This morning starts out slow; the children played HARD at a friends’ house yesterday and they are still sleeping. Usually they beat me to getting out of bed in the morning and are raring to go. I take my tea out on the wrap-around porch and play some music while I listen to the sounds of our little farm waking up.
Temperatures have soared here this last week, and the boys and I have spent a lot of time at the creek while their daddy works. My oldest found some bones near the water (most likely a deer that was hit by a car or killed by the predators around here) and because we’ve been watching paleontology documentaries lately, he enthusiastically shouted “dinosaur!” whenever he found one.
The new baby birds above my kitchen window are nearly fledglings. It amuses me how angry baby birds look, with their little “mustache” style beaks! They watch me play music, and observe the comings and goings of my children with apparent disapproval, haha. It is funny to watch them stand to see, and then s-l-o-w-l-y hunker back down in their nest when they perceive themselves being observed.
One nice thing about the higher temps is that my garden is really starting to crank out the vegetables. I’ve been getting a nice handful of squash almost every day, so we’ve been eating a fair number of casseroles. I love the extra vegetables, even if my children and husband look askance at another meal boasting of squash, haha.
The fruit on our small orchard is ripening slowly but surely. I have been advertising the extra garden produce on Facebook marketplace, and will soon be advertising to get fruit orders in. This is a new endeavor and we are feeling our way forward slowly but surely — back when my husband’s family homesteaded in the mid 1800s, there was a sizeable orchard, but subsequent generations followed other legacies and the orchard petered out. Until my husband, that is. He is like a kid in a candy shop, looking for trees to plant and planning which ones to graft older varieties onto. I am excited to see it thrive, and the ripening fruit whispers of Hope.
By the noise in the house, it sounds like my children have awoken and my day must begin. We will water the plants, and do our morning chores, check on our cows, and perhaps yet again, go play in the creek. The days are long, but the years are short, as my husband says, and even though I panic sometimes when the farm bills come in (we just ordered parts for our aging swather, so don’t get me started...) the truth of the matter is, I’d rather be here, right here, in this moment. My faith has been stretched beyond what I thought possible, but it has been utter magic watching God provide for us in every moment, in every breath, once I allowed Him the space to work. We are safe, we are fed, we are clothed, and my children laugh and play in the yard. I am able to play music at church, and teach music online. I couldn’t really ask for more than that.