Gotta start somewhere!
528 days
Wow. Seems like a long time.
And it is. In some ways.
In other ways it’s not.
It’s how many days we have lived on this little slice of God’s earth that we are making into our family’s home. Our children’s legacy. A retreat that some of you will one day come to enjoy.
So many things have happened in those days on this place.
Living on this land.
Living with the rhythms on this land.
My family and friends have told me from day 1 that I should be writing all these things down.
And I meant to.
But I didn’t. Because I was tired.
And I’m still so tired.
But I’m starting today anyway.
Today.
528 days later.
That seems like a long time. So many things have happened since then.
But today is my youngest sister’s birthday, and she is one of our biggest fans and cheerleaders. She lifts me up when I’m down and believes in me even when I don’t believe in myself. She and her husband took a chance on us and helped us when we were brand spanking new. This is for her.
Better late than never writing all these things down for you.
For our children.
For posterity.
What kinds of things happened during those 528 days since we left Texas to come make our home on this little slice of west Tennessee red dirt?
Well, we spent 157 of those days camping in a pop up camper that my dad generously lent us for that purpose. It was an adventure, to be sure.
Ask me about Tennessee summer thunderstorms in the basic open air. Makes you think about how you stand if you think you may really meet your Maker.
Or about the time all 5 children vomited in one night. One right after the other.
In a pop up camper.
No electricity.
No running water.
No washer. No dryer.
Fun times. Times I’d rather not repeat. Ha.
Kind of like bathing outside with milk jugs warmed in the sun during the day, and by fireside down to 43 deg, and then deciding to rent a hotel room on Saturday nights so everyone could shower before church in the morning on Sundays … 157 days of living like that sure seemed never ending at the time … but now it is a distant memory since we have been in our small cabin for just over double that time.
Time can be so strange.
Learning the rhythms of our land has been educational and inspiring. Living on our land through almost 1.5 cycles of the year and we are just starting to learn things about it.
We moved here with hardly more than the clothes on our back.
And the pop up, of course.
Now we live in a 300sq ft cabin.
It’s cramped. Cozy. I mean cozy.
It makes us appreciate the things we do have. (Things could be worse, it could be a pop up camper with 5 kids, not just a small cabin with a full kitchen and one bathroom and beds for everyone.)
528 days ago our land had nothing but grass and cut over trees. Now it has a gate, a small cabin, two wells (only one functions currently), the foundation for a shop/milk barn, the beginnings of a farm store, three sets of cattle, and miles of trails through our woods. We also have plans to turn all that cut-over “trash” wood into income-earning lumber with a saw mill this fall. And, God-willing, into our actual home.
God-willing, as my Abuela Ana used to say, God rest her soul.
I do pray that God wills our house be built.
We are now waiting on the fall grass we planted as winter feed for our cattle to respond to the slow-coming rain. Each day that I look at the grass growth seems to drag. We want tall, lush grass to feed our cattle through this coming most likely hard winter that it’s so hard to watch and wait. The drought this summer was so hard. Hard in a different way than the constant deluge of rain was last summer. As we waited for the ground to dry enough for us to put up a small cabin for us to live in.
Waiting can be so hard to do.
Looking backwards, time seems like it has rushed by since we’ve been here - where did it go?! While every day that we soldier on in sometimes seemingly hopeless and difficult situations seem never ending.
