letting go

The time has come for us to sell this beautiful property where we have lived for the past 6 years. While we never intended to stay here forever, we find that along the way we have most decidedly grown attached.

I clearly remember the first day we made the drive out to this place we now live and call home. As I process my mixed feelings about this move, perhaps a bit of background is helpful in understanding how we came to live a short season of our lives on this country farm, far removed from our old way of life in town.

My husband surfs the real estate websites as a hobby. I never worried about it because we were happy in our little 2-bedroom cottage on the hill with a view... even though it was getting mighty cramped after the arrival of our first baby. I assumed his hobby was exactly that - a hobby. Rookie mistake.

One afternoon my husband sat me down with a twinkle in his eyes, and his kindest, most compassionate tone of voice. The tone most likely to be used when he is going to ask me to think outside the box. The tone used when he knows I probably won't like what he has to say, but is hoping I will get on board with a decision of my own free will. I was not expecting what came next.

"I have been watching for investment properties while the housing market is low, but I found this property... maybe we can go see it together tomorrow... and you can think about whether or not we can move there to live for a few years while we fix it up," he said in this honey-soaked tone of voice.

What?! WHAT??!!!  Shocked. Do I seriously only have one day to think about whether I want to move to a new house, a new neighborhood, in an entirely removed community from where we have been for the past 6 years? If I don't want to move, will I dash my husband's dreams? Change is something I avoid at all costs,... and yet, we won't fit into our cute little cottage forever. Where exactly are we planning to put any of the other children we hope to have?

We made the 20 minute drive outside of town and pulled into the dusty driveway of this farm. I knew at once that my husband was suffering from tractor envy and the romantic calling of the big red barn.

I strapped 7-month-old Baby Annike into the Bjorn and toured the place with a more detailed eye. Every square inch of the house was covered in grime and wreaked of cigarette smoke. The floor plan was odd. Half of the rooms had beat up wood siding instead of dry wall. There was no landscaping. The woman of the house was wearing a large sweatshirt that said, "BITE ME" and I vaguely wondered if I might end up looking like her one day if we moved here.

This place was going to be a full-time project. Oddly though, I felt a sense of peace flooding me. Something about the property breathed life and adventure and magical moments. The lush green spring fields whispered in the breeze about a different kind of life we could lead for a while.  My friends and family would all think we'd gone crazy... but since when did I care about that?

With me on board in the decision, we made the old farmers an offer that afternoon. (Dare I say, my husband chose one flexible wife?) The market was low and the property had "potential".

Of course, to capitalize on that potential meant we needed to redo the roof, replace the windows, update the plumbing and electrical, tear out and refinish the flooring. The entire kitchen needed to be gutted and redesigned. I was personally in charge of washing down and painting every surface inside the house while my young baby played at my feet, and miraculously didn't get into much trouble. The week after we moved in, I flushed the toilet and the water backed up into our shower. Please note that this is never a good sign. It turned out the septic lines needed to be replaced too. In the end, even the one bathroom we thought would not need to be touched had a major leak. The tile was torn out and we started over. All this in the first year. (For some old "before" photos, see these posts.)

We have poured our hearts into all but the foundation of this property, reviving a dilapidated farmhouse into a place called home. It was a little fun, and a lot of hard work. Despite our emotional and physical investments, however, we never intended to stay here forever. It was an opportunity seized at a market low. It was a project tackled while we were young, strong, and wearing barn-tinted glasses. Now the time has come to sell this beautiful place. We find that along the way we have most decidedly grown attached.

I feel sad, yet willing. This season of rural life has been joyful. I will miss the magical warm evenings when we take a family walk through the oak trees. I will miss the fruit that flows in the orchard all summer long. I will miss the barn parties and hay rides. I will miss watching the mist disappear from the hilltops while I sip my morning cup of coffee. I will miss our fenced in kid-friendly backyard. I will miss these things because I have enjoyed these things over the past six years. To be sad about a passing season is to recognize that it was a good one.

The question that everyone has for us is "Why?" I can't answer that question in a clear and direct way. There are a lot of tiny little reasons that have built up to the direction of a move. None of them stand alone to support such a decision. The real reason is that God seems to be prompting us to let go of something. In the letting go, there is a type of cleansing and healing taking place in our hearts.

Together my husband and I are unified in this decision. It is one more reason that it feels right. My greatest fear is that one day we will look back at these days spent here and kick ourselves for not finding a way to hang onto the property for all of its uniqueness, knowing our children may one day want to ride their dirt bikes around and play capture the flag with their friends.

...Then the whisper to trust... and to not worry about storing up for ourselves treasures on earth because we might possibly want them again one day.

We were never meant to grow so attached to a thing in our lives that we couldn't let it go. When it comes down to it, however, I find that letting go is difficult. From small things to big things, from a set of old towels to pieces of furniture, from the toys my kids once played with to the dishes I might need again one day, from a home loved and lived in to a season of life that can never be repeated. Letting go is hard, and sometimes sad, but it is also good. Perhaps if a thing is too perfect it can become a crutch that prevents us from moving on to the next good thing that God has in store.

We are moving on to another home, another season, another set of memories. We will be closer to our daughter's school, closer to the beach, and a little closer to town. We will still have space to grow a garden and to grow our kids, but I have the feeling our days of rescuing great-horned owls and canning excess fruit grown in the yard are over. While rural living might be coming to an end, life's greatest adventures are spawned not as a result of where we live, but how we live.

I have already begun a temporary hiatus from blogging, as filling boxes becomes a priority over sitting down at the computer. I will be back when we settle into our next home, a land of less boxes and packing material, a land of new memories and new adventures.

ode to farm life

We are selling this rustic farm property, and will soon be moving closer to town. The time has come to trade it in for less land and more house. In two weeks we will close escrow and I can be a little more informative, and will share and shed my tears here with some honesty.

In the meantime, we celebrate our final spring in the country. Overdue for an animal update, here is a glimpse of our outdoor happenings this spring...

You never know what you might find under a rock. Salamanders must be one of my favorite amphibians.

There was plenty of insect life this spring, and I am sure none of them minded being caught by a proud child. 

My favorite of our animal endeavors was rescuing this juvenile red-tailed hawk from the blackberry brambles. I am not sure how this majestic bird got a thorny vine wrapped around his neck, but after untangling him he flew away with only a superficial cut.

We get excited to find these gopher snakes in the yard because, as their name implies, they hunt the plant-eating rodents that decimate our garden. Everyone wants to get in on the action.

Blue-bellied lizards run in and out of the yard. Periodically an unfortunate one gets caught.

Karsten has taken to farm life like the healthy little boy that he is. Chasing chickens is one of his more favorite activities. These feathered ladies will most certainly NOT miss him when we move.

He has developed a tractor fetish, just like his daddy.

And a mud fetish too. What little boy wouldn't? (When I wasn't looking he decided a flower pot I had just watered was as good as a swimming pool.)

Many evenings after dinner, we take our family walk around the property. I take up the rear, picking up the stragglers, snapping photos here and there, observing my sweet family as they live and grow. This is my view. The best part of this view is the part I will be taking with me when we move.

Farewell spring. Onto the season of summer! Farewell apple blossoms. Onto the fruit that follows! Farewell farm. Onto a new season bearing the fruit of our days spent here!

the land of milk and honey

A case of honey was dropped off on our front porch last week. Twenty cases of bees were dropped off in the apple orchard.

The bees get a great place to live in an orchard full of blossoms. We get a plethora of tiny pollinators to boost the apple yield. And a case of honey. A sweet deal for everyone.

The rich color variations come from the different orchard blossoms. Blackberry orchards produced the darkest jars of honey. So far, I can't taste the difference.

In the Bible, honey symbolizes delight.

Can you imagine, way back in Old Testament days? Food was pretty monotonous. There were not a lot of natural sweeteners lying around. Periodically someone stumbled across honey in the cleft of a rock or an animal carcass... yum. (Maybe the bees were a bit different back then?) Even so, it must have been equivalent to liquid gold.

God's people were wandering in a desert, with the dangling promise of entering the "land of milk and honey"... a land of abundance and delight.

This is a land still promised to all of God's people. Abundance and delight... if only we will follow where He leads.

Psalm 81:10, 16
"I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it... 

But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;
with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

Oh, to be satisfied with honey from The Rock.

This year we consider the generous spoonfuls of honey we add to our tea and oatmeal a special act of worship. A way to remember the Author of delight itself.

let me tell you about apples

About a year ago we purchased the apple orchard next door. It was in rough shape, weeds growing where trees once were, old and tall varieties that pickers don't want to climb for the harvest. We were one of few obvious buyers as the dilapidated property bordered ours.

These ancient trees were gnarled and beautiful and they drew us in. An apple legacy to leave to our children one day. I have learned a lot about apples this year.

We have just completed our first harvest. Our trees laden with fruit. Sweet, crisp, juicy, delicious.

Growing them has ruined me for store-bought apples. There is something unnatural about all of the perfection in the grocery store, waxed shiny outside, unremarkable inside. Pick an apple from our trees and you will most likely pick a worm too. Or a bird peck or a blemish or an apple deemed imperfect. They are dull in luster without the added wax. But I have heard that the birds and worms know how to find the sweetest ones.

As a culture, we have said that fruit must be perfect looking for it to be purchased. Is it possible that in our focus on perfection we have missed out on something better?

Apples aren't the only victims of our visual culture. It happens with people too. I think the people with bumps and bruises on the outside are often sweeter on the inside. It is our wormholes that distinguish us. I could say that you can't judge a book by its cover, but that is actually not my point. You see, I do think the cover matters. It is just what we are looking for in the cover that needs to be adjusted. Perhaps if the value was placed on the actual blemish then people would expose their wounds. After all, it is these life experiences that can grow a person to be gentle, humble, compassionate, and ultimately sweeter with time.

My buying habits have changed of late. I like a piece of fruit that has character, a distinguishing mark, a rough spot, a chip in its covering that lets the delicious odor seep through. This is how I know the fruit has seen the sunlight and felt the rain and withstood the bugs and how I know it hasn't been genetically manufactured in a warehouse. I don't mind a bruise here and there if it means a good story and a certain readiness.

Choosing fruit or choosing friends, what exactly do we value?

A few odd facts:

... The worms in an apple go straight for the core. If you cut out the hole, and don't eat the core, the rest of the apple is perfect!  And often more delicious than the apples without worms.

... An apple a day keeps the constipation at bay, if you really wanted to know.  It is actually my personal theory that this is the origin of the belief that apples kept the doctor away. In the absence of modern medicine, the ancients were obsessed with staying regular as a indication of overall health.

... Apples make great natural toothbrushes. Feeling scummy? Skip the Wrigley's and eat an apple. 

... There are a lot more varieties than just "Red" and "Green". On our property we have Pippin, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Honey Crisp, Fuji, Yellow Delicious, and Gala apples and have recently planted some experimental varieties with pink flesh like Pink Ladies.

a roll in the mud

These are the final days of summer. Sigh.

This is good news and bad news. The good news being that I will get to go grocery shopping with only two children in my cart, which will be a piece of cake. There will be a lot more room for food too. The bad news is, well, that summer is almost over.

When we moved to this farm over four years ago, I had no idea it meant that we would become a real farm family, unafraid of things like mice and dirt and eating fruit with worms in it. My girls can rock playing in the mud, and my little boy is learning fast. 

I've never wanted to be particularly uptight about letting my kids get dirty. As it turns out, they are covered in dirt often as a regular part of going outside. It just seems like part of a healthy childhood to allow some filth, even if it ends up meaning more laundry for me. And as much as is in my control, I would like to give my children a healthy childhood.

Like moths to a flame are children to mud. At some point between childhood and now I lost my desire to roll around in the mud, and they will lose it too. Is it because I did it enough to purge the need from my system? Or because my imagination has dulled? Or because I became too darn practical and don't want to take time out for a second shower today? Probably all of the above.

We spend a fair amount of time holding back as adults. Too many reasons to be responsible. Too many things to feel self-conscious over. Too much fear of the future. These are hindrances children don't inherently have, and I am oh so glad to celebrate this freedom of theirs for a few more years. That's what summer days are all about.

Rolling in the mud is a good reminder to celebrate the season we are in now. To celebrate today without anxieties about what may or may not be next. To temporarily let go of the "what might happen"s and the "I don't feel like getting dirty"s in order to engage in what is happening at this very moment. It means having a sense of humor when someone squirts you with a hose, instead of my newest adult tendency to snap at the person who did it. In these final warm days of August, go ahead and take another run through that sprinkler or a good roll in the mud. We can't get these days back again.

Straight into the bathtub after this. Next project on the list is installing an outdoor shower. Every farmhouse needs one.

all creatures great and small

Living on a farm has its advantages in the spring time. My little animal-lovers get to witness nature in a mostly undisturbed setting.  Though I am somewhat squeamish at heart, I try not to let on in front of my children. Shhhh... don't tell. I fool them into believing I am not afraid of these crawly things in hopes that someday they will not let fear of touching an animal 1/100th of their size rule over them.

One day back in March, thousands of tadpoles appeared in the small spring-fed pond at the bottom of our hill (picture above). I did a good mom kind of thing and let my children catch and raise a quartet of them in one of my favorite glass vases on the kitchen counter. I assumed the tadpoles would take around three weeks to grow legs and lose their tails. Not sure where I came up with this number, but I figured that kittens can be adopted away from their mothers after 6 weeks, and tadpoles are far more simple creatures, so it couldn't take too long.

Wrong. Three months later a few of them had hind legs, but they all remained in the tadpole category. Their bowl was absolutely putrid because we had discovered the hard way that tadpoles are "fragile". I was afraid to clean it lest they die after all this time on prime kitchen counter space, and my kids would want to start over with new ones.

After all of that watching and waiting, metamorphosis did eventually occur. Despite the long tadpole stage, the end process was alarmingly fast as one tadpole at a time made its final change into a Pacific Treefrog. In a 24-hour period a tadpole would sprout front legs, lose its tail, and then did its best to hop right out of the bowl. After the first frog was found on the kitchen floor, we paid more attention to the others as they approached frog-hood.

Goodbye frogs that took FOREVER to grow. You can fend for yourself in our backyard now.

After all of the observing for months I couldn't believe how fast the final miracle happened. Perhaps the long stage of tadpole development really was about preparation for that final miracle. Even the smallest among God's creatures is complex in its own way. And perhaps metamorphosis can occur in our own lives if we are patient enough to see it through.

Without further ado, here is glimpse (seriously, only a tiny segment) of the other animal encounters we have had over the past few months. Cecil Frances Alexander's poem says it best...

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

(Rescued baby hummingbird)

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colours,

He made their tiny wings.

(Great Blue Heron)

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them, high or lowly,

And ordered their estate.

(Wild male turkey displaying his feathers. So much more magnificent in real life.)

The purple-headed mountain,

The river running by,

The sunset, and the morning,

That brightens up the sky;

(Swallowtail Butterfly)

The cold wind in the winter,

The pleasant summer sun,

The ripe fruits in the garden,

He made them every one.

(Gopher snake that doubles as a styling necklace)

The tall trees in the greenwood,

The meadows where we play,

The rushes by the water,

We gather every day;--

(Snake skin as tall as Annike. Hopefully the owner is out eating our gophers.)

He gave us eyes to see them,

And lips that we might tell,

How great is God Almighty,

Who has made all things well. 

-- Cecil Frances Alexander

circa 1848

Oh yes. Can't forget the chyrsalis hanging in the doorway after nap.