We Open Up the Lower Pasture

On Monday, we had friends from Boulder visit us for a few hours. I love that believers can have instant connection on a deep level. And I was really pleased to hear the wife gasp, "Did you plant all those trees since you moved here?!" I think there's a sense for me sometimes like I'm just treading water, that little changes, that the land is almost the same as when we moved.

How gratifying to hear a complete outsider express surprise at the quantity of our progress.

That was the good on Monday.

The very, very bad on Monday was that Phil had his court date. He truly expected a verdict of Not Guilty, since we are legally allowed to live on our land, but are not legally "residents," as we do not legally have a "residence."

So he felt pretty beaten up when the judge said, "Guilty!" Phil asked, "Can you do anything to help me at the DMV?"

"No," said the judge.

And that was that. Guilty without remedy. No way to be not guilty. If he's pulled over again, without a change in our status, he faces jail time.

Tuesday morning we woke up under a heavy cloud. Perhaps not quite depression, but pretty extreme disappointment. The ruling felt unjust. Jesus, too, faced an unjust judge. How painful it must have been, and I never really considered it, thanked him for it.

I spent the day in pretty intense prayer. We think we have a plan now, and are no longer in despair.

Today Phil drove around looking for new pipe to get water to the lower pasture for the cows. But people in Virginia do not have sprinklers, and five stores had no pipe.

We scrounged leftover tree irrigation pipe, and even used a regular hose, but eventually managed to get water to the lower pasture.

We strung up a path for the cows, just a single strand of unelectrified wire, and gradually drove the five cows and three goats the 600 feet or so to the fenced in pasture. They ran down the slope, whether in eagerness to reach the new forage or in panic at the new environment, we couldn't tell. But all eight animals are safely corralled in about an acre of heavy underbrush now.

I almost cried to see them in forage up to their bellies, with junk trees and vines for them to nibble and begin to clear. The spaciousness of an acre, where, due to trees and other growth, we can't see the entire area at once, is so expansive, so rich. All the animals took great mouthfuls of greens, nibbling a bush here, wrapping a happy tongue around some weeds there.

It made me wonder if the cows had been depressed in their paddock. In any case, they seem ecstatic now. I hope they put on good flesh before the leaves fall, that the babies, who have been steadily losing condition, again look round.

Changing topics, the pigs continue to get out every day. Thankfully, we have fed them long enough that they don't go off our property, but it is startling to come across them in the orchard or by the sheep. So far, they have outwitted six innovations to keep them contained. Perhaps the seventh will be the charm.

Pointy ears escape; floppy ears stay put. So far, this rule of thumb is proving true at Spring Forth Farm.