One-Year Anniversary

A year ago today, we woke up in Staunton, Virginia, and drove the last hour or so to our land. We'd arrived.

It's been a good year.

***

My Dad came out for a whirlwind visit: late Friday night until Sunday morning. We drove around most of Saturday looking at properties for sale in our area.

With the declining price of land across the nation, I've wondered (grumpily) at times whether we weren't hearing from God correctly, or whether we'd overstepped our bounds and purchased the wrong plot of land. It feels sometimes like it's so costly: economically, emotionally, relationally.

I read in Psalms that morning, "Rejoice in the Lord always." And I purposed that I would do that, no matter what the properties looked like; even if I liked something better than ours, I would rejoice.

But as the day passed, my spirits rose. I didn't like any of the properties better than ours. Not remotely. More than that, I realized that, though I feel like we live at the edge of the world (45 minutes or so outside of Charlottesville, a fairly small city of about 100,000), we could be A LOT further out.

And we could be in a much less congenial place. Rather than Butch, the Bessettes, and the Bush clan around us, with other friendly, helpful neighbors dropping by at times, we could be in a place with Confederate flags and thick accents. Rather than opera and God and gardening, we might have had to figure out how to talk about ... the mind boggles.

Even the basic shape of our land, a lovely rectangle, felt so well-defined, so easily fenced. I've been grumpy in my mind at times because we all know that a square would be the easiest shape to fence, and require the least fencing for total area. A long, thin rectangle seems so, well, wasteful.

But that was only until I considered the alternative: a giant's mouth, full of missing teeth as a perimeter. Or a diamond shape, with bites cut out. Maybe a squashed hat? No thank you. Straight lines and four clear corners make me smile. Ahh.

So I returned to my paradise, after the hottest day, perhaps ever, in Central Virginia (Dennis Bessette said, "It hit 115; hottest I've ever known it here"), and rejoiced.

Today, incredibly, the weather hardly hit 90. After what may be about four weeks of 100 degrees or more, a day in the upper 80s is livable, workable. Phil went to the lower pasture and, when pulling the cedar didn't work, he pushed it into the creek and kept on fencing. Three sides are now done, and he's working on clearing the fourth side. There is lush growth in that bottom land. We are excited for the cows to get down there.

The boys and I have been doing more school work. It's very pleasant for me to read to the boys, and I enjoy the little insights they have. Today we read a paragraph about muddy rain, that falls when volcanic ash mixes with rain. While the example volcano was in Southeast Asia, Jadon said, "Something like that probably happened at Krakatoa" (see The Twenty-One Balloons for that story), and Isaiah said, "Yeah, and at Vesuvius" (he reads and rereads a book about Pompeii).

To round out a pleasant one-year anniversary on the land day, we had the unpleasant task of beginning to destock our animals. The count was at 25 mammals, not including people or pets: 13 sheep, 3 pigs, 5 cows, and 4 goats.

When Phil and Ara killed the pigs, Ara actually did the shooting and the sticking (throat-cutting). But for an old goat, we didn't think it worth the money to pay someone else, or worth the hassle to bring her to the sale barn.

But it is so hard to kill a living animal. I'm actually tearing up over Chrystal, one of the first two animals to come to our farm. She was crotchety, and didn't breed, so she's been, more or less, a freeloader and a money sink since she came.

But she taught us about the importance of decent fences. And her coat changed from coarse black in the winter to a softer tan and black in the summer. She had a name and a history (Bessette farm to Tocci farm to Lykosh farm).

I won't miss her. I am happy to have her meat.

But we had to entice her out of her paddock with grain. After she had walked a little distance away, she refused to go any further. Phil took his .22 rifle and, while I held the lead rope to keep her head steady, Phil shot her between the eyes from about two inches away. She didn't flinch and died instantly.

Phil told me that he didn't close his eyes while taking the shot, but did when cutting her throat.

For Phil, who didn't cut the umbilical cords when his sons were born, to kill one of our animals: it's a big deal.

We're really in this life. We're doing it.