June 14, 2011 @ 9:40 am | Filed under: Country Life,Family,Pure Sunshine,Uniquely Me

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

In the past four months:

• We moved to a new town, away from family, friends, and church
• Said town is a  rural town where I need to drive to yet another town in order to visit Walmart
• I finished a five year college career and GRADUATED
• Our youngest finished a four year college career and GRADUATED
• I witnessed my first snake and then…my first mouse
• I built a deck, with a *little help from my man. Okay, maybe it was the other way around…
• We spied newly born buzzards in the window of the old haybarn
• We planted our first-ever garden
• I have sat many mornings and evenings on the deck we built and delighted in the cows in the back pasture
• We’ve hosted several rich and fun-filled family and friends weekends at our country place
• I got a TEACHING JOB!!
• I witnessed my first newborn calf
• We’ve begun to harvest the vegetables from our garden – such deliciousness!

All of this has happened in the past four months and I’ve not blogged about any of it. It’s been the equivalent of a thick tongue and dry mouth…LOTS to say but no real way to put it all out there and feel like I am doing any of it real justice.

I woke up this morning though and – as I walked through my house, with the sunshine splaying happily on the floors of this old house, my coffee cup warm and cradled in my hands – I realized I am doing more of an inservice by not at least attempting to journal all this newness.

All this wonderfulness.

I am not an ordinary farm girl. What is the antithesis of a farm girl? Find that word in the dictionary and I am sure you’d come much closer to finding my picture attached. Yet I am experiencing such a deep-seated contentment and sense of wonder these days that is making this transition a true adventure.

Google has been my point of reference for everything in the  last few months. How far apart should I space my zucchini plants? Google. What does poison ivy look like? Google. What are the nesting habits of buzzards? Google. What kind of flowers do I need to put in my garden to keep away the bugs? Google. What kind of snake is this? Google. Pros and cons to having a farm cat?  Google. Recipes for thing to do with zucchini when you have a bumper crop? Google.

Trust me, it goes on and on. And this not-your-ordinary transplanted farm girl/teacher/writer couldn’t be happier about it all. That’s not to say that snakes and mice bring any sort of happiness at all. I do, however, accept that they have their specific place in this wild new territory I now call home, and I respect that.

And that, my friends, may be the newest new stuff of it all.

I may not have all the right words to introduce this new life to you, but I do promise to try. I will leave the bits of pieces of writing that is happening now that my soul has found this fresh inspiration in the country air. I will upload pictures of birds and of projects and of any variety of animals and/or pests. I will share glimpses of the joy and wonder we are finding here as we make memories we’ll treasure forever with family and with friends.

This promise is brought to you by a not-so-ordinary farm girl.

Tags: contentment, Family, laughter, living simply, memories