No.808: Last Week at the Farmhouse // Little Moments of Delight

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I was skimming through my planner and noticed the phrase “Little Moments of Delight” jotted into one of the weekly margins.  Hmm…where did that come from?  What did I mean by that?  There was no further explanation, no context.  Out of the brain and out of my memory, I guess.  Regardless of why I wrote it, the little phrase definitely stuck with me as I went about my week, a type of seek-and-find prompt!  Here’s what I found:

Daffodil stems bursting through the ground.  “Puzzling” with my children.  The way the chickens run to me when I come into the barnyard.  Sunshine after rain.  Seeing my husband’s car pull into the driveway at the end of the day.  The pigs’ joy when they enter new pasture.  Watching the sunset.  Waking up to a notice that something has sold.  When the lights come back on after a five hour power outage.  The kids’ excitement as we plan our summer vacation.  Clean sheets.  A pile of new (to us) books in the mailbox.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ cleaning and decluttering and organizing the garage in preparation for chicks.  I was a woman on a mission and even went through a handful of bins and boxes that have sat in one spot for years!  One trip to the dump later and we have a good as new garage!  Highlight of the day: I found a bin full of my childhood yearbooks and sports memorabilia and the kids wanted a peek.  My two youngest were super impressed with my elementary/middle school softball trophies, ha!

+ having plenty of time to think through and prepare for a vacation this summer…or that’s what I’m telling myself anyway!  There are so many moving parts to leaving a farm and then I have to add in the fact that we haven’t gone on a big trip in years – do we even have enough luggage?!  Lots of lists and to-dos written this week.  I also started a challenge for myself to raise the extra money for a farm sitter.  (It’s going to cost more to leave the farm than it will be to go on the actual vacation!)  For months, I’ve been throwing things I’d like to resell in a bin and now’s the time to get listing!  My goal is to raise as close to the full amount we need as possible.  Current total for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: $90.61!

+ finding clothes for one son in the hand-me-down bins.  As the boys get older, my clothes “stash” starts to dwindle, but I did have a handful of nice things for him to wear.  A trip to the store is in order, but every little bit saved counts!

+ creating a fort from a ripped fitted sheet.  The sheet was finally beyond repair but I asked the little kids if they wanted to make a fort with it before it got tossed.  (Or possibly deconstructed for fabric.)  They played in that thing for days!

+ taking advantage of a member sale on ThredUp.  I found many great spring/summer pieces for my daughter and a few dresses for me.  (If you go through this link, you can get 45% off + free shipping on your first order and I’ll get a credit when it ships.  We both win!)

Reading //

• The Great Unsettling from Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule // I just discovered this Substack and am going through his body of work.  This was from the first essay:

‘Our age is so poisoned by lies’, wrote Weil, ‘that it converts everything it touches into a lie.’ Everything deeper, older and truer than the workings and values of the Machine has been, or is in the process of being, scoured away from us. We turned away from a mythic, rooted understanding of the world, and turned away from the divine, in order to look at ourselves reflected in the little black mirrors in our hands. Some people are quite happy with this, and have no time for Romantic Luddites like myself when we lament it. Even we Romantic Luddites are here on the Internet, lamenting. But some day soon we will all have to look up and begin to turn back again. I have a feeling that this process has already begun.

• Don’t Just Talk About Unplugging: Actually Unplug by Tsh at The Commonplace // “This is all I’m saying… Yes, tell others to unplug from The Machine. But make sure you do it, too. Don’t live and breathe your work here on Substack. Don’t care about growing your audience here to the sacrifice of the things that really, truly matter to you. Say what you feel compelled to say, and then get offline.”  Good advice for writers and readers alike.
• Database Indicates U.S. Food Supply Is 73 Percent Ultra-Processed from Foodtank // Yikes.  Be sure to check out the website they created too.

The findings shocked Giulia Menichetti, Senior Research Scientist at the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University, and senior author of the papers. “It surprised me how a considerable amount of highly processed food is mistakenly considered healthy because the public narrative still focuses on one nutrient at a time, instead of evaluating food as a whole,” Menichetti tells Food Tank.

• Tabitha’s family cell phone policy at Team Studer // It’s truly the wild west out there in technology-land and we’re all doing our best navigating this world for our kids.  Our cell phone policy is a bit different than hers, but I love hearing the different ways families are tackling this issue.  What’s the policy at your house?

Watching/Listening //

• OFF FOR LENT

Loving //

• Berry Medley Ricola // My turn with the sore throat this week.
• pulling out this Ravensburger puzzle to complete again // It’s called “Midnight at the Library.”  I love all of the little details.
• the story of St. Frances of Rome from Once Upon a Time Saints // I felt such consolation reading about her vocation of motherhood.
• A Letter for My Mom // I was so saddened to hear of Sarah’s death, but what an incredible legacy she left.  The memories her children have of her are so beautiful.