Welcome to the Farm

On a winding road along the river, in a small town in Maine, there's a 200-year old farmhouse I hope will survive my family's years in residence. It would be a shame for it to have stood proud for 200 years only to have one family (and by family I mean my 3 children) do the whole thing in.  A farmer's porch looks out over our little pond and apple orchard, where once upon a time our ducks Gideon and Lois (may they rest in peace) used to swim happily when not waiting for the school bus to arrive (true story).  It felt like a fairy tale coming true to me when we moved into the farmhouse, and honestly, it still does.

My husband - besides being hot as heck in a plaid wool coat and chainsaw chaps, which may actually not be the name of the chaps worn while chain-sawing - keeps this old place running, cuts and splits a million cord of wood by hand like a boss, makes the chicest farmtastic decor I've ever seen, spoils me with way too many boots (an obsession of mine), and once in a moment of outrageous romance, a surprise baby goat.  (Every girl has her own idea of romance, ok!? There should be a sixth love language, because livestock is totally mine.) Our three kids are so unique and fun to watch growing up (into people who we hope will one day live in their own houses somewhere nearby and come to visit all the time).  They're 7, 16 and 17, and it's like we are living in almost every stage of parenting simultaneously, which is awesome and sentimental and sort of schizophrenic-feeling.

I'm obsessed with talking at great length with my girlfriends, without whom I could not even survive. For real.  The volume of my emotions and daily word count are by far and away too much for any male person to contend with alone.  I think my husband appreciates my girlfriends almost as much as I do.  Occasionally when my feelings get REAL big, he cautiously glances at me and suggests, "maybe you should call a girlfriend..." They encourage me, pray for me, make me laugh until I almost pee my pants (or is that from being close to 40?! Lord help me), and bring food when when something crappy is happening.  Because Jesus and food can fix basically anything.  The whole back of the farmhouse is windows, and there, looking out over the paddock and the farmyard, are two cheetah print chairs, where my husband and I have coffee on weekend mornings and my girlfriends and I sit and solve the greater mysteries of life over tea many an afternoon.  One of my sweet pals gave me a sign that says, "Friends Gather Here," and it sits perched atop the window sill in that little sunny corner. Because it's so totally true.

We have goats (as previously noted while discussing romantic gestures);  a miniature donkey (I did not know about this animal existing before my husband found ours online and we went to get her and drove her home in a dog crate, people!) who came with a free-goat-with-purchase which is the hands-down best free gift with purchase ever; two pot belly pigs - one of whom we rescued after he had been returned twice to a Humane Society two hours away because disgruntled former adopters disapproved of his hesitancy to do flights of stairs and his disinterest in sitting on the sofa watching tv (a lot of nerve that pig has, right!?) -  a bunch of chickens, one of whom lived in the house for a couple weeks while her frostbitten toes healed, so we could sit together watching tv while she soaked her weird-looking chicken-feet in epsom salt and warm water (can I tell you how much my husband loved that...?); and a golden doodle named Rigby, who cuddles at a moment's notice, loves to fetch and usually doesn't torment the chickens but frequently torments us by shoving his doodle-snout under our hands, irrespective of whether we're holding hot coffee, because he's obsessed with being patted on the head.

Seriously, there is something so incredibly therapeutic about the farm.  It's a place we see God's goodness constantly.  From the way the sky looks different over the paddock every single day to the little goat kisses I love so much, to the rainbow of eggs we gather and watching mama hens raise their fluffy little chicks out back... Peace, grace and goodness (and goats) abound at the farm.  I've had various blogs before, and I'm starting this one new, because I think the farm is about fresh beginnings and new stories being written, and I'm hoping to share it with you (along with many random stories, told in a stream of consciousness fashion and filled with lengthy run-on sentences, because we're chatting and not writing essays, for Pete's sake). If you can not-judge me for the chatter, and for wearing elastic-ankled sweatpants that may verge on the side of looking like Ralph Macchio's did in Karate Kid, but less high water, far too often at home, the door is always open. (Unless you stop by unexpectedly in a vehicle I don't recognize and knock on the door.  Because in that case, my wierdo-phobia will be in high gear, and I will be barricaded inside, planning my escape and possibly texting my girlfriends a description of the vehicle so the police will know what to look for if I'm suddenly missing.)