Much in March

This guy blew my mind with this selfie the other day.  So much more teen-looking than I notice in person each day.

You'll find us here 3 nights a week and every Saturday til May. 

I take this pic every day, multiple times a day and it's always different and beautiful.  This is my fave shot this month.

Sunset on the porch, staring at that view, with my baby and her snaggle tooth.

Trying out the telescope.

Working around Anna's designated campsite.  She had Josh putting steps up that tree for her.

Just a pretty scape on the left side of our property where Josh cleared out an opening in the fence for me to keep on walking.

This one with the window down on rides home from school.

Housewarming gift my friend Becky gave us.  It's so lovely. And I cannot believe how badly I needed new kitchen towels!

I find I am charmed by all the cows and their pastures we pass coming and going home multiple times each day.  I said I want to get some cow art.  Both my girls promptly sat down and made me some.

 

I turned 42 this month. Sweet flowers (and some lemonade!) from Cathy who took me to lunch that day.

Sweet cake my peeps picked out and we ate out at a new-to-us local restaurant.

Gifts included a new beach chair, beach towel, and beach blanket.  And Anna made me some coupons, which stole my heart. She fashioned them after the coupons I give them for birthdays and holidays.

We went to the beach for Spring Break and it was such a good time!  Legoland, afterward, was not.  And Josh and the kids attended a family wedding in Ft. Green before we drove all night to get home ahead of traffic.  I think I will post a beach pics post separately.  Here are a few from the whole trio of stops to mark it in these March minutes though.

This month, Josh also broke ground planting his first trees in his planned orchard.  Two peach trees.  Followed by two magnolia trees over by one of the ponds.  Then came a couple willow trees Anna and I wished for. And then, he/we got started on the THREE HUNDRED pine trees he ordered, which will go along property lines, in a grove by the other pond, and in other random spots, too, because ... three hundred of those bad boys!  Insert my wide eyes.

Our rabbits are getting super chill.  Acting like dogs and laying about.

Early morning mists are so magical out here!

And, oh, we have a cow that comes to visit every single evening here the past week or so.  One of these days the new owner of the pasture might come wrangle him back to his own property, I think. Until then, we marvel at rural life.  As well, we have met every neighbor now and that feels great! Neat, albeit spaced way out, community.

It's so fun to watch Spring unfold on the property and see what all pops up.  I thought this was a hosta.  But no, tulips!  In Lasa's favorite color.  She has been in love with daffodils all over the place too.  And then some daffodils of our own came up out back.  Sweet gift from the Lord.

I got my first Covid vaccine.  Josh got his second.

 

When I got stranded on the property in the rain and had to duck under an old donkey run-in shed.  Rusty and broken down, but still operational!  We have several of these around the property that I saved from Josh's plans to tear down.  I love them!  Oh yeah!  We finally settled on a name for the property, Sweet Rock Farm. We needed a name to apply for farm status ... to get tax exempt status on certain property-related purchases coming up.  First up, a four-wheeler and mower of some sort.  STAT!

 

That heartache and grief that almost ended me/our family the last year or so, it's still being worked out.  The Lord is always working things out.  It aches something fierce sometimes, other days I can't smile hard enough at the goodness of the Lord to regrow what seemed lost. This month, in particular, seems to have turned a corner and I can't even begin to give enough words to my humble thanks to the Lord.  I can only praise Him.  I can only testify to his faithfulness and his mercy and his good, good Word.  And keep on with the work of healing and hoping, following after Him, and rejecting fear and doubt and insecurity that tries to pull me back down some days. One day at a time.  Thank you, friends, who have prayed for me/us all these many months.  Please don't stop.

 

I read such an apt quote at the tail-end of my beach read this month, felt like dropping it here.

 

 "Life took longer to reassemble than it did to blow apart, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be lovely, provided that one remembered to go for country walks and to tune the wireless to music."

 

Goodness knows we have many country walks in our life now.  ;)

 

Thankful for spring and the newness it brings!