Do We Meet Here?

I hardly recognize the woman who sat down to write this out.  At least not until about two thirds through...then I start to see myself.  But, just like this post took some time to write, it's taking me some time to see it. Furthermore, daring to tap the "publish" command has me a little in knots.  As my proof reader puts it, "This sure is a lot about you." (Thank you firstborn farmgirl for your caution and insight). She's right on.  I dare to post knowing that although I'm talking about me, perhaps what I have to offer meets you where you are, and we see into each other in humility and love.

For perhaps ALL of my growing up years, and maybe most of my adult years I've been one to see and seize opportunities.  Search out possibilities.  Look for chances. I usually wake most mornings with fresh hope, optimism, and am ready to take on the day.  (After some deep dark cups of coffee and quiet time that is...)

My training, and in many ways my early experiences, was the opposite.  My parents come to life aware of boundaries, respectful of limits, and cautious.
Furthermore, we seriously depart in the coffee department.  They're more of the tea type. I digress.
Regardless of what's in my (or their) morning mug, my view of my origins is shaped by what I remember as tight close fences around life, growth, and opportunity.

Can you imagine the differences of perspective, disagreements, conflicts, and issues presented by my teen years?  Oh. My.

I was always stretching for the next thing.
Eager and waiting for the another door to open, ready to walk through.
A rejector of self imposed limits, I chafed at the many things I was told I couldn't do.

I haven't changed that much.

Until recently.

I'm hard up against needing to respect limits.
Only a little fuel remains with still many miles to travel.
Often putting one foot in front of the other, with (literally), just enough oxygen for the next step.
In circumstances that I cannot influence that have profound influence on me.

Much of this influence is very good, wildly, wonderful parts of life.
-Adult sons living at home getting ready to make their own way.
-A house full of teens.
-Youngsters still underfoot.
-Barns and pastures full.
-Renovations of this old farm slowly, and in fits and spurts, progressing.
-Gardens STILL burgeoning.
-An excellent beginning to our homeschool year and many confirmations that our affiliation with Classical Conversations is timely and perfect for us.
-Tutoring in Classical Conversations has awakened my brain and I'm enjoying teaching again.
-The ups and downs of necessary restoration (and sometimes backsliding) of key relationships requires time and commitment, but we are hanging on for our very lives and praying for a good yield.

You see?
Abundance.
It is the good things that have created limits.
And, I still chafe.
Conflict arrives.

Mostly it visits me.
(Sometimes others when I'm selfish and careless.)

This time, and maybe I'm lucky, is the first time that I've not had wiggle room to do anything - I can't change it up.  I'm powerless to extend boundaries or make more space. Whether the causes are negative or positive, I'm left with no choice, except to yield.

I'm having to say "no".
To extra activity.
To selfish pursuits.
To the unnecessary.
To the self gratifying things I love to fill up on.
And, this is the one that has me in a dither, "no" to worthwhile good things too.

And "no", although plenty uncomfortable all by itself, has opened the path for other more pointed discomforts.

Like the realization that I continue to crave (idolize?) recognition and so can all too easily get busy with things that build me up, and even though sincere love and service is involved, there's always a little slice of that pie just for me.

Or, the smack dab pressed up understanding that I'm creeping daily up on a substantial milestone birthday.  It's not 30.  It's not 40. Been there, done both of those.  It'll be a couple of years yet, and although I'm as fit and as strong as I've ever been, I need more sleep, take more time to weigh decisions, move more slowly. Giving myself over to slower means I've got to wrangle with my paradigms and our culture's penalties for aging.  I can no longer meet my "normal" production marks, which puts my comfortable habit of measuring myself by performance goals in a stranglehold.

Without performance, shockingly, I find myself insecure about appearance.  Yes, there's liberty, attractiveness, and even relief in embracing a kind of beauty that can't be bought, that comes from the gift of years. But, when the gray hairs make the curls a crown, I find myself wondering.  When the pretty has faded all away, when what I look like is less and less of an issue, will what I am be enough?

Identity as a writer, mother, wife, farmer, friend, teacher, Christ follower - every role- has felt the bright glare of introspection.  The light has revealed many pure and good things.  Excellent and praiseworthy pursuits populate the chapters of my life.  Contrarily, so has bitterness, lack of courage, failure to love and forgive - common to all, but personal to me, the population of these behaviors and characteristics has come to light and I can't just breeze right past them.

Gulp. I could go on and on.
And, in fact, in the daily-ness of life I have.
It can produce at first, a frightening kind of insanity, as going round and round with oneself only leads one to, ahem, the same old same old staring back from the looking glass.
Then, the fright shifts, because whereas the above cycle used to spur me on, it's the new normal.

I wrestle with it all.

When I'm spent, I come to this:

Does there come a season when all the effort, stretching, reaching, leaping through open doors shifts to cultivating, maintaining, and then harvesting what for so many years has been planted as new growth?

I'm beginning to think so.
Little quiet parts of my memory speak into this space.
I'm reminded that so many times before I've been ushered into something or someplace new and although I knew it was coming, once I was "there", initially I was ill equipped to understand and respond to the newness of the experience.
Even if I'd prepared.

Like laboring and delivering a baby.
I'd read books, watched (back then) videos, talked to doctors and nurses, and consulted my mom.
But, until I pushed head, shoulders, body, feet, delivered life through that burning portal I understood not what was my due.
And, each time I learned, lost, and gained something new.
Something that whether I perceived it or not made me ready for the season I was (am) in and what I was (am) to do and be.

So all this good is good enough.
And the faults are not too many.
And the "no" along with its limits brings more courage, humility, peace, and love.
Beautifully, limits produce less fear, stress, self seeking, and harm.

Not because I say it is so.
No, my own insight, strength, experience is not nearly enough to reach into and equip for the contrast of what is life right now- the fullness and its limits.

What then, to return to the earlier metaphor in my question, cultivates, maintains, and brings the harvest?

Gratitude and grace.
Far better than "good enough", these companions, concurrently cultivated and given as unmerited gifts, shine into this time with greater brilliance than introspection.
Their purpose and redeeming power overcomes not only the true cost of the mistakes that have been revealed in the hours of self absorption, but the weight of guilt is lifted.

By grace I can be grateful.
Through gratitude I learn to receive and give grace.
Grateful for grace I don't deserve, I cultivate deeper gratitude and receive richer grace.
All gifts.
All grace.

More than enough.

xoxo,
Laura

Edited to add:
Oh, how deeply I have struggled with failure to write regularly.  I had "told" myself that I would get it together enough to participate in The Nester's 31 Days series this year, and if I did only one thing well as a writer in 2013, that would be "it". 
Well, you know the outcome of that.  And I've participated in self loathing and condemnation.  

Thank goodness, (see- a tiny bit of gratitude) for good friends, Holy Spirit counsel, God's beautiful word The Bible, and wild grace.  They've had a greater grip on me than any unprofitable thinking.

So, settling into limits, I've not been writing.  But I have been reading. And I wonder if you'll be as blessed, challenged, changed, and loved as I've been when you click over to Edie's and Ruth's blogs and join in their journey during October's 31 Days blogosphere event?

Come back and tell me won't you, how you're being changed and restored by weighing more and less in your life, and daring to balance the scales?

And this- a little breath of thanks for reading this far.  So many words.  I have so many and so few opportunities to release them.  How you gift me to read to this very last mark. 

(Thanks to @jbkcyclist for sharing iPhone instagram photos for use on Liberty Farm Chronicles)





















 

The Little Room that Does it All

You know it's true.

I've started a number of projects on this lil' ol' blog and have a handful of them just waiting for me to get back to and call it a wrap.

There's the time the cows came home.  But, first, they ran away.  I've only written Part I. I've been told it's moooo-ving.  Right.

Libby got a facelift. I promised a nice set a spell on the front porch with photos.  But then I painted the front door.  And I don't like how it turned out.  I haven't re-painted it.  So we wait.

January, the month of beginnings, brought the start of a mini series about personal finances.

And, if my math is right, I'm still short five out of 31 Days of Green Acres.

Here's how this all fits together.
I'm doing a little "housecleaning"- for real, and in my blog content.
Spring has been long in coming and winter needs clearing out.
So, as I sort, purge, reorganize, and get new projects started, I'm evaluating many of my loose ends.

Turns out that more than once I've said I'd offer a photo tour of this old farmhouse, but have only posted scattered images.

And, I've been participating all along over at Edie's:

Here's the connection.

Today's link up is about our homes.  What have we been doing to live more intentionally in our houses, apartments, townhomes, and yurts.  

Well, I haven't seen anybody link up with a yurt, but that would be way awesome!

So, would you like to come on in? Not only do I long to be more hospitable, today's link up offers an opportunity to purposefully make good on one of too many unfulfilled commitments.

I've got one space in particular I've been working on since September.  Yup, for for-eveh.

We have a zero budget decorating policy around these parts, so everything you see is thrifted, a dumpster score, or built in our shop.  

And, when I say that, it makes me giggle that I've given this space a name with such gravitas.

The Library.

She doesn't take herself all that seriously.

Furthermore, it is not lost on me that she doesn't hold that many books.

But, that's what we named her when we moved in and it stuck.

She's an office, therapy center, conference room, reading nook, coloring space, filing center, refuge, retreat, sick room, and music room.

Early mornings she and I settle into each other for prayer, scripture reading, coffee, and contemplation.

At midday she graciously accepts more stacks of paper to be added to my helter skelter administrative system.

Evenings she welcomes me to write, talk with kids or Weekend Farmer Hubby, and often catch up on email and social media.

She's a jack of all trades and is gracious enough to be master of none.

Warm.

Colorful.

Formerly a bedroom.

Still a work in progress.

\

Two final images for you:

The final frontier- once I've sorted a few other areas, these shelves will be full of handy books and supplies for home education.  Oh yeah- I forgot.  I'm on the lookout for the perfect light fixture.  The bare bulb just isn't rocking my world.  But, it does light my world.

And, lastly, a nod to the master ( tee- hee )!

Tell me, where've you seen this before?

xoxo,
Laura

31 Days of Green Acres - Christmas Outtake

Many blessings to you friend on this Christmas Day.

One of my hopes as a writer is to present the Truth of Jesus Christ, a risen, loving, personal, and all powerful Savior,

 who as God incarnate came as a helpless babe to this broken world,

 lived a sinless life,

 poured himself out in ministry and service,

loved deeply,

 and then in supreme and voluntary obedience to God the Father,

stretched out and hung on a cross,

 and offered His life as a blood sacrifice for Adam's fallen race,

that His righteousness might be attributed to those dead in their sins,

 who by the great grace of God Almighty,

were made alive,

and the once dead hearts of those He foreknew were born again,

 that they may be called sons and daughters of God.

What mystery.

Each of those sweeping statements, clauses, Truths above has impacted and changed my life forever.

Good news.

And whatever story I'm here to tell - whether it's the completion of the long drawn out 31 Days of Green Acres, a new animal adventure, a family story - the Truest story I must tell is the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My words falter, my thoughts jumble, and my fingers pause when considering how to tell, what to tell, when to tell that I belong body and soul to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

If you know me in "real life" the hesitations above are likely to surprise you.  In the context of face to face relationship I am much more confident, maybe even equipped, to tell this good news and to invite you to open the Holy Scriptures with me and drink deeply from the living water Jesus Christ offers.

I'd be quick to invite you in, and as we broke bread together, we'd talk about Jesus Christ, the bread of life.

As we celebrated life in the pure pleasure of being together, I'd pause and ask you to join me in joyful recognition that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the Life.

Broken and in need of redemption, I'd offer you my feeble strengths, beg your grace for my ongoing frailties, and humbly ask your companionable patience as I am refined and live in constant awe that my eternal salvation is complete because of what Christ has done.

Today, on this Christmas, I'd ask you to walk with me, and as we breathe deep the crisp winter air and glory in the dusting of snow on the ground, I'd share with you how Emmanuel, God with us, has changed everything.

Made all things new.

Filled a broken creation and a flawed human race with hope.

Renews, Redeems, and Restores because of His great love.

Love that came naked, helpless, subject to frail humanity.

Love that grew in wisdom and favor with God and man.

Love that fed the hungry, taught the masses, healed the sick, became obedient to death on a cross, and bore the sin of the world.

Love that is constant, eternal, boundless, and free.

So whatever picture you see here, whatever turn of phrase that catches your attention, whatever tip, trick, or homesteading "know- how" you might glean, above all may you come to know that Liberty Farm is place where we live this abundant life because of Jesus.

And that makes this much more than a Christmas outtake.

Jesus Christ - the reason we can, do, and often make merry.
Because from His fullness we have received grace upon grace.

Wishing you the most lovely of Christmases, filled to the full with grace upon grace.

31 Days to Green Acres - Day 25

Welcome.  This is one of many entries as part of a 31 Day series.  To read earlier posts, please click here.

We're at it again.  You know, another one of our massive, all encompassing, exciting, draining projects.  And, while we're at it, life still chugs along here with it's regular and harvest time activities. I am grateful to be here today, to serve the words and the story that is still developing.  Thank you for coming back and for patiently walking alongside.  You make the journey more full.

Neither Weekend Farmer Husband nor I had any intentions for animals on the farm beyond a couple of laying hens and a cat.  The house restoration consumed all our energy until we moved in, and once we could camp comfortably in our own home, we quickly moved on to repairing the roof on the animal barn and installing a 44 panel solar array.

An aside - if you have read the Little House on the Prairie books or any other stories/series of the USA's early frontier and settlement days the idea of squatters sort of captures what the moving to the farm experience felt (and sometime still feels) like. The departure is that we have legal rights to occupy the property, but at some level I feel like we still have to earn the privilege of being here.  Do we have what it takes to save this house, bring new life to the land, and preserve the buildings? Somehow this relates to camping on our own home...and proving our mettle.

The old board and batten wood sided animal barn is probably original to the property.  There are no nails holding the structure together, just solid wooden pegs, and the dimensional lumber and support beams appear to be hand hewn, massive markers of an earlier time.  At some point in the mid 90's, near as we can tell, a concrete floor was added, electricity was upgraded, and a pole barn added on to form a "T" to the north.  There are multiple animals stalls, a water source, and a hay loft.  Clearly this structure was built to shelter animals.  Off to the side there's a lean to constructed of (no kidding), old wooden grocery store and wine boxes, covered with metal siding and a slapped on metal roof.  It made the perfect "shop" and likely held larger motorized equipment sometime after the upgrades were completed.

Weekend Farmer Husband noodled long and hard burning through notebook after notebook of scribbled details to prepare for the roof tear down, rebuild, and solar installation.  Until our current project (yes, yes, I'll tell you eventually), I've never seen him think so long and hard on any one thing.  Thinking soon became implementing, and we were up on the roof tearing away and tossing aside wooden shakes that had weathered better than a century.

If we'd known then what we know now, we'd have anticipated that this was another pre dawn to post sunset project.  Every weekend, evening, and any other conceivable other "free" time was dedicated to the barn.  And, no matter how much planning, there is always the unexpected.  But, we persevered  not just because snow would fly soon, but because we have a contract to sell the power we produce and our consumer expected us to complete by the agreed upon deadline.

In hindsight, it was a crazy dangerous thing we did. We wouldn't repeat it - at least not without changing a number of practices.  After all, we were 26 feet in the air at a 33 degree pitch - imagine a metal playground slide a little better than two stories high and you are handling costly, fragile, and dangerous tools and supplies while holding steady at the very top of the slope. Even with harnesses and safety equipment you are exposed and vulnerable to mistakes, poor planning, harsh weather, and the plain old randomness that we call accidents.

We passed inspections, hook ups were completed, the basic installation was finished and the snow came.  Literally, we laid our tools down, came off the roof and didn't revisit the project until the following spring.  Most of our tools got put away, but some of those tools we laid down brought a good chuckle the following season as the thaw revealed their whereabouts.

Finally, some rest.  We'd occupied Libby for seven months, and between Christmas and New Year's we installed the bathtub in the lower level bathroom.  Oh the bliss of a long soak and the relief of warm after the brutal cold of the barn roof.  And, I should be very clear, I never went on the roof.  This project was completed entirely by Weekend Farmer Husband, our offspring, and friends from church.  One of Weekend Farmer Husband's clients lent us some valuable tools and heavy equipment that made the job so much easier, but when I say "we", I really mean "them".

We watched lots of movies at night in the ensuing months.  Tired doesn't even begin to describe the lethargy we felt.  The indoor and screen time was fun and restorative.  After unrelenting work, work, work it was bonding and settling to sink into the couch after supper and veg.

When we ran out of comedies, family, and adventure type movies to share I started watching documentaries.  Both Weekend Farmer Husband and I gobble up that genre of program with the key difference his interests run to giant squid and deep sea type things (no, I'm not making that up), and I am drawn to social commentary type films.

After watching a number of compelling programs about food, nutrition, and food production by myself, I invited Weekend Farmer Husband to watch with me.  At first he wondered why I watched, "such depressing movies".  His kindness kept him at my side and I could see that he was warily engaged in buy in on the surface of the issues.

It was Food, Inc. that had just concluded when I caught his eye and said, "We should get a cow."

He didn't say no.

31 Days to Green Acres - Day 24

This post is one in a 31 Day series.  To find other entries, please click here.

I think you've gotten a pretty comprehensive and overwhelming view into the total renovation of our farmhouse.  One friend says I made him tired.  We actually hear that quite a bit.  When people visit and get "the tour" they are often astounded at the before and after.  And, yes, you too will have a tour.  We just have quite a bit of recovery to do after a week of illness (and did I mention a broken washing machine...?), before I'm willing to take pictures.  I know it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful, but I always clean up before I invite guests in, be you friend or family!

I don't know how it happened.  In the broadest sense I'd like to view it as God's gentle leading as He taught me a greater reverence for creation. That's sounds a little hooity tooity - what I'm trying to say is this.

I was, at best (before we moved to the farm), tolerant, bordering on indifferent, toward animals.

To meet me now, you'd think I'd been an animal lover for the whole of my life.

There were 3 failed attempts at pet ownership during my growing up years, and one doesn't even really count for me because I was away at college when a puppy came home for one of my siblings.  When I was a preschooler, we had a duck and sometime around late Kindergarten/First grade a golden retriever.  Neither "experiment" lasted too long, and although I have warm memories of Chatterduck and Chava, I don't have any sense that I especially longed to have them back once they were no longer part of our home.  Maybe I shed some tears when we put Chatterduck in a brown box and released her at a local forest preserve - or was it a park - I can't recall.  I was four people.

I never really "got it" - you know - animal people.  In fact, I probably used that term in my high school english class as an example of an oxymoron.  I was willing to accept that other's passion for all creatures usually defined by a kind was exactly that - a passion, and although I didn't understand it, I could see that it was real and ran deep.

Early in our family life,Weekend Farmer Husband and I brought home a really nice golden retriever, McKenzie.  She was a beautiful dog with a very sweet temperament, and she added a lot to our family life. Until the very last months of her life however, I was only capable of measuring her contribution in terms of stink in the house, mud on the floor, and epic hairballs in every nook and cranny.

She moved to the farm with us and spent her last days in doggie utopia.  I am pretty sure she smiled for 15 months straight.  One day she stopped smiling and we knew it was the end.  No one was surprised.  But everyone was shocked when I cried.

Something in my heart had started to connect with her, with the chickens in the coop, the kittens in the barn, and the cows in the field, and even the skittish, yippy, goofy dog who was her companion in the last months.

If you noticed that this indifferent to animals person had a partial barn and property full of warm blooded creatures before she began to identify an affinity to them, you've caught on.  It came late and caught me unawares.

The chickens came first.  It just made sense that with all the space in the barn and the 4-6 dozen eggs our family eats in a week that we should have chickens.  (This should settle it once and for all you folks who want to know what came first...it's always the chicken)

And then, we had lots of feed - and lots of mice.  So we got cats.
I watched my children fall in love.
Even the big burly man boys were and are smitten.
I felt myself warm.

I was bowled over by my affection for the cows.
Their presence in our pasture was a source of joy for me.
They have distinct personalities and they're very social and mostly sweet.
(Disclaimer - we have a weird one this year.  We'll be glad to see her go, but the other three are quite nice)
I search for them every day, feel deeply responsible for their well being even though I do none of the associated chores, and yup, I actually talk to them.

No time, no particular event, no revelation stands out as the clear moment when I began to "get" animals and animal people.  All I know is that it's been delightful.  The richness of experience and the sense of abundance that animals on the farm have produced is both real and perceived.

Real because as robust omnivores, we provide for our pantry, freezer, table, and our need for food by the work or our hands.  The abundance is evident in our larder.  (Does anyone even use that word anymore?).

Perceived because the ambiance, atmosphere, and level of relationship that the animals bring to family life, the land, and their role in this redemptive journey is difficult to capture in words or image.  A producing farm yields and overflowing cup - at least for us.

Now, it's not always rosy.  There's many a cold night that we're out in the barn keeping chicks from freezing when - it's no lie - we'd rather be under our cozy electric blanket.

And, yes, cows do run away and take years off of one's anticipated  lifespan for the stress of it all.

It's true- some chickens aren't very smart, (but some are...), and the meat birds are particularly smelly.

Have I let you know how much work this all is?  It's hard, and it's constant, and there's nobody else to do it but you.

But at the end of all the work and even in the middle of it, there's joy.
Getting a glimpse of what God might have been thinking when he fashioned a cow is such fun.
Learning to "think like a chicken" is funny and in the end proves to be effective!
Observing and participating in the complete life cycle of a meat bird helps you to see just how intricate life is, and that drumstick on your plate represents thousands of little life events to form the whole product you bring to the table.

We're almost to the end of our production cycle for this year.
I find myself lingering at the fence a little longer, gazing out the window to drink in the view of a full pasture more often than usual, and counting the days until it's done so that I don't fail to savor any that remain.

This is still so new.
I don't know when it'll feel normal - like it's "always" been that way.
But it is very welcome.