the snowy day

 

 

 

We woke up yesterday to a winter wonderland. I lifted Ivar from his crib to look out the window and he wiggled down saying, "Oh! Snowy Day!" And went and got his book. We've been reading it all fall, telling him that one morning he would wake up and everything would be white.

So we went out after church and naps, made snow angels, dragged sticks, ate some snow (he looked at me amazed) and then he decided we needed some toys in the snow. He went to the garage and got his blue ball and digger truck and we sat in the snow and played with toys. A new snow activity for me.

Things took a turn when he got snow in his boot. And then it was time to go back inside. But we made things right with some warm, dry clothes and a mini mug of hot chocolate.

leaves!

Our old house in Minneapolis had two trees and therefore two trees worth of leaves. Can't count the trees we have here...but I can count the number of times I dragged this 12 by 16 foot tarp into the grove, heavy with leaves. Eight is the number. And that's only the front of the yard. Haven't even made it to the back.

But for the record, raking is great upper body cardio!

 

happy halloween!

 

 

 

Our first animals at No Cow Farm: a baby chicken and a little cow.

Huge thanks to my cousin Sarah who had the chicken costume.

no cow farm

While driving back and forth last week between my folks' place and our new place we kept talking about what we should name our new 10 acres. We have been calling it "the farm" but knew there was something more clever and perfect for our new home.

It turns out all of the nice tree and Groves combo names have already been taken by suburbs or middle schools: Maple Grove, Oak Groves, Cedar Park...

When we would tell Ivar we needed to get in the car to go to the farm he would get very excited. But then when we got to the farm the first thing he would do is inspect each building and announce, "no cow. no cow."

He thought we were going to Jake and Louie's farm. The one with cows and tractors and Ida and Stella.

He still looks for the cows each morning and night as we take our family walks around our new property. His neck stretches ahead of his body, hopeful that maybe that little red barn has a moo in it. And then he lets us know, "no cow. no cow."

So for now, we're No Cow Farm. A farm that is hopeful to one day have chickens and maybe bees, certainly a huge garden and fruit trees. And perhaps one day a cow. 



country roads

We’re moving from 1/8 acre to 10 acres. It used to be a farm, but the barn and silo have been torn down and it hasn’t had animals for over 40 years. It is part wooded, part corn field rented to the neighboring farmer and a whole lot of lawn to mow. (We got the riding mower in our purchase agreement!)

The farm house was built in 1890 and is in impressive shape, considering its age. The owners we are purchasing the house from have lived in this house for the last 40 years, raising their kids, hosting all of the family gatherings out on the front lawn.

Rory has been looking for a rural property for a bit over three years now. When we lived in Nebraska, he would take weekend trips back to Minnesota and scout out the areas he loved the most. He brought me along to see some of these properties and I humored him. I knew he was serious about this dream, but I didn’t really see it happening anytime soon.

We knew when we got pregnant with baby #2 that we would either have to finish our basement and put another bedroom in down there, or find a new home. And after pricing out the basement remodel and then realizing that the basement would just be the start, we decided we probably would have to move…because everything else started to feel a bit cramped when we envisioned another kiddo running around in here.

So we kept looking. Not really expecting to find anything, but hopeful.

We didn’t tell anyone we were looking though. This was mostly because we didn’t know if it would take three months or three years to find what we were looking for. The house hunt felt very casual, very non-committal.

So we took our road trips, visited properties and kept this fun little conversation between the two of us. And strangely, as Rory continued to tell of his dreams for this rural life, I started to feel some of my own dreams come to life as well. I began to envision my days. In February we found a house that we loved.  It had a huge porch and a big sun room. I could see myself living there, content and really happy. That property ended up falling through because of crazy zoning stuff beyond our control, but I told Rory after that visit, “something big just happened. I just became un-tethered.” And from that moment on, I was fully on board with this house hunt. His dream had become my dream too.

I think this is such a crazy and amazing part of marriage: the birth of dreams. It’s amazing, because usually a dream is birthed in one partner.  But to watch this dream grow into our dream might have been one of the cooler things to behold in our marriage.

When we first drove onto the property, we let Ivar out and he quickly ran opposite of the house. We just watched him as we caught up with our realtor. He was giggling and stumbling, and kept turning around to see when we were going to tell him to come back. But we never did. He was free to run in any direction he wanted.

And in that instant, I wanted to live there.  I envisioned a whole lot of our future days running around that yard, exploring the woods and raising our kids with a big garden, forts in the woods and a gravel road.

The next day we bought the place. A week later we sold our place. That felt crazy and wonderful. And now we are due to have a baby in one week, and to move the week after that. Which also feels quite crazy and wonderful...