naught but memories

where does one start

after such a long pause -

with the escape of levity,

or in backing a cause?

how do you begin

again

what was not given an end,

but only suddenly faded 

and fizzled out of conscious view,

the practice of pondering 

left to unspoken thoughts,

the previously unquestioned

order of how life is lived

now all at once a congested

mental and emotional 

traffic jam -

- no clear warning

only

WHAM!

here i am,

a way 

you never imagined

you'd have to know,

here i go,

all the comfort of 

the old routine

for this new

Unforeseen

that still hasn't shown

all it's cards

here we are,

the same us

in unexplored terrain

that is unrecognizable

and yet somehow

still the same,

just more cumbersome, perhaps,

but, looking carefully,

with no lack

of blessings

just as unexpected

and at first

unbelievable

"inconceivable" is defined

anew every day,

nothing is twice the same,

and still nothing has really changed -

here we are,

still infants

in eternity,

finding new ways

to adapt to 

these new days

that to tomorrow you and me

will be naught 

but memories

Infinitely Stronger Than Fear

It's the times when I've said NO to fear, and walked right through and over it, with no apologies to it, that I look back on as some of the best quality - if most difficult - moments and decisions of my life.

"Best quality," and not simply "best," as many times those moments of bravery that lead into a more illuminated and honest life are anything but happiness-filled as they unfold in the moment.

And perhaps if we collectively, consciously, actively chose to unapologetically trample over fear more frequently, instead of each other, we could begin to bring some sanity and compassion and integrity back into our world, and change not just the headlines we make every day, but our own hearts and minds.

Because let's face it, we let fear dictate far too many of our behaviors.

We're afraid of time - it's passing pace, and where in it we may find ourselves if we blink or make the wrong decision. And whether we've conquered it or haven't and just aren't ready to admit that to anyone, we've all let fear decide what we say, do, how we interact with each other, what we share vs what we keep hidden....

Personally, I'm fed up with allowing fear power in my life. It's ugly and a liar and has no place in a life lived out loud and honestly.

It's sneaky, and creeps into us with little steps of no consequence, until it feels comfortable and familiar and can then control more important parts of our lives without us even noticing. Silly things that matter not at all, like recently when we posted the video from our first two drone flights over the farm, and one of my thoughts was "people are going to notice all the weeds in the garden, or the giant puddle in the paddock, and think we are sloppy, uncaring farmers, and not realize I've spent the better part of the last month pulling weeds, and the only reason for the giant puddle is the tremendous thunderstorm that just finished rolling over the farm and dumping a huge amount of much-needed rain on us moments before we shot this..."

And much bigger things, like the lessons we are teaching the next generation by the way we act in life's difficult moments.

Last night, as I sat in the hallway of the barn weeping, not feeling like I could stop and not wanting to until all the grief and anger and guilt poured out and far away from my heart, as I heard the bubbly approach of two-year old feet, little hands grasping a berry-picking basket, little blonde face all smiles, suddenly I felt the tears forcing themselves back inside my eyes.

"Buck up! Hide it away, quick!"

And as the two grown men lifted the body of one of our beloved goat does from the stall where her sweet, innocent heart had taken it's final beat, after fighting against the exhaustion of bringing quadruplets into the world and nursing them for the past three months, my only thought was guiding those little feet out of the barn into the sunlit yard, and shielding those little blue eyes from the truth of the moment.

Later, just the two of us, our final goodbyes and the quiet of an otherwise ordinary summer evening on the farm, I tried to let the sound of the tractor and digging backhoe drown out the pounding of grief's hammer against my heart.

And I thought it would be best to just keep this one to ourselves, to hide it away in the tears as they tracked from our faces, to the earth that now holds another part of our hearts.

Fear that we're doing it all wrong, after all, and admitting the day's defeat will change people's opinions of us and our farm.

Fear that despite the vet's assurance that it wasn't parasites or feed or injury or anything we could have possibly done or not done, but simply her heart, overworked by the task of carrying, giving birth to, and then nursing four precious babies, had grown tired, and was shutting down, that there must have been something more we could have done to save her, or at the very least to have made her more comfortable in her final moments.

Fear that my heart will solidify in to unfeeling stone if I let this new reality truly sink in.

Fear of the morning, and having to face cheerful and well-meaning "How are the goats? How's the farm life" greetings from friends and family we haven't seen in a while.

Fear that despite all my best efforts, I'm just not good enough to hack this farm life.

But Truth, and Love are two things that, although it does it's best to make us believe otherwise, are infinitely stronger than fear.

And the Truth is, we are doing our best, sometimes there is nothing that can be done, and if everything and every day and every person and experience and feeling was the same, and "good," we wouldn't really be able to know what good actually is.

Acknowledging the bad, ugly, heart-wrenching parts of life doesn't make life any less beautiful, love any less real, goodness any less valid; it just keeps us honest.

May we each, and all, decide right now, today, to be honest, to admit we're all just as scared as the next person sometimes, but that life's reality, it's promises and miraculous eternal nature, are both infinitely larger than, and simultaneously rooted deep within, the core of each of us.

And may hope, and truth, and light, ultimately unite us all.

A foggy farm morning in early February, filled with hope and anticipation...

 

 

 
  

Login to Real Life

What's the Truth Behind Your Selfie?

Boldness. The right kind helps us live a life that makes a real impact; the wrong kind leaves a trail of momentarily impressive footprints in cybersands that are easily washed away by the rising tide of real life.

Winter - the actual cold, ice-coated, everyone's water buckets in the barn and coop are freezing over more often than they're not, where did I put my gloves again, I need a kleenex and can't feel my face kind - finally arrived here a couple weeks ago, sneaking up on us after making a deceivingly quiet and gentle entrance, cloaked in the soft hues of an autumn that mimicked summer so well it was easy to believe the calendar was lying to us about the actual season in which we found ourselves. But each time I slip across the yard to the barn, chiding myself for not just taking the time to dig out those ice cleats we bought last winter and actually putting them on my muck boots before I have to pick myself back up off the ice, I'm reminded it is almost February, and worse, or better, yet, that much closer to the one year anniversary of my full time farm employment. My mind scrolls through the posts and pictures and comments from all those other farmers in the farm-centered groups I've joined on social media, and I wonder if I'll ever feel as on-top-of-it as some of their posts suggest they are.

Recently I've allowed such thoughts, and the myriad unsolicited advice or questions of well-meaning (or not) persons get under my skin to the point I actually started to get angry. But over the weekend the truth found a way to break through to the frontlines of this battlefield of thoughts, and remind me our story is just that - ours; it requires no defense or explanation, and it is not dictated by the expectations or preconceptions of anyone else.

Yes, the smiling, baby goat-cuddling selfies, with the painfully adorable goat kids that each Spring brings are genuine, but so are the frigid moments when survival is a fight, sometimes not won by even the most noble members of our herd or flock. And even after tasting the unmatched wholesome sweetness of golden honey straight from our own hives, there is that mid-winter realization six years and several lost hives later that as long as the fields around our 15 sheltered acres are every season sprayed with chemical pesticides and planted with crops that contain poison in their very seeds and leaves, we may have to store away our beekeeping suits for the foreseeable future.

With the picturesque stance of our historic big red barn in the center of our homestead comes also hour upon hour spent each year in the clean-out cycle of a deep-litter stall bedding system not everyone will understand or agree with. And despite the hard lessons of below-zero Februarys recently past that went into the decision to push back the schedule, as we enter into this February and see all the already-born goat kids listed for sale by other farms, with only 6 of 15 of our eligible does even bred yet, it's easy to question the wisdom of our 2016 goat breeding plan...

The struggles exist along with the triumphs.

Neither are what define us, but rather, how well we step equally through them with humility and confidence.

I refuse to click on the links that lead to competitive comparison; I will scroll past criticism, chin up. Today I choose to stay logged in to Real Life, mud-stained barn clothes and shiny, happy selfies alike.

I will choose the right kind of boldness.

"Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold." ~II Corinthians 3:12

Resolved to Grow

Walking a Mile in My Own Boots

A rooster's crow breaks through the creaking cold dark, while the two big farm dogs, bellies full from breakfast, lay curled up on the rug at my feet, content to get in today's first nap as feathered, furry, and two-legged farm critters alike all await dawn to lift up her pastel face from her snowy pillow, and illuminate the beginning of this crisp new mid-January morning.

After leading us in with soft, still green-grassed feet and an unimposing, gentle blue crown, Winter has finally asserted her rightful position as the star of the season, and I lasso a few thoughts out of the wild, rumbling herd of New Year's contemplation, to inspect and digest and express.

With what will be come April 40 years on this earth under my feet, this is the first year that I've resolved not to resolve a Big New Change as of January 1. It isn't that I'm discouraged from past years' anticipated Big New Changes not growing up beyond their New Year infancy, or that I don't see value in setting new goals. Instead of stopping this or starting that, I want my focus to be just becoming a better version of me - and that's not an endeavor that can be fit into the tidy square box of a New Year's To Do List, it's a life-long assignment I have to choose to work on enthusiastically, and anew, each day I'm given.

And becoming a better version of the true me means I first must accept who I already am, with all my faults and shortcomings, and realize not all of them are meant to be conquered or changed, because without them I wouldn't be, well, me.

It also means being brave enough to filter through all the well-meant proposals and expectations of others, and stay true to the plan that's already laid out just for me.

It's so easy for each of us to look at others through the tint of our own perspective, and decide we know the path they should take, and how and when they should take it. But we have to remember that each of us is each of us, and gulping down - or doling out - every tidbit of advice or perspective that comes along, constantly changing to fit the new or widely accepted definition of who we are or should be, isn't fair to the advice giver or getter.

Now six years down this path of Life on the Farm, and nearly one year wearing these No More Office Commute Full Time Farmer boots, as we mark a new segment of time with the first page of a new calendar, I resolve to continue being busy becoming the true me, at the pace and in the particular way that agrees with the deepest promptings in my spirit. It may not look like What it Should to outside eyes observing, but in the end I want to be able to look into the eyes of the One who laid out His plan for me so long ago, and know I did my best to be the me He created me to be.

That is how I believe we can each make a true difference in each other's lives, and best help each other along our paths - by keeping our feet firmly on our own, letting each other know we understand how difficult it can be to walk a mile or even a minute in those shoes, when it seems sometimes that with every step, someone is trying to convince us to try on a pair not designed for the terrain our own road travels.

And as dawn glides quietly up into daylight, I choose to pull on my boots and step gladly up this new mile of my own road.

Already and All Along

Fear Will Lose This Fight, Too

Fear and doubt are ugly, relentless liars.

The 13th of this month will mark eight months since our farm became my office, and the walk from the stone cottage to the barn my commute. As we enjoy a rare very warm and sunny beginning to November here in Michigan that in some ways feels like Spring more than Fall, my thoughts drift back over the past months, and emotions rise in a cacophony of humble pride, joy, awe, fear, and doubt.

-- Pride for triumphant moments like hitching and hauling trailers for the first time, keeping up with the garden and learning the basics of canning, and successfully attending multiple goat kid births.

-- Joy and awe at the blessings and favor and protection that continues to be poured out upon us as we progress further down this dirt road of dreams.

-- And fear that all the efforts put forth so far are not enough, doubt that I'll be able to live up to all those daydreams voiced in countless conversations when full time farming was only just that, a daydream.

There is so much I wanted to have done by now, this far into this first year of Farm Freedom. Some things just didn't happen; others happened well beyond as well as we hoped they would. But still, the whispers of doubt, born from fear, continue to hiss.

Fortunately, our Maker knows our innermost thoughts, and exactly how to calm and direct them back toward Peace, if only we'll open the eyes and ears of our hearts to perceive his soft, still voice speaking life into our lives.

And so, as winter ambles just behind the unexpected warmth and sunshine of this first week of November, and the trees, having shed their brilliant Autumn gowns, stand as resolute black silhouettes against the coming cold, I consciously switch the station of my thoughts from Fear 101 to Purpose 41.13, and listen awestruck as once again He who made the universe pauses to reach down and silence the doubt that threatens my peace, extinguishing the flames of my fears with just a whispered reminder of who I am and can be, in Him. And my eyes are opened to the blessings that have come at just the right moments, the joys that have followed even the worst sorrows, and all the promise there still is in tomorrow, as long as I step into it with a willing right hand held out to keep hold of the one holding it already and all along.

Between the Stone House and Dirt Road

 the promise we have

sun and shadows play

in different spaces now,

their schedules the same,

our place in time rearranged

the neighbor's bean fields sway,

a giant gypsy belt, 

rolling in golden spangles

between the determined green

of surrounding pasture and trees

flecks of red,

orange, yellow

begin to decorate the lawn

as the tips of the tall maple fellows

between the stone house and dirt road

let a beautiful rainbowed yawn

escape 

and the sky takes 

on a shade

that betrays the truth

of the time

whose arrival

we're perhaps not yet ready

to accept

(but clouds don't look like that

any other time of year)

here
we are
again
there are sentimentals like me
even among the tangle of green -
their roots, unseen,
keep them resolutely in place,
determinedly reaching up still,
turning up, even now, their face
and taking in
every drop of sun
that runs over the brim
of last season into now
somehow
time passed
and though we know
for life to last
yesterday must bow
to the unknown of tomorrow,
with the promise we have
of only today
it is difficult to say
the places where these moments divide,
what new corner they find
where they can hide
until, quietly and suddenly
they have metamorphosed
from now
into that place so near and far from here, Memory

perhaps that's why
the sun and shadows seem to shift
as one season lifts
and the next descends,
dancing together
imperceptibly
so we cannot see
where one begins
and where one ends,
they have made friends
with Now
and agreed to let it hide behind them
when it is ready to stop being Today



towering sunflowers sway,
tired arms droop,
faces dim and lower,
and graceful,
they quietly cede
to the owners
of this new season







but zinnias in every shade shout "Treason!"
and defiantly remain
tall and proud
above the vines that have brought forth
some of this new Today's superstars:
pumpkins splash a large and heavy and loud
pattern across the tired garden patch,
that yields to the will of weeds
as this new Today continues to hatch
and bring with it
it's own glory days

sprays
of eager raspberry arms
now conquer the northwest corner,
stretching out their gifts
like sweet fleeting rubies

kale stands, patient and green,
and knows
only if it stands through
the inevitable cold that waits
somewhere between
a future Tomorrow and Today,
will it be able to offer itself
at it's sweetest
tiny baas still greet us
from happy mouths
on growing faces

and as this Today chases
the last one away,
i make the effort to stay
aware
of the infinite nature
of just this moment,
and feel small,
yet comforted,
as it all
continues to flow,
unstoppable, always changing,
each one new,
but yet somehow the same

and i am so humbled
to have been made
a part of it
the start of it
so far away,
the end
so beyond sight
there is day,
and then night,
and then again
and again,
again

and exactly when
one becomes the other,
and looks so different
and yet somehow the same
as the last,
i can't decipher
but i am ready
to let go
of both
tomorrow
and what is past
and accept
this new Today
just the way
it is
and for it, lift
my face and my arms in thanks,
for it is indeed good,
this Today,
this gift.