One evening in the spring of 2014, Chantal let me know that
she was beginning to look for a new house and property. This wasn’t a complete surprise, as we had
both discussed a desire for a return to the land and the space that would come
with it. It was also not the first time we had looked for more land. We had previously scanned online to see what properties were
available. Yet this time I could tell
she was serious and before long we were actually looking at homes and land with our realtor and trying to
discern the will of God.
Our search narrowed to a handful of properties available at
the time. We prayed about the decision,
decided to list the “dream” home we had custom built only five years earlier,
and decided to make an offer on a six-acre tract in the woods near Wake
Forest. That property must not have been
God’s plan for us, because this particular house, one that had been on the
market for several years, was suddenly, that very day, under contract.
With some of the wind out of our sales, we turned back to a 20-acre
property in Franklin County that I had previously dismissed. It was a mess. Even the listing photos were bad. Still, on second look we could start to see
the potential.
Two months later, after the real challenge of buying this
house from a relocation company, we moved (with the help of MANY dear friends and family members) to the farm on July 8, 2014. I’m sure many people believe this was all my
doing, but it really wasn’t. That said,
we couldn’t be happier with the decision and the change of lifestyle. I’ll be forever grateful that Chantal was the
driver on getting us out here to the country.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of our move, it
seems a good time to put down in words a few quick reflections on a year on the
homestead.
The first and most obvious observation is how happy we are
out here in our new rural life. It really is
hard to express the joy we feel every day from living in what seems like our
very own state park. We are tremendously
blessed with 20 acres of land that has a very nice home, beautiful fields, a
large garden area with a lot of infrastructure already in place, a stocked
pond, a shop, an above ground pool (that needed a lot of work), and ten acres
of woods that appear to be about 40-50 years old. Every evening the sun sets over the pond -
the view we see from out kitchen and dining room window each night. If we didn’t have reasons to leave what is
now our homestead, we wouldn’t. And all
of it is less expensive than our previous home!
If I were asked about the biggest difference in our lives
since moving to the farm, I would have to say the way we interact as a
family. This has been an enormous
blessing. In our previous house
everything was brand new, and the yard was small and effectively required
little work. This meant there were no
projects to work on, and neighborhood covenants kept us from doing a lot of the
things we might have liked to do. So
there wasn’t much for us to work on as a family. We went our own separate directions, and everyone did their own things – including me.
The homestead is quite different. There is a seemingly endless list of
projects, chores, and things that must get done. And it’s simply not possible for Chantal and
I do to everything ourselves. The kids
must help. We’ve had more all-family
projects in the last year then we’ve had in all of our previous years
combined. From a formation standpoint
this is invaluable. There is just something
nice about spending time together as a family working toward a common goal. More importantly this place pulls us all outside every single day. This was an odd thing about our previous house. Something about it seemed to keep us inside. A lot. Not here, thankfully.
Another benefit is the opportunities for our children to
learn self-reliance and gain practical knowledge. This seems to happen on a near daily
basis. Almost everything becomes a
teaching moment and I'm coming realize even more how so many of our young people simply
aren’t learning really important life skills any more.
The key is teaching them how to fix and do little things rather than
hiring someone (which I would almost never do) or doing it yourself. Sometimes it is really basic things, but you
realize that were it not for that moment on the homestead, there wouldn’t have
been the opportunity to learn a simple but important skill. I’ll write more about this in future
posts. Thoughts around the way we raise
our children and how wildly different it has become from all of the rest of
human history is increasingly on my mind.
It has also presented opportunities for us to learn a lot of
new things. Beekeeping, raising
chickens, how to install a well pump, etc.
All of these are things that have helped us all grow and never would
have happened at our previous home.
Hard physical labor has also been a blessing. Difficult work helps one grow in humility and
gratitude. There simply isn’t a day on
the farm in which something doesn’t need to be done. That changes the way you exist in the world. It helps you disconnect from a virtual world,
and engage a very real and sometimes unforgiving physical world. I might be weird, but there is something very
gratifying about the exhaustion that comes at the end of a day of grueling
physical labor and being able to see the tangible fruit of your labors. It also makes you quite a bit more grateful for the hard work others perform in order to make our lives easier and more comfortable. Kids have a whole new appreciation for produce in the grocery store after they've had to do for themselves all that a garden requires.
Ora et labora. Prayer
and work. The sometimes mindless labor
of the homestead allows plenty of time to think and pray. This has been such a blessing for me
personally. So much of what I do out
here involves loud equipment and fairly mindless repetitive motions. With hearing protection on and few if any
interruptions, I can easily drift into thought and prayer. Conversations with God, often stopping simply
to stop and thank Him for the many gifts he has placed in my life. One of which is this home and piece of land
on His green earth.
Well, that’s already over a thousand words and the farm chores are calling. Need to go clear more
brush. I’ll end with my own continuing thoughts about consumer dependence and intentional independence as we prepare to celebrate our nation’s great
declaration. The move to the country, to
this farm, has a lot to do with our family's independence
– thanks be to God.
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