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.

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.

Glory Pursues

Day by day life rolls along.
A lilting song.
A shout of laughter.
A child's cry.
A near disaster.

This loud learning process never ends.
Or it ends only to begin again. Immediately.

Nevertheless.
In the fall, the glory pursues me.
The loveliness grabs me aggressively and I lean into it, lover-like.

In the arms of this radiance,
I realize afresh how far I am from where I want to be.
But I see also, how far I've come and how I'm covered in grace.

My life is a song that I am desperately trying to sing
before the words wrinkle into silence.

Nevertheless.
In the silence, I can hear the leaves fall.
And they sound like the footsteps of glory,
Pursuing.

One Day More

One Day More is my favorite song on the Les Miserables soundtrack. I suppose I love it because my husband cannot help but belt it out when he hears it, even if we happen to be at the dinner table. The kids inevitably join in and I feel for a brief span that I AM LIVING IN A MUSICAL. Then someone always spills something or falls off their chair or does something equally non-musicalish and the spell is broken. But I tasted Broadway in that fleeting moment.

I also like One Day More because it is TRUE. Each day, is a story in itself, yet is connected to so many other stories all with a huge over-arching theme. I sang it this morning as I cut the butter into my scones. "Another day, another destiny, on this never-ending road to Calvary..." Yes, I am on the road to Calvary, dying to self, living to God. 

A friend wanders in, just as the scones come out, and we walk a bit of the road together. We love each other so we share the burden of this life together. We lighten it with laughter and buttered scones.

 

When she leaves, I go out to garden and battle the morning glory. Flowers that grow Heavenwards choking everything they climb. I find them very deceptive and take unholy joy in following them to their roots and annihilating them. I come upon a patch of ground which I recently rid of crab grass. Lo and behold, there are flowers growing in the cleared dirt. I only thought as far as the weeds, but flowers were just waiting for a chance, waiting to grow and bloom.

One Day More I am blessed to live this life of mine. This messy life in which the resemblance to a musical lasts approximately four seconds. But I am alive. I am healthy. My husband and children are very close. We have food on the table and tea in the pot. A fountain harmonizes near by and Rosy is playing Doe a Deer on the piano. A half grown dog cocks her golden head at me. I have time to notice these things, to pay attention to the road I'm walking. The scenery won't always look like this, it's constantly evolving, but this road, this life will always be worth noticing.

"One Day More, another day another destiny........."



So I continue to encourage singing at the table, weeding, and baking scones because they all add beauty to this path that is my life. And I thank God for One Day More, because really, all this, is way better than Broadway.

 

 

Probably.

The Stories Together

I've been amazingly blessed with car time this fall.
Inevitably Rose starts off this time with, "Tell me a story Mommy."
It is not a request.
So a few weeks ago, I decided to turn the tables.
As soon as I heard her seat belt click into place, I said, "Tell me a story Rosy."
Silence indicated that she was contemplating this turn of events.
"All my stories are your stories Mommy."
And I blinked hard, because she was correct. All the stories she has heard and lived have been with me. Everything that has happened so far in her short life, has happened with me. I love that.

So here is our last month in pictures. All the stories we've lived together.

The frogs that my three younger children consider family.

The "all boy" camping trip out to an island for Rowan's 9th birthday.

Campsite!

Brothers!!
Dave's Aunt and Uncle gifted us this boat this spring. So sweet!

Pensive Grant

Eager Rowan

Picking pears at the cottage.

Rowan asked for a pair of overalls and a push lawn mower for his birthday.

The boy's dam and the resulting pond

The kids made themselves breakfast down on the island.

Rowan had to get creative with where to put the pears!

This fall has been a beautiful reminder that the stories we are making right now, will be retold to other little children someday. So I can laugh at the odd, embarrassing, silly things my children (not to mention their parents) do, because someday.....those very things will make a great story.