we were speaking. She joined in morning prayers with us, even asking if she could talk to God. She wouldn't let me out of her room at night without a Bible story. She hugged each of us many times a day (Rowan counted eight hugs one day, "And that's not including group hugs.") and told us she loved us. After 8 days the nightmares went away and I could sleep through the night in my bed again. She woke up on the ninth morning and said, "Last night when I was going to sleep an angel came in my room and hugged me and told me I wouldn't have anymore bad dreams." And she didn't. 

I don't naively think that we changed her life. Our home was a merely a stepping stone and she has many years of trials and healing yet to come. But we introduced her to God and His Son Jesus. We showed her what a life looks like that's been transformed by His goodness. We showed her ways to live that don't make sense. God goes with her where we can't. He is the parent that will never fail or abuse her. My prayers wrap round her instead of my arms now, and that's even better.

We don't always realize that each step in life is preparation for the next step. Running through fields and loving the children in my home and caring for others faithfully enabled me to love someone who, at first at least, was not very lovable. Years of chasing after God can land us in some interesting places, but it will always land us closer to God. 

She's living in a different foster home now with her two sisters. I miss her but know that she's where she needs to be. And I'm where I need to be, right here, preparing for the next thing God brings that doesn't make sense. In this world anyway.....

Life in the Oven

I woke at 4 am and thought, "I love baking. You always know what's going to come out of the oven by the ingredients you put in the bowl."

This may appear to be a random observation at 4 am, but it wasn't. It stemmed from the vastly different personalities of my children, all whom I have raised EXACTLY THE SAME.

The same ingredients went in the bowl, but let me tell you, I am pulling some interesting things out of the oven.

Avonlea rocked the boat a little as a teenager. Grant has capsized it.

It's not just a few scattered incidents, it's a constant state of incident.

Take this morning. I was in the shower. I was startled by a furious pounding at the door. I hear Grant yell, "I need help!"

At least he's admitting it, I muttered. I turned the shower off so I could hear him, "What's the matter?"

"I need a comb!"

"I'm sorry dear, but I am not getting out of the shower to get you a comb."

Real angst in his voice, "But I already put the gel in!"

I sensed tears were near so I jumped out, dripping, grabbed a comb and stuck it through the cracked door. Did I hear a relieved thank you? Oh, no.

I heard an exasperated Grant say, "Not THAT one!"

I think shock set in about this time and somehow he got his correct comb and I got my shower but I'm not sure how.

Recently, Grant had friends over for his 16th birthday. He told me that he gave them a talk about relationships. Okay....this was curious....what about relationships?

"Well, I told them there were two types of relationships, dominant and recessive."

I replied, "Aren't those gene types?"

"Yeah, well it works for relationships, too. Recessive relationships are shallow and don't last. (At which point he told me one of his friends shook his head and muttered, "I've had a lot of recessive relationships.") Dominant relationships have two characteristics; both people like each other and they are willing to wait a really long time."

I gathered my scattered wits at this eloquence and asked, "Where did you get this?"

He replied bitterly, "Experience."

Grant was running across the sidewalk the other week when his dog ran between his legs and sent him flying. He got up and ran after his dog. Comet is no fool and when she saw him coming she rolled onto her back and played dead.

I said to him later, "She didn't mean to knock you down Grant, you shouldn't have gotten so angry with her."

He replied, "I wasn't angry that she knocked me down, I was angry that she didn't come back to check if I was okay!"

At which point I laughed. Really hard. Because when you put the ingredients for scones into the bowl and pull pork and beans out of the oven the only reasonable response is laughter.

Remembering our Royalty

The days are dominoes. Slipping softly one after another or clanging loudly on top of each other aggressively. I am fairly passive in this process. My mold for each day, stuffing minutes like play-doh into the shape I want it to form, is gone. I tossed the mold at some point or maybe it exploded when the minutes became combustible. Entering the world of teenagers and middle schoolers has pretty much annihilated my game plan, and made me very very tired. I grab after laughter like ointment, the only thing that heals my chapped optimism, and I talk. I talk late to my boys. I see this world through their eyes and I feel the confusion and temptations that come with growing into manhood in this culture. I lay my time and heart out in mothering like I never have before and, yet, I can't guarantee anything. I pray for a faithful heart that doesn't grow weary.

Our new couch was a little bit bigger than I anticipated it being!

Earlier this week I found a few minutes to curl up on our new couch with a magazine. The door opened and I saw my mom come in. I continued to read until I sensed an undercurrent of excitement in the room. Now, I love my mom, but her undercurrents of excitement usually stem from things like discovering that peanuts are solely responsible for obesity in America. (MOM, what have I told you about clicking on those ads on the computer). So I hesitated to look up, finding the magazine much more safe. I lifted my eyes to see her fidgeting at the edge of the couch.
I braced myself but not enough.

"I just found out that we're related to King David."

Just found out? As in angelic messenger? As in an old genealogy hidden in a secret compartment in Grandmother's jewelry case?

"No, my sister got a new app on her phone that traced us all the way back. She just kept pressing the back arrow and there was King David!"

That's a lot of back arrows. I tentatively asked, "How can they know the lineage that far back?"

"Oh, they kept very good records of royalty." She swished back out the door and I could almost hear her purple robe trailing behind her.

I love this woman. I want to throw in the towel and howl and she's content with knowing that she's royalty. And she is, she is God's daughter, whole-heartedly, and she never forgets it.

She reminds me, that I too, am of the generation of faith. I have a cloud of witnesses who lived this life faithfully before me. I may or may not have the blood of King David running through my veins, but I do have the same Spirit, and so do my children.

So I smile and ruminate that the royal line wouldn't be intimidated by the tactics of the enemy.
I open my Bible, ready to form a new game plan.
I continue to lay my time and my heart out in mothering like I never have before and I have faith that the words and actions I lay on this alter of love will help shape a generation, one life at a time.

Later, I go upstairs to tuck in my little daughter and I can sense an undercurrent of excitement in the room. I try not to groan, but an undercurrent of excitement in Rose usually stems from things like telling me how many scoops she got out of the litter box that day.
So I braced myself, but not enough.

"When I start my period will you get me a bunny to celebrate?"

I tuck in the slightly shorter version of my mother into bed and get my royal self downstairs.

Glorious Autumn

There are times when I lay on the floor of my bedroom, curled up in a patch of sunlight, half delirious with the brightness of fall leaves and half suffocated by the suffering world around me.

There are days when I spend hours outside in glorious autumn, planting bulbs, brown, egg-shaped personifications of hope.

There are 43 autumns behind me now, lived out in Alaska, California, England, Oregon and Washington. Yet every single autumn I am surprised by the beauty of this world.

I have spent 43 years watching God move in my life, seeing His goodness, testifying to His grace. Yet every single time He shows up I am surprised by His love.

Last night I said goodnight to the kids at the bottom of the stairs, I turned and quickly walked through the dark office to get to my own much desired bed. My mind was on Saturday's dress fitting for the Nutcracker. Obviously absorbing. The next thing I knew something slammed into me. Hard. I flew back several feet and landed flat on my back with a force that brought a scream and sob simultaneously.  I was stunned and in pain.

After Dave got me to my feet (ah I could still use my legs, good sign) I realized that I had run into the half open door. The solid wood had pushed my glasses into my now swollen eye and propelled me backwards with the same force I had been moving forward. I had walked into a door...don't only old people do things like that? My tailbone took the brunt of it and is now officially elderly.

God has this same effect on me. I move through life swiftly, thinking, planning, organizing my days, and I run into the God of the universe. Sometimes He stops me gently, and sometimes He's a door in the dark. Sometimes I lay on my back longer than I need to, insensible to what's going on. Other times, I'm up and thankful for the direction, for the halt. Maybe, like last night, I hobble to bed wry and bruised and humble. 

But the overwhelming fact is God shows up. He cares enough about our lives and our circumstances to interact with us. He is unpredictable, yet consistently faithful. 

Tonight, the rain rolls down the windows of my home. The trees drip leaves of red and yellow. Avonlea plays the piano and sings and a gray cat walks into my room. I am again overwhelmed by the beauty of life. But the heights reflect the depths and I also think of the suffering of the world, of people I love, and of my own burdens and I lift them up to God. I remember that I am not an exception. This good God who shows up and guides and helps me will also be present in the lives of those in need. 

To live hope is to take a prayer, an action, a word and bury it, bulb-like, in the hard ground; to revel in the glory of autumn is to prepare for the beauty of spring .

Our Week: Ducks, Morphine, and Photo Shoots

Rowan is again making the headlines in our home.
He has become the proud possessor of a duckling. He owns a black duck named Swift and Rose has a yellow quacker named Popcorn. Super cute and fun, Until Rowan didn't wash his hands well enough after cleaning the cage and came down with salmonella poisoning.
Our week, consisted of trying to determine why he was so sick and encompassed, one urgent care visit, one doctor visit, two ER visits, and finally hospitalization in a children's hospital. They checked for a huge array of diseases and infections which left us reeling from potential scenarios for our future and Rowan's future. Salmonella poisoning isn't usually hailed with glee, but in our case, it was.

Cutest culprits of infection ever

There were some beautiful gifts given in the process of all of this chaos and confusion.

Prayer. So many texts from so many dear friends telling us they were praying. Rowan recovered so much faster than anyone expected given the seriousness of his case, but I knew it was because he was covered in the prayers of God's people.

Bonds. As Rowan lay writhing in pain on a stretcher he kept calling for his brother. He burst into tears when Dave showed him a recent picture of them together on vacation. He kept repeating over and over, "God's got me. Dad and Mom have got me. Grant's got me." It blessed my heart to see how much he loves his brother.

Education. We had a nurse ask in the ER if Rowan was home schooled. We said yes and then Dave asked what gave it away. The nurse explained that most 11 year olds don't quote the entire Gettysburg Address when in duress. Right. Rowan also quoted the 24th Psalm and discoursed for a bit on his favorite civil war battle (Chickamauga). He was delirious with pain but what came out was what he had worked so hard to put in.

Our very sick little boy waiting for his CAT scan

Faith. Rowan wanted to listen to music in the ER while we waited for the results of a CAT scan. He chose to listen to Bethel's "It is well with my soul". A nurse commented that he doesn't hear that one much in the ER. We met some wonderful nurses and doctors who serve in a really hard setting with really sick people, yet they do so with such compassion and wisdom.

Pleasant surprises. On Friday we were told that our nurse, Jody, had won a nursing award. She was going to be featured in a magazine and have her picture in the lobby of the hospital up on the wall. She would be photographed with a patient and she chose Rowan. Rowan miraculously stopped writhing long enough to smile up at her while she took his temperature and stuff. Cracked.me.up. He's truly my son and photo shoots are not to be passed up NO Matter What.

Drugs. A shot of morphine gave Rowan much needed relief. He really liked the morphine and was later a bit irritated at the nurses who only offered ibuprofen and Tylenol. I woke up in the hospital Friday morning to Rowan's eyes boring into me as he stated, "I want more morphine." It was a good thing we had a lot of time together in the hospital because I was able to tell him every horror story of drug addiction I had ever heard. Pretty sure I got my point across as he refused Tylenol and ibuprofen after our hours long discussion.

Rowan in his hospital room contemplating escape

Home. We had some vague promises that we could go home from the hospital on Friday so when the doctor came in and said  Rowan's levels were too high for her to feel comfortable letting him go, we were both disappointed. But as soon as the doctor left the room, Rowan was more than disappointed. He was crushed. "I want my home. I want my dog. I want my brother. I want my bed. I want to go home." I tried to comfort him but he'd had it. He packed up his stuff and he told the nurse, "I am completely better. I want to go home." She listened to him. She talked to the doctor who agreed to do another blood draw. She found his levels so decreased that she was surprised and allowed him to go home. His face when he got here. His arms around his siblings. His hands on his dog. His smile and happiness and thankfulness filled my heart to overflowing.

So somehow, out of this crazy wild week, I emerged encouraged. Rowan slept 12 hours last night. He woke up weak and scrawny but so happy to be surrounded by the people who love him best. I hope all my kids always feel like that. That they know they have a place in something bigger than themselves and that our family also has a place in a bigger picture. I'm encouraged that even in the midst of all this mess God has got us, and my children know it. Praise the Lord.

Windows

This morning I awoke to the sunrise. A fruity affair of mellow cantaloupe and tangy lemons with a mandarin sun.
I was confused. We are going on eight months in this house and I had never before observed the sun rise from my bed.
Our room has four large windows in it. Dave and I, being city folk, were a little wary of these windows.

Windows in the city, mean people looking in. One time, it meant someone actually stopping and talking to us from the sidewalk as we sat on our couch. So we meticulously closed the blinds on the windows every night since we've moved in, thinking that in doing so we were securing our privacy.

Windows in the country, mean people looking out. Several days ago we had the epiphany that we have no neighbors that could possibly look into our bedroom windows, not even with binoculars. All we were doing, in our fear and self-consciousness, was limiting our view.

All these thoughts floated through my mind as I watched the sun rise this morning and I had to admit several disturbing things. Our preconceptions had made us miss many glorious sunrises. The sunrises that I did see, I had to go out of my way to find, when they were actually just beyond my own bedroom window.

God reminded me again, through different symbols, what He has taught me so many times.

Live with your windows open.

 

Fear will not stop the sun rise, it will only hinder your enjoyment of it.

Preconceived ideas only limit our perception of what's good, be open to change when His Spirit

nudges.

Securing our privacy often means missing out.

Stay in bed as late as possible.

I wish I could think of more lessons because I have more pictures. But I can't. If you can, let me know. I'll post the pictures anyway.