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.

The Slopes

Yesterday, Dave took the boys skiing. 
It was a beautiful spring day and they had all kinds of dangerous, adreneline pumping fun. 
I stayed home and vacuumed and schooled Rose. Later, I took the girls on a stroll through an antique store and ended up at a restaurant for dinner. 
We all missed each other.
After having Avonlea away last year we are profoundly grateful for the times when we are all together. Because we know it's not going to last. Avonlea's year in New Zealand was the beginning of the end. Grant leaves in July for his year in New Zealand and Avonlea has boys circling the house like vultures. So the nights of Catan and movies and dinner around a candlelit table are expiring and therefore precious. But truly, they were always precious.

Dave said the weather conditions up skiing yesterday were interesting. At the top of the lift it was sunny with blue skies but as he skiied down the mountain it misted over and then began snowing! Different altitudes had different weather and he only had a brief time to marvel over it as he manuvered the hills and landed the jumps. 

I understood this. Conditions are constantly changing around here and I have only time to blink in amazement before my attention is demanded for navigation of the terrain.  A few weeks ago the kids were all in the office playing a game and I was cleaning up a desk and reading alternately. I went to get something and Rowan called out, "Mom, come back. You're the sunshine in the room." This random little comment stopped me in my tracks. Do I help decide the climate of their lives? Yes, I do. I wonder if they'll remember their childhood as tropical or polar? Probably both or somewhere in between. 

So I vacuum. I have the kitchen painted blue and the living room painted red (Dave wins again). A barn is going up behind Ma Glo's apartment. It will house a milk cow and Rowan's tractor. There is a big vase of tulips on the counter next to a plate of cinnamon coffee cake. As hard as I try to make their home beautiful and cozy, it's actually my heart and hands and smile that make the difference in their lives. I know I forget this. I get grumpy cleaning toilets and begrudge them the crumbs on the floor. But this counteracts the very thing I'm trying to do. Which is, make their lives beautiful, colorful, engaging and then point to the one who is the Creator of all creation. I've been manuvering this terrain for twenty years, through all types of weather. And although I'm tired, I realize there's no where to lay down. I'm still on the slope. 

There are days when I'm ready to check in my rentals, but there are also moments of exileration that encourage me to keep going. My adorable and shrinking, 79 year old mother, goes downtown to Portland every Tuesday evening to pray for homeless people in line for the free dinner. She braves the cold and dirt and occasional violence to offer people the love of Jesus. She mentioned to Rowan that sometimes people ask for Bibles but that she doesn't have any to hand out. Rowan gathered his siblings together and asked if they'd put their tithes and offering toward buying Bibles for Ma Glo to distribute. The purchased 600 New Testiments with commentary on how to become a Christian. 

Moments like that, when I see them loving well, I realize afresh the faithfulness of God. 

For faithful He is. In all kinds of weather through all different landscapes. He persistantly takes my world and shakes it up and teaches me to appreciate the changes instead of whining about them (even though whining is unfortunately part of the process for me). The changes change my life when I submit to His work in me. 

So today, I drop off kids at class, stop by the clinic for blood work, cut up watermelon for the ducks, make a pot of tea and read a book aloud to lunching children. I do these things in His Name for a kingdom I cannot see, but one I highly anticipate.

I know that we won't all be together forever on this earth, in this (clean) home, but I'm doing my utmost to make sure we're all together in another home for eternity. 
These are precious years.

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.

The Usually Unusual

I believe late summer always finds me extremely random.

It's some strange combination of too much sun, too much time to think, and lots and lots and LOTS of time with my kids. Whom I love. Even when they whistle. Even when they whistle songs that don't exist outside of their heads. Even when they are 15 and still mispronounce "legend" by phonetically saying "leg end" and leave me thinking tibia while they are talking Sleepy Hollow.
See what I mean...random.

I have to record a story right now because it needs to take it's place in the halls of our family history. But I'm warning you...do not continue reading if you are faint of stomach.
You may (or may not) recall that we went to Hawaii in April. Well we left a pregnant cat at home. With my mom. I gave my mom implicit instructions on how to deliver Persian kittens. Persians need help cutting the umbilical cord and delivering the placenta. I told her whatever she does, to NOT LEAVE the cat once labor started because they will let their kittens die if they don't have help. My mom took all this in with a half skeptical half terrified look. I assured her she's make an excellent doula and began to pray.

We got a frantic call in Hawaii that the cat was in labor and when Mom tried to help the cat bit her and broke skin. So she said something like this on the phone, "I'm bleeding. I hate that cat. I'm going to the store to get band aids. I hate that cat." And I wanted to say DON'T LEAVE THE CAT, RECONCILE, there are Band-Aids in the cupboard. But seeing as how I was laying on the beach and my mother was bleeding I wisely said, "I'm so sorry mom. You go get band-aids."
Let's fast forward over the part of this story where she came home to 2 dead kittens. She sent me a picture of the one live one and I had to ask..."Mom is that a dead kitten in the background?" Oops, 3 dead kittens. The good news was that about a week later she found another live one also.

Fast forward to last week. It was Grant's first week home from Trinidad and we celebrated by having friends over. On Monday and Wednesday, several groups of people came to play. Avonlea mentioned at various times during the week that people didn't want to play dress up because it smelled in the dress up area. Finally Mom commented that she thought the cat had pooped on a little pink costume. So later on Wednesday, after all our company left, I grabbed the offensive costume and had Avonlea throw it in the washer. When I opened the washer after it was done, I almost fainted from the smell. I took out the clothes and there was the poop, still solid after a round on sanitize. What had this cat been eating?? I scooped it up with paper towels and found myself looking at a kitten. Or what was left of a kitten. From April. Oops, 4 dead kittens.

Can I just say that this was one of the grosser moments of my life, and if you recall, I have four children, so that's truly saying something.

I don't really feel like writing (or eating) any more after that. But if I did...I'd tell you about my time on the hammock down on the island at the cottage. I took off my glasses and looked at the world, blurry and beautiful. Suddenly I felt like I was blurry, indistinct. I melded with the waving leaves and the laughing brook and the birds flitting all about me. I must have melded for quite a while because when my world came back into focus, I was looking at Rowan yielding a machete (it was actually a stick, I was still fuzzy). He said with concern, "You have been gone for so long! I came to rescue you!" Totally worth putting my glasses on to see each freckle on that precious face.

See I kept writing and I started eating trail mix, too, so that kitten story must not have been that bad.

On Sunday, the people who sold us the cottage came by it to meet us. I officially have new FAVORITE PEOPLE. It was amazing to talk to them and hear of God's faithfulness over the years and how He honors a Godly heritage. We were so encouraged and again recognized God's hand in leading us there.

Next time I write, it will be from a place of school and order and schedule. And I will live a whole year before I have the time to be random again.

This is a good thing.


Photos by Avonlea unless she's in the picture

Growing Closer

I have been coping extremely well with Grant being gone.
The absence of his hugs and laughter is augmented by the absence of his whistling.
He is on a great team, with great leaders. He is working hard and eating shark. The only letter I've gotten from him was to inform me that I sent him with the wrong kind of clothespins and he had to (horrors) go and buy new clothespins at the camp store. Obviously this was worth a letter. I didn't really shed any tears over that correspondence. And did I mention...no whistling?

I have had great bulks of quiet (as in no whistling) time up at the cottage. Resting my soul and body but challenging my mind through the Bible, prayer, and good books. This is a beautiful combination.

Dave is absent this summer. He was forced to move out of the warehouse his business has been in for over 25 years. God provided a new warehouse right across the street. Literally. So he's been busy moving and I've had to reason and debate and process information with/by myself.

One of the thinks I've been thinking has to do with motives. Take this morning for example.

I woke up at 4am. I put on my robe and went downstairs. I was up for an hour. I couldn't sleep. Why? Was there something specific God wanted me to pray for? Or was it because I had on a new nightgown and bathrobe that I had just gotten in the mail from April Cornell. When I examined my motives in walking the floor in the middle of the night, and realized that I really liked the way my robe swished against the hardwoods, I went back to bed. It's easy to unthinkingly apply righteous motives to our movements. I've been surprised by the "swish" on a number of issues that I've examined. It's humbling.

picking blueberries with Rowan

Avonlea went to camp for a week in July and I had so much fun with just the "R's". They have gotten to be such fun companions. They play together really well too, and with Grant gone, Rowan has let Rose work with him in the shop. She proudly showed me the hammer he gave her and he smiled and nodded saying, "You keep working hard and next year I'll give you a screw driver set Rose." Ahhhh incentives. And later he asked, "Rose what time do you plan on working in the shop tomorrow?" Rose replied, "I'll be there at nine." He shook his head and replied, "The shop opens at eight Rose." He's already got her number. I love it.

Other times they barter over their time and it goes something like this, "Okay Rowan I'll work in the shop for 15 minutes if you play Barbies for 15 minutes first." They have a diverse life at the cottage.

Now we head into a few weeks of company and then Grant comes home and all introspection will grind to a halt. Because I'll be listening with all my heart to my boy's stories about stepping out of his comfort zone to serve the Lord. We will fill him in on what we've done in his absence and life will again flow towards the end of summer as a complete family unit. But we will all be a little bit bigger and different. Rose will know how to hammer. Rowan will have learned compromise. Avonlea will have gleaned from her 26 hours of lectures at WorldView camp. Grant will have served a church body in Trinidad and made countless new friends. Dave will be in a new warehouse and he will have a deeper faith in the Lord's provision. I will be more aware of my motives and will go to bed every night feeling lovely in my new nightgown.

We all grow and deepen into Him knowing we will never reach the bottom of His love no matter how many seasons roll by. But also knowing that each season brings us a little closer to Him and therefore a little closer to each other, even when we're apart.

Overload

Since the holidays, I have been on overload. I am now going to share that overload in an attempt to feel less overloaded. Or  maybe it is simply because I have an hour to myself right now, as my husband and son make weapons of mass destruction and my daughter does homework and my other two are in bed.

On my birthday post I relayed the information that our beautiful trees were being executed. I have been reminded, once again, that there is beauty in death. The sunlight that lit up our previously dark living room almost took my breath away. Sunlight that came because of a cutting away.

After a lovely Christmas at home, we headed up to LaPine, and then onto the cottage, where we lived in a blur of activity and laughter. Truly a time I treasured.

Ice skating!

Sledding by tractor in the moonlight

My cottage decorating continues....here is the kitchen remodel so far.

this is how it looked when we bought it



this was the first phase
 

Not done yet, but getting there

Next...came Grant's birthday. He was given responsibility in the form of a gift. A precious gift that he named Comet.

Grant picked her out as a two week old baby

We brought her home at 6 weeks

She has become Grant's constant companion

Needless to say we've been in puppy heaven. Comet is so sweet. Grant got to learn how to wake in the night to puppy whines and take her out to potty. He feeds her, walks her, and trains her.

This last weekend we had a birthday party. Grant is growing up into a fun, loving, God-fearing man and part of this is reflected in who he has chosen for friends. These boys are kind, polite, and considerate. I feel tangible hope when I look at these boys and the men they are growing into.

The nicest boys ever, even if they are armed

I think that brings me up to date on Christmas, puppies, and teen birthdays. I no longer feel overloaded.
Now I can fix my sights on the next thing....
which happens to be Haiti!