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Happy New Year!

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East view
East view

 

It’s been too long…

I haven’t blogged for awhile. You will not find me offering polite excuses. We all have busy lives. What I will offer is the truth:

This fall was a struggle.

My mom is fighting cancer. I’ve had some health issues. Cattle prices dropped. More obstacles arose on this new place of ours…and so forth.

I didn’t know what to say without sounding like I was whining. So I said nothing at all. I’m not absent; I’m just climbing a few mountains.

After visiting with others, I realized something. I’m not alone. Many people closed the year 2015 feeling battered, bruised, and beat-up. Fortunately, we are not defined by our feelings. Hard times aren’t the end. Perhaps they are opportunities to re-route us.

We’ve been working hard trying to bring our place back to life. It’s now been just over a year since we purchased our fixer-upper and we’ve experienced multiple surprises. We knew there would be a lot of work to do, but the extent has been challenging. The financial output to fix things? Excessive. You just don’t know these things until you find indoor wiring buried outside or inadequate piping spewing geysers in December in an outdoor water-line or… I could go on, but the problems aren’t the point. I’m sure each of you could name off a list of your own battles.

The point now is: Where will I put my focus?

Challenges certainly overplay the negatives in life, so doing a 180 ought to point my nose to where I want to go. For example: poor or wrong supplies were used on our place. The fixing is frustrating, but it directs me to the obvious: the right tools must be used in the right places. Taking this a step further, our time and energy is more effective when we put our talents and skills into areas that will propel us forward.

I also want to focus on being thankful. Not only does thankfulness put my focus in a good place, but studies have shown successful people practice gratitude.

What are you thankful for?

I’m thankful for: my hubby and kids, all my family, amazing friends and neighbors, beautiful views, a place to call home, opportunities yet to come, increasing health, my writers group (plus words themselves!), sunsets, increasing daylight, the moisture we’ve received this winter, new ideas to try, LIFE, God-given perspectives, for being drained to empty so that I can be filled back up, for livestock, blueberries and coconut (and other yummy favorites), and so much more…

May each day in this New Year bring opportunity to see beauty and creative solutions!

I'm so thankful for my views!
I’m so thankful for my views!

 

A Beautiful Fall

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The Jefferson River at Sunset recently
The Jefferson River at Sunset recently

Usually in Montana we are accustomed to snow…often before or by the first of October. Here it is the 23rd of October and we haven’t had a drop of snow yet. The most recent weather reports state that we will have an El Nino winter. We didn’t have much snow last winter either, so I really thought we’d get twice as much this year. I suppose time will tell, but for now, the fall has been amazing.

Leaves crunch under foot.

Colors are vibrant.

The garden produced through September. (No snow, but it is freezing at night regularly.)

The fields are still green. (We just shut off our irrigation a few days ago!)

Less mud=less cleaning.

A sweatshirt will suffice when you head outside.

The list could go on and on, but I had to give a small tribute to this autumn because cooler temperatures are in the forecast.

I am thankful for this beautiful time to enjoy the outdoors. I continue to realize how much thankfulness plays a part in our daily joy. It is easy to see the problems and trials, but how much greater to focus on the good things. There are so many good things around us.

What are you thankful for?

You’ve got to be kidding…

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As you all know, we’ve been remodeling and fixing up the land on this little ranch we bought. In May, we decided to buy some broken mouth cow/calf pairs, feed them for a few months, and then sell them. We figured the cows would be sold as canners, but the prices have been high, so putting some weight on them for resale seemed like a great option.

If only plans turn out the way you want.

The day we sold our cattle was the day the stock market crashed. As you may know, when the stock market crashes, the cattle market dives. The news hit a mere two hours before our cattle were sold. Buyers up and left. Contracts were pulled.

We sold and it wasn’t what we were expecting. Our thoughts beat us up: We should have sold sooner. We are stupid. What were we thinking? Yet we know, this too is part of being in the cattle business.

Really it could have been a lot worse. We’ll be okay, but it is disheartening when you pour yourself into something and it doesn’t work out. On the plus side, our cattle topped the sale..both cows and calves. They weren’t what they were a few months ago.

Neither are we.

Life is a process of learning and this is no different. We’ve done well many other times. We’ll do well again. After all, agriculture motivates our hearts. This is a dip in the road that we’ll come out of…it’s part of being a rancher. We still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Summer 2015 168

Back in the Saddle

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Right now the ranges are dry, really dry. Our pastures are in desperate need of water. The lack of irrigation in the place we recently bought means that it needs serious TLC and we haven’t been able to give it the water it needs. We’ve been trying, but irrigation isn’t the cheapest investment on a ranch, so we have taken our time studying the land and talking to different companies. It is imperative to know the land to know what type of irrigation system will work best. We’ve decided on using K-lines for a majority of our pastures since they will be used as pasture. We are anxious to get the water up and going. I guess you know what we’ll be doing tonight… (It’ll probably be as close to a “date” as we get for awhile. 🙂 You understand fellow ranch wives.)

Since I’m analytical and think about life from all different angles, I can’t help but think of how we need to know ourselves before we jump into new things too. We study the land to assess for irrigation, but do we study ourselves to know how we are wired? Are we an introvert or extrovert? Do we like fast paced or slow? I know for me, I like people, but I’m an introvert so if my week doesn’t include a fair amount of time at home and a few minutes by myself, I feel overwhelmed.

It’s been fun to watch my husband. Even though things have been really hard–there is so much work to be done too–he is gifted when it comes to working with land and livestock. He can look at animals and understand what’s going on, what will be best for them, and what to do next. We had two years where he didn’t have that. He felt like a fish out of water. He’s back in the saddle again, doing what he loves and what he’s good at.

How about you? What do you love? What are your strengths? While it’s good to learn new things and step out of our comfort zone, it is perhaps more important to know what we were created to do well. May you be blessed in your journey of discovery!

The Process of Restoration

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Wow, it’s been a long time. Our house is looking more like a home, the fences are beginning to look respectable, and we even have cattle munching on the grass. We are living what we hoped for, prayed for, and dreamed about.

Some days we are tired though. It’s a lot of work and there is work off the ranch too. However, the vision fuels us. Have you ever had that? You know something is hard work, but you have to keep going because you know what it could be…

Sometimes the energy needed to fulfill the dream begins to fade. We’ve encountered setbacks. We have the local plumber on speed dial–we might even be on his. Animals have gotten out of fences, things haven’t gone as planned. It has taken more than we imagined. BUT YET… when you are in the process of restoration–of anything–it takes work and things will need repair! The repairing is part of the process that brings you to a place of seeing something for what it truly is–it’s original design. The fields weren’t meant to be filled with noxious weeds, they once carried grass. The house wasn’t meant to be cold because there wasn’t any insulation, it was meant to protect from the temperatures. So we too are discovering more of who we are. We truly are land stewards, ranchers, even though the land we are stewarding is still in process.

Restoration is a process and process means time.

Sure, I’d like to have it all done right away. That’d be easy. But then I wouldn’t get to pick the colors on my walls. Or stick my hands in freshly tilled dirt to plant seeds. Or watch as a fence changes from embarrassing to functional. I get to be a blessing to this place.

You do too. You have an opportunity to affect your surroundings with the vision you see of what might be… Keep going!

Sunset on the road leading to our place.
Sunset on the road leading to our place.

What It Might Be–Is This Homesteading?

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As I mentioned in my previous post, we recently moved and bought a place that needs a lot of TLC. We’ve been working on the inside, but as spring approaches, we’ll be working on the outside too. We have acreage–our land to put our cows on–it really even feels good to write that. We are blessed. With the blessing though comes restoration. Fences are down and the ones that are up are so old, bad, and twisted they wouldn’t hold in anything. We’ve been doing a lot of clean up, but my hubby’s good horse still gone torn up on something–He’s been hanging out in the barn with a “turtleneck” on to keep him from rubbing on the stitches, munching on antibiotic cocktails and calling to his buddies.

Yet, what we see right now is not what it could be.

There is work to be done for sure, but we have ideas in mind for the place it could become. Don’t you think that’s what the homesteaders thought? They traveled west, looked at ground, and settled in a place because they had a taste of “what it could be”. I suppose we are modern day homesteaders then. Often though in life we approach things not for what they are now, but for what they might be, if only given attention.

May we all continue to see and begin to see things with an eye for “what it might be”!

Marci's phone pics and videos April 29 2015 014

It may need work, but here’s some of it’s beauty!

The Joy of New

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It’s that time of year again, where we begin thinking and talking about new things, hopes for the New Year, resolutions, etc. I’m not much of a resolution maker, but I do love thinking about new things. I love the birth of possibility. As we begin thinking about newness, the atmosphere bubbles with creativity, and thus, life.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted for about a month. The day before Thanksgiving, we unloaded our UHaul and started a new adventure in Montana. We’ve lived in Montana before (although near a different city) and doors opened up for us to be able to buy a small ranch of our own. We’ve dreamed of this happening for eleven years now. Eleven years ago we bought ten cows and put them in a rented pasture to begin our ranching endeavor. We weren’t clueless to ranching; we realized this wasn’t how you run a grand enterprise, but it was what we had. We decided we’d rather do something with what we had than do nothing at all. We didn’t own land, couldn’t afford to and we scratched together to buy those cows. (I’ve written before on this tiny motley crew—they were laughable indeed, but affordable.) So to think that here we are now, able to have some land of our own, well—it truly is a miracle. Our place is quite the fixer-upper, but seeing beyond the current state into what it could be, we see potential in our spot. The views alone are worth it.

The house needs/needed a lot. Before we moved in, we spent a few weeks going back and forth between Idaho and Montana, trying to fix up what we could before we moved. Electrical, some plumbing, tearing down walls to open it up… The day we moved in, the septic system failed, backing up for weeks. We discovered it had been backed up and failed for so long, all the drains were plugged and we’d have to replace both the septic tank and the drain field. This was disappointing because we were told it was new…

Apparently new to one person, isn’t new to another.

On the journey to wanting to fix something up, trying something new, start an adventure…there are a lot of cow pies. (That’s the nice way of putting it. J) I’ve found myself excited, frustrated, happy, upset, peaceful, angry, and hopeful. The road to dreams worth pursuing is hardly ever paved.

I focus a lot on dreams and hopes because without them, we parish. (Proverbs 29:18) I truly want to see my own dreams come true, but not just mine, my husband’s, my kids’, my friends’, all of you, your dreams as well.

It’s a process and I like to perform so that it all looks pretty, but life is messy. Let’s not give up, but press on towards what is worth pursuing.

Happy Holidays and Blessings in 2015!

The views
The views from our new place.

 

Beginning our remodel
Beginning our remodel.
Getting walls prepped for texture and paint.
Getting walls prepped for texture and paint.

 

Further into the process
Further into the process

 

Transition

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I haven’t written for awhile. I miss journaling about life outdoors, even if it has only been a of couple weeks since my last tidbit. However, we find ourselves in transition again…or still, rather. As I’ve written before, we left Montana two years ago because we leased our ground there and we had an opportunity to move to Idaho and buy a place. My husband also got a job in Idaho that allowed him to be more involved in the cattle industry. The past two years have not gone anything like we imagined, but I wouldn’t change them.
Things didn’t work out in Idaho for us to buy a place and today we find ourselves packing boxes to move to Montana. It isn’t the same place we used to live, but who would’ve thought? Doors opened for my hubby to have almost the same job and we signed papers on a little place of our own.
I can’t believe the blessing of having some land of our own. We’ve always dreamed about it. We’ve had cattle on leased land for years and years. We are quite excited to have a place of our own. It needs TLC, so we will be busy, but we are blessed.
My blog may slow down a bit until we move in and get settled…(In winter…in Montana… 🙂 ) My heart is still here though!

view from our MT house

My new view!

 

 

Thankful

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I realized that I commented on our impending sale of steers, but never followed up with it. Let’s just suffice it to say that we are thankful. The steers did well and we were pleased with the sale. I know, cattle prices are high right now and people think we are making out like bandits. Just remember, if we are selling high, we are purchasing high…and this is about improving life too, not just the bottom dollar, so there are feed and supplement costs to consider. All that being said, we are thankful for how things turned out.

Sometimes life surprises us and we aren’t sure what to do. This has been happening for me personally in another area of life. Yet I must go back to what I do know: I need to move forward in areas of strength and talent and work on weak areas. Let’s say I’m good with numbers but I keep pursuing a job in language arts and nothing is going well…I have an opportunity to revist my area of strength and press into change.

I keep thinking of this with cattle. We’ve tried to do other things in life, but it doesn’t really flow without some kind of connection to the land and animals. It may not turn out exactly as we planned, but going towards that God-given gifting is always a good idea.

Harvest

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Ok, so I know it is cliche to say, “You reap what you sow”, but it is true! It is harvest time so the application is quite literal. A few months ago, tiny seeds were planted. ..Seeds that held the entire DNA structure of a full grown plant. Some seeds were so small, I wondered if we even got them in the right spot. However, here we are during harvest and we have fruits and vegetables, bounty–produce–from the full grown plant.

I suppose I’m easily amused since the act of gardening seems so amazing to me. One tiny seed, dirt, water, and sunshine… A small act with repetative tending. The process has the potential to fill a pantry for the winter.

Maybe it excites me because it gives me hope. Maybe watching this cycle truly gives me hope for myself and life around me.

Perhaps your thoughts take you to places like mine have before: “Will this ever change?” “Why are things looking like this?” “My daily actions seem to be unnoticed or not needed.” But then: Then a tiny seed, seemingly insignificant, when dropped in the right environment produces a harvest.

Is it possible that the DNA of something bigger is planted in me? Absolutely! Not only me though, you too!

Something to consider however: sometimes my dreams are like an orange tree. Unfortunately, an orange tree cannot grow in cold climates. Neither will I thrive in every situation. Each season, I must take a look at what God placed inside of me for that time and make sure I’m planting in the right spot. If I’m in fertile soil, there will be fruit. If I’m not, then I must plant in a different spot.

This doesn’t mean that I pack up and move every time I feel a tug in a new direction. It just means that I look at the resources around and invest in what will bring fruit. Is it a certain person? An activity? Often it changes, but it will be rewarding. Quite often, it will not be what onlookers expect.

I don’t always know what I harvest internally, but as I pick a plethora of  tomatoes and peppers, I have tangible evidence that big things can come from small beginnings. Let’s look around and see where we are best planted in our current season. Imagine the fruit!