Though I have been blogging for a very long time (it wasn’t even called “blogging” back then), I still have times in my life when words just. don’t. come. out. That’s been the case over the last few years, as we went through another of life’s hurdle-phases.
Our baby graduated our homeschool. That’s one. And…we bought a forest. That’s another.
In the past several years, I’ve been focused on graduating our four well, assisting them up on their wobbly “adult” feet, and remodeling the house where they were raised so it sells for lots of money so my husband can buy a tractor. And..okay, I want a greenhouse. In the midst of that time, we had a hurricane, of course, and a flood (of the yard and outbuildings, not the house).
I didn’t write. I should have.
It’s time. Time to write again, of our new adventure. The premise of “just pure lovely” is still true to me today. To explain: Just Pure Lovely was the name of my blog a while ago, and it was based on Philippians 4:8, which advises us on how to not be anxious. “Think on the “good, just, pure, lovely,” etc. I still have to do that. I get anxious, and have to keep focusing on the “just, pure, lovely.”
So that’s pretty much why I’m here. We bought a 45-acre forest in the Smoky Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachian Mountains (they all merge at our spot), where I hope to carry on the hopes of the 15 generations of American farmers in my family line. I have always wanted “a bit of soil,” as much as Mary Lennox wanted it in The Secret Garden. Finally, I have it, though it’s damp, mountainous, and absolutely challenging.
I’ll write about that challenge here. About soil, micro-climates, chickens of course, but also about nature crafts, creativity, fermenting, harvest, and also about philosophy and research, as I can’t help myself but share that.
My childhood was odd: half spent in a self-sustained village of like-minded doers, and half spent in a primitive country where things like laundry machines aren’t a thing. Due to that “odd” childhood, I am what my very-American husband calls “ingenious,” in thinking up solutions to problems. He is what I call a “rigger,” thinking up solutions to problems as well, since he was raised by the American School of Hard Knocks, as a kid in poverty.
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Thank you for joining us on our adventure,
