wide open spaces

we have suddenly embraced country living. my in law's 18 acre plot has renewed our dreams of land and wide open spaces. i realized all of the amazing things my kids have missed out on during our stint as crappy condo owners. frog catching and turtle nesting have been delightful...but even simple things like playing wiffleball and rolling down a grassy knoll were out of the question in our old abode. even the small "park areas" of our condo association were filled, nay COVERED, in dog poop. the grass was so toxic we never walked on it for fear of squashing a giant turd.


i feel like a farmer again, and i love it. as a kid, my brother and i ran barefoot most of the time. we helped pluck vegetables for dinner from the garden and fetch fresh eggs from the chicken coup. we played ball in the yard most nights and chased lightening bugs around the campfire. i don't remember watching tv. we didn't have video games or cell phones. no, it wasn't the late 1800's...it's how we were raised.

i've been turning off "handy manny," "dinosaur train," and "chuggington" and we haven't missed it...at all. we dig holes for shrubs and plant bulbs for next year's harvest. we search for unusual bugs and eat water ice while we sit on the porch swing. while the boys nap, i weed and rake and plant seeds. i feel alive again. fresh air seems to heal my recent overwhelmed status and births a new outlook on life. the grandness of creation will do that to a person. like seeing little radish seeds sprout to perfection in 4 days with little more than dirt, rain and sunshine. it's a small thing, but when you think on it, it's brilliant! just the concept of creation. the exact positioning of the earth in it's distance from the sun. how on earth does an orbit work? i've just got to know. when you think about the fact that outside of the cars zipping by and the long to-do-lists, and the stress of the balance (or deficit) of the checking account...when you get past all of that and remember, "i am standing on a planet right now. it's floating on an orbit in space...infinite space that cannot ever be explored to it's breadth nor can it's intricacies ever be explained or understood. and all i am thinking about is the unfolded laundry? seriously?"

i need to re-evaluate my processing. i've been seeing it more...the things God wants me to see and acknowledge and ponder. that's it...ponder. i've been doing a lot of that. thinking about the way things are and even the smallest of details which are formed and placed in such an amazing way. like earth worms. i love them. digging their tiny tunnels, burrowing deep so water can seep where it's needed. what if we didn't have them? just that one little species. bet my garden couldn't survive. maybe all plants would perish without their squiggly neighbors. maybe trees need them too. if we didn't have trees, then the birds would nest on our houses. wait, could we even have houses (or ikea for that matter :) without wood? oh wait, trees make oxygen. we couldn't have ourselves without trees. oh and shade. yes, we need shade. i guess we could just build everything out of concrete. talk about a heavy shelving unit :) do you see where i am going? it's so complex, one cannot even begin to compute anything but what we are able to compute. but then again, we were created with minds and pondering capabilities so that we would, in fact, use them.


i don't have any grand misconceptions. i know we won't have anything nearly as beautiful as our interim housing at my inlaw's estate. in fact, we may never own any land this huge or amazing...and that is fine by me. but, i have realized this week, we need a plot. maybe a small plot, but indeed something with more than a 10x10 square of grass. something with room for more than 3 people and grill. we need room for a little adventure...and lots of pondering.