Water Flows

Hope springs eternal.

Springs. Why do you suppose the word "springs" was chosen there?
Spring like the season?
Or spring, like water.

Hope flows like water. It seems effortless sometimes. When hope dries up, it's like a well going dry. In a way, water is hope, and hope is water.

Our valley is FULL of water! So much so, that there is a well (many locals are wholly familiar) that runs, just up the road from our house. People come regularly to get water. Some people call it "Jesus's Fountain," perhaps because no one really knows how long it's been there.
Turns out that well was an important piece to how the farm here was once managed.

Imagine, farming before electric and running water.
How?

Milking by hand is a given, naturally.
But once milk is collected, it has to be kept cold to prevent bacteria from forming. That may have been the only thing that was easier in winter - but how did dairy farmers do it in the summer?
With water.
At our old barn, there was a trough of water that cans of milk were sunk into to keep the milk cold. Sometimes, according to Uncle Hank, the water would "fail." So they took their cans of milk to the well down the road. At that time, there was a big trough here. Milk would be kept cold in cans in the trough here overnight.

If you've ever lugged a milk can around, you know they are not light. It doesn't get any better, once they are filled with milk! Horses surely pulled the cans by wagon to the trough, but you still had to get them on and off the wagon, and lowered into the trough, and then back out again.

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Thanks so much for your time reading this post! Work to begin restoring our old barn will begin this spring. To join or share the cause, please visit gf.me/u/w9mhpd

Great-Uncle Hank

World, I'd like you to meet my great-uncle.
You may already know him. He's a pretty incredible guy!

We're rather meeting him together. I'm getting to know him like I never did, and he is a wealth of inspiration!

Uncle Hank is my late grandmother's brother. My grandma that was the center of my world, and a sizable chunk of my heart to this day. As a child, I remember him visiting at grandma and grandpa's with his family, maybe once a year or so. He was REALLY tall, and largely a stranger to me. I feel like I spent the majority of their time there, being somewhere else.

Great-Uncle Hank carrying my dad.

Our home is the site of his childhood. The family moved here when he was two. Since we moved in, Uncle Hank has made a near-annual visit, usually in October. Even in its sorry current condition, he enjoys seeing the barn. In the early part of this decade, it seemed his way of closing his time in New York, before traveling back to Texas for the winter with his wife.

When he walks through it, he points out the scenes from his most vivid memories. The giant, old maple tree beside the barn is where his grandpa used to park his Model T when he came to help put in hay. There's a certain spot at the edge of the hay mow that he distinctly recalls as the precise point upon which he fell out of the mow and broke his arm.

It was this fall I'd learned that Uncle Hank no longer winters in Texas. He's made his home in New York, and still enjoys coming to see the barn. This year, at 90-years-old, the condition of this place that he once worked and played seemed more important than it had in the past. Uncle Hank noted some places my husband has attempted to patch, and it gave him tremendous hope that we would yet save the barn.

It seemed only right to be honest. As much as we would love to save the barn, it's a matter of finances. As a young(ish) family, living in an obscenely overtaxed area, in a state with an equally obscene cost of living, I didn't know that we would ever have the funds to save the barn before it fell in.

Those were horrible words to hear coming out of my own mouth to this sweet man. Thankfully, they didn't dull his hope, or the twinkle in his eyes (so much like I remember my grandmas!). There's something about Uncle Hank and his wish that energized this buried dream up and out of the depths of my heart.

Something that felt like it might happen eons from now, suddenly gained top priority, and a significantly more urgent deadline.

With a new year just around the corner, I'm opening myself to faith, and creating one (of a few yet to be pursued, this is just the fastest) avenue to make a milestone in the big dream possible: making the first repairs to our old barn. If you would like to help with this, our fledgeling gofundme page is here for you to share or contribute to if you are so inclined.

No matter what, thanks so much for reading along so far.

And the Haymow Can Be a Yoga Studio

I Quit.

Almost.

Wanted to...
Thought I should.

Got overwhelmed.
Felt misdirected.
Got caught up in being ignored, used, and disrespected.

But here's the thing.
It's all in my head.
Those things are happening, they are real.
I'm focusing on something else, instead.

Overwhelmed means ABUNDANCE.
Misdirected? Perhaps the goal is near.
Mistreated? All in how you view it:
Could be their ego, could be their FEAR.

I'm brave enough for everyone.
Stronger than they know.
Smart enough to see the truth:
You manifest your destiny - you choose the way you go.

So friends, I am still working
Still in this restoration game.
My barn may be 100 this year.
We can give it a fresh face - maybe even a name.

This path comes from my very core.
It breathes my every breath.
What's old will again be new.

My sole intent
Aim true

Certainly

I WILL.