Spring: A Walk Around the Farm

I don’t always spend a Saturday with my husband at home and the sun shining warm… but when I do, it involves something like planting a hundred gladiolas, lilies, hibiscus, and bleeding hearts… and, of course, a walk around the farm to see how everything is doing. We found a newborn calf this morning. While we were out there, my husband dropped off three lick... Read More

Skipping Church

I took a series of photos this morning… Post-Thanksgiving unwinding… I’m naming it: “Justifying Skipping Church” The number of photos is directly proportional to the level of guilt. 😉 “Hello Winter” “With a Bow on Top” “Tinsel” “Sideways Tree in a Gale Storm” “Tree with Hay Bales” “You... Read More

Sweet Potato Haul

“Hey, you have to come outside and see this!” my husband burst through the phone from 30 yards away. Last spring, he happened to see sweet potato slips at a feed store. He planted 20 of them (roots with a little bit of leaf), right next to the tiny, spring version of the annual fall tomato jungle. Sixteen of the 20 plants came up. We ignored them until after the first... Read More

After Four Years of Blogging, I’m Sure: I’m a Mom

I finished the post below on Monday (except adding pictures). I had tried to veil how frustrated and disappointed I was, because life has become incredibly busy recently. It seemed like the sensible thing to do was end the blog. It has been confusing to sense God leading the exact opposite direction! God specializes in impossibilities, and He is able to make His purposes clear,... Read More

How to Make a Milky Wave (and Other Humiracles)

My just-turned-four-year-old son… crawled up onto the bed one morning a few weeks ago… and delivered the following tale: “MOM!!! I just had the funniest dream about me ‘n’ Yoda! You’n me’n Yoda fought Dark Bader with huge light sabers until he was in tiny pieces, as tiny as a germ. I took his light saber away, and he fell down a hole — AAAAHpffff!!! —... Read More

When Small Beginnings Die

It’s strange weather for starting seeds, with the garden buried six feet under in snow… but spring is only seven weeks away! Every year when we start seedlings, my husband says, “I’ll just plant a few different kinds of tomatoes…” Every year, the “few” turn into a vast, unnavigable jungle, tightly packed with tomatoes to pick. I try... Read More

Carrots and Freckles

My internet was down for five days – one of those blessings in disguise. I discovered, while I had a chance to gather my thoughts, that I have a backlog of farm pictures. I’ll post several of them next week. But I’ll start today with these: My son picked carrots in the sweltering heat with his dad, never mind the sweat and grime (or overdue haircut… what... Read More

Word for Wednesday: Déjà vu

We picked mulberries off the trees last week. It reminded me of the huge, old mulberry tree that stood near the front of our house growing up. It was the best climbing tree ever, with large, low, sprawling branches – my favorite place to play. Our feet were stained purple all summer long. I was so sad when my dad cut the tree down. The berries covered the ground by the front... Read More

A Boy in the Tulip Patch

One evening last November, my husband and I shivered in the cold and in the glow of truck headlights as we caught up on the overdue task of planting bulbs. Bulb planting is an exercise in delayed gratification. This spring, it was worth it. It probably would have been worth it to trim the grass around the edges of the bed, too… but then, of course, it would just grow back.... Read More

Ruffling Feathers

It has been a fairly quiet few months around this blog, hasn’t it?! I’ve been fighting a deep exhaustion. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, considering all the changes we’ve made in the past year. While I’ve been buried in a dark cocoon lately, a few other metamorphoses have been brewing… When I was young, someone described me as “complacent”... Read More