All the Sparkles, All the Things
Dear Dungarees,
Building onto someone’s dream is a delicate business. Especially when the original dreamer is no longer part of the equation.
This endeavor is a perfect storm where the inescapable demands of the present needs and upkeep, collide with with the overwhelming desire for expansion and growth. This is where we find ourselves one week into farm life.
The present needs here are heavily loaded with the previous dream holders fingerprints. Wildly charming, with a healthy dose of deferred maintenance. What they have given us is exquisite, whimsical, and an incredible foundation on which to build. I wake daily with thankfulness in my heart for their original vision that created the beauty we see before us today. All of the adults living here on the farm feel the same. The hopes and dreams we all have bursting forth from the potential that runs as thick as the river in our backyard fuels every day’s journey. As such, not one day has been the same. Every day has its own agenda, work tasks, and cadence. Every day has been intense yet peaceful beyond measure.
The days have consisted of many farm-family meetings overlooking the pond.
Yard work.
The triumphant purchase of a lawn tractor.
A joint farm bank account opened and discussion of solidifying our LLC.
The common yet fairly agonizing experience of goat lice.
Starting in on some immediate maintenance needs.
Yard work.
An interior remodel.
Yard work.
The exterior paint color decision was finalized.
Yard work.
Many friends stop in for visits and feel the whimsy, contagious energy, and potential this place provides.
I have used muscles I didn’t know I possessed.
I have pieces of straw and hay (by the way I know those are two separate things now) on the floor of my house at all times no matter how much I clean.
I have hitched the trailer to the 4-wheeler and hauled away load after load to the burn pile with help from my trusty sidekicks Thing 1 and Thing 2. (Don’t ask me to reverse though, it is a skill left to learn another day).
I have laughed harder than I knew I could.
I have learned so many farmy things my head is spinning.
We have all been rendered speechless by the pond’s bio-diversity. The blue Herron who fishes silently and methodically in our pond, beaver-otters, geese, wood ducks, mergansers, moose, the list is endless. My mom said it best, “It’s like we’re living in a Disney movie.” I half expect any morning now to look out my window to the pond and see my mom in her morning-robbed splendor with birds lining her shoulders and arms as she sings falsetto opera to them.
Week one was exhausting, exhilarating, intense, peaceful, accomplished, and destined. We have much work to do and more dreams to build. We are confident God led us to this place, this piece of Earth at this time in the history of the world for a purpose. Every day we rise with the knowledge that we are here for such a time as this not knowing why, or where this path will lead, yet we follow armed with intention made possible by the previous owner’s dreams. I salute and honor all of you fellow dream builders who are building onto someone’s dreams or starting fresh and laying the foundation for dreams to come. I think my grandson’s token phrase says it best, “All the sparkles, all the things.”
Main house.
All the
Large pond.
sparkles, all
Tiny pond.
the things.
