A New Home to Love

I haven’t shared much about our move from Washington state to Missouri this past summer.  It was a long and obscure process with many peaks and valleys.  We made the best of it and were blessed with some beautiful and exciting stops on the months long journey across the states.  It’s still hard for me to put into words all of the feelings that bubbled up in me as we made another move and because it was a choice we made, I feel guilty for any negative feelings.  But we left behind some amazing humans and that was really painful so it’s a mixed bag of emotions. 

During one of the valley moments, when we were homeless and I was feeling particularly blue, my dear Mr. decided he would go ahead and put a deposit down on a new young jersey for me.  Something to look forward to.  We were lucky enough to be in contract on a home with much of the fencing work done so it wasn’t entirely crazy but it was a leap of faith.  After all, this wasn’t the first home we had been in contract with.  It was a very loving gesture (my poor husband, he thought I was expensive back when we were young and I collected Coach bags, how could he have known?) and it was just what I needed to pick up the pieces. 

Meet Charlotte.  We welcomed her home just three weeks after we moved in. She is simply the sweetest jersey cow and my muse.  Charlotte will be the first to calve here on our land and is due in about two months!  I’m nervous, excited and a little bit giddy about welcoming a new calf.  For this mama, I am just SO grateful!  She’s helped rekindle my farm-love and she lets me hang out with her as much as I need to when I’m missing home. 

Despite how I feel about leaving behind the community of people that I love, and a homestead that we built (again), the Ozarks have stolen my heart.  It’s interesting but not surprising.  This part of the country feels like the Midwest (my home of South Dakota) mixed with bits of the Pacific Northwest (my adopted home of Washington).  It’s definitely not the plains and its definitely not the mountains but it is reminiscent of both and I LOVE it.