Real Life is Messy and Unexpected

While I enjoy a beautiful photo or video as much as anyone else, I'm under no illusions that those reflect anyone's daily reality.

It's August, which means that the landscape is showing the stress from high temperatures and sparse rain. Most of my vegetable garden looks like crispy critters. The fruit trees are looking sad, and some of the trees on our property are starting to turn color and drop their leaves. Very few flowers are blooming. The pasture and slopes are showing a lot of bare patches where topsoil was lost when the land was cleared of undesirable trees. It's easy to get discouraged right now.

At times like this, it's easy to forget that progress doesn't usually happen on our schedule, and that we're further along than we were a year or 5 years ago. Especially if where we are now isn't where we thought we would be. We lose sight of how far we've come in the daily living of life.

We didn't expect that it would take so long to find land and build our house. We didn't expect that the land we found would have such poor soil in a lot of places. We didn't expect that we'd still be without a perimeter fence on our property 3.5 years after we purchased it. And we sure didn't expect my husband to suffer a heart attack in the middle of building our house.

The important thing is, this house we're building is better than anything we've ever had, and it's designed so that we'll be able to age in place. The property is large enough to allow us to grow an orchard, flowers, and vegetables, and to keep the chickens and ducks we have, as well as the sheep I want (being a retired cattleman, my husband is not super excited about sheep) and some day, a dog or two. At the same time, the property is not so large that we won't be able to manage it as we grow older. And my husband's heart attack? He's expected to make a full recovery. That could have turned out so much worse. Everything else is just a matter of time.

In the years since we moved to Tennessee, we've found both fellowship and community beyond anything we could have ever dreamed of. In the past, we've always had one or the other, but never before both. We've had the opportunity to bless and serve others, to support those who are grieving and to celebrate new friends, new marriages and new babies. And since my husband's heart attack, we've been given the blessing of prayers and service from our community. It is very humbling, and it's confirmation that we are exactly where we are supposed to be.

You can't see how far you've come if you don't stop and remember where you started. Our family has grown closer as we work together to build our homestead. And it has grown in size as we build relationships in our community.

Take photos. Take notes. Write things down as they happen so you don't forget your story.