Land Ho!

We reached the land yesterday around noon: cloudy, humid, and so green and lush! Ecstasy! Yay! Finally!

Unpacking when there is no place to unpack onto proved to be a challenge. Phil went to get equipment from the Bessettes (left there in October), and Cheri and I picked blackberries from the brambles. Yum! Phil drove Samson, the truck, to the camping site in the trees (good thing, since it was almost impossible to hike anywhere on the land--it is SO overgrown, due to a heavier than usual rainfall this year).

After we unloaded everything in the truck onto a tarp on the ground, the Zach Bushes showed up. Thankfully, because we were going to put the tent up on a slight slope. Zach suggested we just dig out the corner and make it more flat, which he and Phil did. I was so wiped at that point, I had thought of it but didn't suggest it.

Rachel Bush, wife of Zach, took me up the truck's trail and showed me all the poison ivy. Everywhere. It was almost unreal, but now at least I know what it looks like! And no reactions so far, and no chiggers from the blackberry picking, which Rachel said (privately, away from us yesterday), "If they don't get anything, it will be a miracle!" So I keep praying, because that would be very sad.

We hiked down to the creek with Cheri (Ken spent much of the afternoon in the A/C car with the boys, which was good because we have no chairs, and there is really no where to sit or rest, other than the tent). Then to dinner at the Bush Seniors, bless them, where we had a great evening. Back to the tent at 10:30, where we did a tick check on all the boys. That was an hour-long, brutal process. Jadon was extremely freaked by the few he had, and Abraham must have sat in tick paradise, as he had 30? 50? ticks in his underwear. We had left our clothes up at the car, and didn't want to drive the truck back to get new, so he slept in the nude, and whimpered much of the night.

It started to rain shortly after 11pm, and I think it rained much of the night. All our stuff was just loosely covered with a tarp, so I don't think that was too good for our possessions, but thankfully Phil is off purchasing a construction trailer or two, and a shipping container or two or three, right now, Lord willing.

The humidity was so high, Phil opened all the tent windows. Jadon woke up this morning, completely drenched, with a puddle under his mat. Apparently there was a little breeze that let water in his window. Oops.

Phil left at 8:30am to get his parents. And I was left with four boys on the land, with soaring temperatures (90?), no real paths, plenty of poison ivy, no way to cook, no books to read (all locked in the car). And the vague sense that there was something I should DO, but I had no idea what it was. How did I spend all my time in Boulder? I surely always felt busy! I pulled poison ivy until I have a VERY good idea of what it looks like. Goats would help eradicate, but I don't think we should wait for fencing to come in--I want that nasty stuff gone now.

So the morning felt aimless, but then Rachel Bush picked us up and brought us back to her house, where I am now.

It sounds epic, doesn't it? I think it is actually pretty fun, thanks to good friends helping us more than they know. Or maybe (definitely) it is true that we are given the grace we need when we need it, and not before.