A Quick Summary for New Readers

My husband Phil and I will have been married a decade this June 24. If someone had told me on my wedding day that ten years later I would live on a fledgling farm with five cows and bees and a little orchard, I would have stared, dumbfounded. It's not that I had anything against farming—I just had never considered it as a potential occupation.

By background, I have a liberal arts degree (double major in English and Humanities). As a young 20-something I loved the classics and opera, classical music and art. If a city defined me then, it would probably have been Florence, Italy. I am now in my early 30s, and savor the moments of beauty as I find them, though man-made beauty, whether literary or aural, comes rarely.

God-made beauty surrounds us.

My husband Philip is a structural engineer by trade. Shortly after he got his graduate degree, he left his employer of 13 years and started his own business.

My parents, too, began a business. I've worked for (with) them, to greater or lesser degree, since early on. So we both have some entrepreneurial background.

We moved to unimproved land last summer. We have about 44 acres, which is about 176 times the amount of land we had in Boulder, but still quite small by "farm" standards.

Forty of our acres are wooded, and much of it is steep. As we considered how we could earn a living, we realized that cattle could not support us. Four acres of good pasture can support, perhaps, four cows, and cows might bring $1000 each. Clearly, not enough to live on.

A four-acre market garden could possibly provide enough income, and we looked at that for some time. Vegetables, though, require a great deal of effort, and since neither of us desires 100 hour work weeks, and our four sons probably wouldn't appreciate it, either, we opted against that.

One of the great joys of my life is fruit. My Bible study leader in college said, "I've never met anyone who eats as much fruit as you." So the idea of an orchard seemed good. We have outside income to live on while the trees grow, and at some point, Lord willing, we will harvest delicious fruit, enough for ourselves and many others.

Our four sons, soon to be ages 8, 6, 4, and 2, walk around now saying, "Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Lykosh Boys! Lykosh Boys! Goooo Team!"

How we came to farm, and how we came to farm in Virginia is another story. I suppose the story before that is how and why we changed our diet (to sum up: we were sick and all got better). And there are stories of God's faithfulness, and God calling us to himself. . . .

But those will wait for another day.

I leave you with a beautiful poem from today, by Irish poet W.B. Yeats. The recording of the poet reading it (available on YouTube) speaks with power.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.