In just over a month, we will be carrying the farm dream about 60 miles north, to our new farmstead. Still God’s Whisper farm – in name and dream – just at a new location on a quieter road with a little more land and much more usable pasture. 
Oh, and a 210 year old farmhouse with two front doors.
We will pack up 6 goats, 14 chickens, 2 guineas, 3 dogs, 5 cats, and 2 humans and begin again – and hopefully for the final time – in Madison County, where I have to resist comments about bridges all the time, even though I’ve never read the book or seen the movie.
Two nights ago, I stood at the top of the hill behind the house and stared out over the mountains I have come to love and I felt the tears. I didn’t really think I would ever leave here, and yet, we are leaving, and yet, that is very good.
The driveway.
My wise friend Shelva talks so well of grieving, about how change requires we grieve the old to make way for the new, and I am ever grateful to her for that gift, for the reminder that it’s okay to cry about leaving something even in the midst of the deep excitement about what’s ahead. So when the tears come, I let them because if I feel sadness then surely I did not care about this place, and I so care.
My hope is that someone who needs respite and healing, who wants to continue the restoration of this land and themselves will come here and find what they need, as I did. (If you know someone for whom this place might be a home for a while or forever, please do share the real estate listing.)
Philip’s Workshop
In ways I cannot even articulate, I know our time here is done. We have restored the land, brought it health and life, and it has healed me deeply, fully, giving me space and work to form the strength of scars and to build the hope of dreams.
My new office
Now, we move on to a place closer to Philip’s work, to a space with pasture and deep history, and the glow of a town named Radiant. Tomorrow, we will stop at the historical society there and learn what we can about our new home, and I will think about ways to tell it’s story and intertwine the tale with ours.
I am eager to live where the sound of cars is minimal, and the smell of grass profound. I want to name all the cows in the pasture next door and walk with them to the historic cemetery next door. I am eager to sit by my office window and see the chickens scratch and watch the goats frolic out our bedroom window. I cannot wait. Truly.
But for this month, I dwell in expectation and in the quietness of grief. A month of life, true, hard, lovely.