It has been almost two years since writing…two years since moving from my Pennsylvania home and yard, from the creatures who lived there and from family and old friends. In my last post I looked back at the life I had lived and wondered in print about what was to come and what I would find. It was an anxious time of facing the unknown with no idea how life would unfold.
Today I live in the modest farm manager’s house on an old farm perched high above the Potomac River, surrounded by woodlands, wetlands and fields. The view from my window is framed by two large red cedars and beyond them, a sea of trees-myriad oaks, beech, tulip poplar, American holly and pawpaw standing as sentinels, as guardians of this land. Many of them were here long before this farm was carved from the rocky landscape and will live on long after I am gone.
The house and farm were built in the 1920’s and though now an educational center, the farm has been worked for generations. I am not the farm manager. I am the gardener for our half-acre children’s garden, caretaker of our flock of laying hens and multi-purpose farm helper. This evening I’ll collect the eggs and close our chickens in for the night, milk our cows, feed our geese, turkey and donkey, set out hay for the goats and sheep and bid everyone a good night and pleasant dreams before climbing back up the hill to our house.
God has granted me a rich and satisfying life in this place, a wholly unexpected opportunity to experience that which, until now, I have only read about. I am blessed to arise each morning, not knowing what the day will bring, but knowing I will be outdoors in the wild and domestic landscapes and among the life that both support. A verse from a favorite hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, rings through my mind repeatedly as I walk these old farm roads. “Hither to Thy love has blessed me; Thou has brought me to this place. And I know Thy hand will bring me safely home by Thy good grace.”
It is with thanksgiving that I once again begin chronicling my life, intimately intertwined with the Creator and His land and creatures and I hope the stories will bless those who read as well.
1 comment:
I can't tell you how glad I am to see you are writing again--and that your voice is still full of that stillness and peace that I always associate with it.
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