So, in April, my husband had the great idea for the children and myself to stay for a couple of weeks and work on the house and garden. With two large, packed to the max trailers, we carted half the contents of our house to the farmhouse. Hubby stayed for a few days to help us get started. We planted fruit trees and did some more painting and cleaning out of the house. The previous owner had left a lot of “stuff” behind. Big furniture items and just plain trash. It was a lot of work cleaning up after that guy. And when I tell you the house needed some updating, I wasn’t kidding…
Little did we know, on this particular trip, we had a stowaway. We had driven a good 300 miles, tarps covering our loads, and rain pelting us off and on along the way, only to discover our cat tucked in among the boxes. Seriously, have you ever traveled with a cat? Not something I was looking forward to. She was so scared, and thankful to get inside the cab of the truck where it was warm and dry! A more grateful cat I never did see. On the trip back to Houston, she was not so thankful…
I would love to proudly tell you that when my husband left, with the plans to come back to the farm in two weeks, I stayed the whole of it and got tons and tons done. But within 48 hours after he had gone, I was in the van, kids, dogs, and trailer in tow heading home to Houston. BIG chicken. Bok, bok, bok…. Aside from missing my husband, I was lonely. Even with a houseful of children, I knew no one up there, was unfamiliar with the territory, and realized that all of my friends and family were 500 miles away. Depressed and feeling isolated, I caved. Didn’t see that coming…
We did get quite a lot done before I crumbled.
As for the garden, it was far more difficult than I had imagined. The current raised bed was held in place by railroad ties. A great idea if you’re not concerned about toxic chemicals leaching into your vegetables. But guess what? They are impossible to move! I consider myself a fairly sturdy person. But no match for a railroad tie. And one that was rotting at that! Rolling them away from the beds worked. But I couldn’t roll them far enough away and they were still in the vicinity of my garden. And I didn’t want them around at all!
I did the best I could at moving the ties out of the way, and then filled in their gaps with cinder blocks. The bed was still soft enough to work the tiller. The row garden, on the other hand, was hard, had become compacted, and full of weeds. No way was my little tiller going to break that up. It appeared that the previous garden area hadn’t been worked in a few years. And as much as I believe in a no-till method, initially a tiller would be useful to make the soil workable.
The cows joined us in April and May. Lots of mamas, and as the spring and summer months passed, we were introduced to many of the babies. They were one of the highlights of this journey. Especially since we had sold off all of our livestock and my children were still missing them!
The cows don’t seem to give much of a care about us, barely give us the time of day, but stand for pictures. They do love Molly. Tiny, self-confident, smallest member of the household, Molly. She would venture into the pasture and the cows would follow her about. Noses to the ground, going wherever she led.
When we went back to the farm, after my solitary failure, the Lord blessed us once again. I had been feeling so isolated and alone, and so far away from what I knew as normal. A stranger in a strange land. But in May, my neighbor called me up and said she was going into town and was going to pick me up to show me around. She not only showed me around, but introduced me to several key members of our little town. With each visit, I felt more and more comfortable and confident and thankful for what the Lord had done. I then began to not want to go back to Houston ever. And would tear up at the thought of leaving my farm.
Rainbows seem to be frequent on the farm. God is good.
Part 3 next time…
Source:
http://ahomesteadjourney.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-journey-begins-part-2.html
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