The dust is settling

It was a week ago today that the moving van came and unloaded.  We spent the week unpacking and unpacking and unpacking some more.  At times it felt hopeless.  Tonight however, the books are almost all on the shelves, the china is in the cabinet, the kitchen is organized and functional (I baked my first loaves of bread this afternoon - a milestone!), the living room is settled and Pete's office is also functional. The boxes are broken down and the packing paper burned.  There are still quite a few boxes in the basement, storing things until we get some projects done.  We've even consulted with a number of people about getting the final renovation projects started.  It feels like we've gotten over some major hurdles.  What it DOESN'T feel like, though, is retirement!   It's been a crazy three weeks.

Weather-wise, it's been chilly and overcast with some rain - a real change from sunny SoCal but a welcome change and good weather for unpacking - we weren't tempted to work on outside projects instead.  My fingers are itching to get to the garden but first we have to get it tilled up - another big hurdle.  As soon as I find the box with the peat pots in it, I'll get my tomato seeds planted! 

It's fun sharing the house with Anne and Kenji.  They are busy with school and work (and are the early birds, out the door by 4:30am!) but we manage to share some time, laughs and a meal together daily, trading off cooking duties.  The chickens have been allowed outside during the day now and have been busy hunting worms after these rains.  The great horned owls seem to have departed for the time being.  One afternoon I took a break and walked out to the creek and I surprised a muskrat on the opposite bank.  He didn't know what to make of me so he slipped into the water and glided away downstream. They are shy creatures and it was a treat to see one.  There's a whole lot of life going on around here that we aren't aware of!

Life signs from the farm

We're here!  The moving truck came yesterday, unloaded and pulled out.  We're flooded in boxes and chaos but the good thing is, we know it is temporary.  Every day will bring encouraging progress.  And when we're tired of looking at all the work, we can step outside and enjoy our beautiful surroundings.  No big thoughts here - just some glimpses of life on the banks of Nettle Creek as we come to the end of Week 1.

Pete working on filling the bookshelves.  We'll worry about sorting them into some kind of order later - a good job for wintry days.

I need a clothesline up.  Which means Pete needs a ladder.

Closeup of the crabapple blossoms.

The girls.  Outside the pen.  Of course.  Why do we bother?

It's a ladybug parade!

Here's the big barn when you step outside the garage and look north.  Lots of raw dirt still from the construction.  We bought 50# of grass seed.  Add that to the project list.

Kenji being Farmer Boy and collecting the eggs.

The house and garage from the north (by the barn).  I don't think 50# of grass seed will be enough....

Interesting shelf fungus growing on a log in the woodpile.  

There are violets blooming in every crack and cranny...

...and in front of the chicken house.  

And here's the creek, waiting for some little boys to come and play in it!

A New Chapter Begins!

Yesterday afternoon our long journey ended with our arrival at the farm.  There are no words to express how thankful we are to be home again after 8 1/2 adventurous years in California.  Here we are on the banks of Nettle Creek once again, where we belong...after Germany, after Baltimore, after Los Angeles...this farm keeps pulling us back.  I think we'll name it Home Again Farm.

One of the delightful things about the farm are the birds that share the space with us.  There is a family of great horned owls living here - a Mama and three fluffy juveniles that hang out in the trees and are totally unphased by our presence.  They don't look so big in this photo but believe me, they are BIG birds, especially the mama!  They are in a very tall tree which dwarfs them.  As soon as the trees leaf out, we won't be able to see them nearly as well.  

Kenji started right in giving us boxing training this morning.  He and Anne are going to whip us into shape.

We look forward to seeing how the story develops after this major twist in the plot of our lives!

The Jot Book

My parents loved to travel and they took us on family vacations every year.  This was in the late 1950's and 1960's so these were road trips - people didn't fly around back then like we do now.  For each road trip my mom would produce a little notebook we called a Jot Book.  This was basically a trip journal and I'm sure my parents dreamed up the idea at least partly as something to keep my brother and me busy and observant on the trip.  We recorded mundane things like where we stayed, how many miles we covered each day, where we stopped for breaks, what places we visited. That was the official part.  The real meat of the jot book, however, was not these dry facts but the notes we recorded about unexpected things we saw, things that made us laugh, unusual sights or signs, memorable meals or picnics, people we met, funny quips someone made.  It became a family joke that whenever anyone considered something noteworthy or funny they would call out, "Jot that down!" and the current scribe would have to pull out the notebook and make a new entry.  The experience of a "group-journal" was a fun one and added to the sense of sharing the experiences with each other.

When my parents visited us in Europe and took trips with us my mother always had a little jot book with her.  Once again, we took up the cry of "jot that down!"

After both my parents died and we were cleaning out their house we ran across some of these little books. They transported us to a time long past and brought back smiles and memories of things we had long forgotten.   I have often tried to keep Jot Books when we took trips with our own kids but I was never very successful at the follow-through.  We'd get a few sporadic jottings and then the rest of the trip faded into oblivion - perhaps we now rely too much on the ease of photographs instead of the effort of words to record our experiences and observations.

I pulled out a journal to use on this trip from California to Illinois, thinking a major life transition like this deserves some recorded thoughts.  So far, no jottings.  Emotional exhaustion, bad road conditions and pushing hard to make the day's mileage have so far dampened my efforts.  Perhaps a car racing down the interstate at 80 mph is not the ideal setting for recording much of anything.  But I haven't given up hope entirely!  Maybe tomorrow we'll slow down a little and start jotting...

Retirement, Day 1

from Pete...

What would (did) you do on your first day of retirement?

I think back to when Becky and I came back to the U.S. from Germany for 10 months of furlough back in 1984. Her parents had kindly offered to let us stay at their farm, which we gladly accepted. We were excited for our kids - just Joel and Anne at that time - because we thought of all the fun they were going to have on the farm. We imagined them having endless fun, playing in the barn (but hopefully not the hayloft!), playing in the creek, watching farmers taking the crops out of the field, etc. etc. The first day Becky shooed them out the back door, telling them to “go have fun”. Curious to see what they’d found to do, she looked out the back door a short time later and was shocked to see the two of them just sitting there on the steps. She opened the door and asked why they were just sitting there. “Mom, there’s nothing to do here!” Tell me these were city kids! But it didn’t take them long to catch on to life in the country.

So I wondered if I would be “sitting on the steps” Day 1 of retirement, kind of like Joel and Anne back then, because there was “nothing to do”.

Not!

It’s such a relief to be retired! I feel like I now will have the time and the freedom to do things for which there simply wasn’t time before. That expectation showed through when I woke a little before 6am this morning. Becky woke up about the same time. We talked for a few minutes and then decided we would get up and do our 4 mile walking circuit. After that there was breakfast and then we dove into the day’s primary activity: packing. Relating all of the packing details would be BORING - so I won’t do that. But the good news is, that we’re essentially packed and ready for the truck to come.

But what if we hadn’t been packing? What will I do when we’ve moved to the farm and all the “must do’s” are long done? When I was working it felt like there was no end to the “must do’s”. I’ve loved doing statistics, whether at Rush or at Google, but I almost always felt like I was being paid to do statistics, not learn statistics. So it was hard to allow myself the freedom to pursue new things. Being retired, I feel like I can allow myself the luxury of learning extravagantly. I don’t have to watch the clock or “give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”. I look forward to studying astronomy, statistics and the Bible more - and doing it extravagantly.

A few more hours and Day 1 will be in the books. Nice day. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings! Don’t bother looking for me “on the back steps” - there are all kinds of things to learn and do!

The Ugly Side of Moving

(from Becky)

A cross country move is no small thing to coordinate.  We started packing early because we knew it was going to be a monumental undertaking and we don't have the energy to do it all in the last week or two.  The downside, however, is that you are living with the chaos for a lot longer.  Sometime in the night I think I turned the corner from "things are going along smoothly" to "would someone please just GET ME OUT OF THIS SITUATION!?!"  I woke this morning with dread at facing another day of packing, decision-making, looking for something that is already packed and inaccessible, weariness at being surrounded by chaos with no escape.  Realistically, things are going well.  Emotionally, I'm starting to wear down and the thought of going through everything in reverse at the other end is no comfort.  It's kind of like having a baby - you just have to get through it.  Ironically, I was reading in Hebrews this morning about "entering into His rest".  I needed those words.  I think a prayer walk is in order for today - time to escape the mess and get my compass aligned with the eternal perspective.  God is still in control.