The Big White Farmhouse

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

Last Sunday, Palm Sunday, we entered into the holiest days of the Church Year, the days in which we celebrate the completion of the mission for which our Lord Jesus was sent into the world: His suffering, dying and rising from the dead for our eternal salvation. So singular is this time for us that we call “Holy Week” the days from Palm Sunday to the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Of all the weeks of the Church Year, during which God faithfully pours forth His grace upon us, we refer to one week only as Holy Week, because the source of all grace is found in the events which took place during this week. (by Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, from here)

Alleluia alleluia!  Christ is risen, Christ is truly risen!  When this post is published, it will be Easter Monday, so the Holy Week readings and things down below will be unhelpful until next year.  Mediating on Our Lord’s death is always a fruitful practice, so maybe you could use them after Paschaltide?

Contemplating with Art // 

Reading //

• Holy Thursday Meditation on the Blessed Eucharist from Fr. Michael Mueller // “’Who’ asks St. John Chrysostom, ‘will give us of His flesh that we may be filled?’ (Job 31:31). This Christ has done, allowing Himself not only to be seen, but to be touched too, and to be eaten, so that our teeth pierce His Flesh, and all are filled with His love.”
• Stations of the Cross by Saint Francis of Assisi
• Discourse 16. Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion from Cardinal John Henry Newman // Long but really good.
• Sermon for Good Friday on the Passion of Christ from St. Francis de Sales // “He could have redeemed us in a thousand other ways than that of His Son’s death. But He did not will to do so, for what may have been sufficient for our salvation was not sufficient for His love; and to show us how much He loved us, this divine Son died the cruelest and most ignominious of deaths, that of the Cross.”
• The Charcoal Fire, a poem by Fr. Timothy J. Draper

Watching/Listening //

• the Learning to Look series from Fr. Hugh at St. Michael’s Abbey // Short little nuggets of beauty and wisdom.  Makes me want to pull How Catholic Art Saved the Faith: The Triumph of Beauty and Truth in Counter-Reformation Art by Elizabeth Lev off of my TBR shelf.
• Tenebrae with St. Michael’s Abbey // “The liturgy of Tenebrae (Latin for “darkness”), which dates back to the ninth century, is a special expression of Matins and Lauds unique to Holy Week. The psalms chanted during Tenebrae ground Our Lord’s Passion in the context of Salvation History.”  There were livestreams to watch on each day of the Triduum.  Beautiful.

Loving //

• The Life of Sr. Mary Wilhelmina by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles // “Sister Wilhelmina understood that true holiness consists not in niceness or pleasant feelings but in a battle of wills; she was determined, at all costs, to surrender her strong will to an even stronger one: the will of God.”

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

We pray these words so often, they almost become meaningless: “Give us this day our daily bread…”  But what does that really mean, our daily bread?  What trust does that require?

It reminds me of the passage in Exodus 16 about manna.  The Israelites were able to gather as much as they needed during the day, but were not supposed to keep any left over until morning.  When some people disobeyed and tried anyway, the manna became “wormy and stank.”  What trust that must have required to be confident that God would provide for them each morning!

Just like the Israelites, my natural inclination is to want today’s manna…and a little bit extra, just in case.  Life, on the other hand, continues to test me!  “Adulting” is full of highs and lows…my husband and I often joke that the best visual of being an adult is the opening scene in Up where the couple saves and saves, only to have to hammer open the piggy bank and start again.

BUT.  If I stop to look, I can see God’s hand working in our finances.  A few recent examples: My husband received a surprise bonus at work, just as we brought his car in for an inspection and discovered it needed $$$ in brake repairs.  Because of that, we were able to get the work done quickly and without going into debt.  My teenage son needed new tires on his car and was offered gig work out of the blue that paid a bit more than the full amount he needed.  He now can drive safely without having to decimate his savings account.  As for me, I had an awesome reselling week, even getting a large order for nine books!  (Thank you so much, Ellen!)  These are more Ebenezers!

I’m more and more convinced that if you give Him room to work, He will surprise you in the best ways.  What a loving and generous God we serve.  Wishing you a blessed and fruitful Holy Week.  See you on Easter Monday!  xo

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ passing around illness as big families tend to do.  Thankfully, I’ve yet to get it and the kids seemed to recover fairly quickly.

+ putting in the sweat equity around the farm and feeling back in my element.  (Last year, I was white-knuckling my way through chores and projects and seriously doubting if this life was for me.  I now see that I was just unwell.)  This week, I planned out pasture rotations for the pigs and even nursed my boar, Fred, back to health after we caught him limping.  Ache Away to the rescue again!

+ making banana bread from overripe bananas.  That rarely happens in this house so it was quite the treat!

+ finishing up the Easter baskets.  Gone are the days of bubbles and sidewalk chalk; now I’m filling them with protein powder and sandals and books.  This growing up business sure is bittersweet.

+ WIND.  The gusts have been insane!  Thankfully, it hasn’t been as bad as two years ago, but we’ve still had damage to our fencing and even had one of our chicken tractors thrown and broken.  Always something…

+ selling 17 unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: eleven books, a pair of shoes, a dress, a skirt, a nightgown, a jacket and a shirt.  After shipping and fees, I made $107.39!

Reading //

• Passiontide and Holy Week from Dom Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year // “After having proposed the forty-days’ fast of Jesus in the desert to the meditation of the faithful during the first four weeks of Lent, the holy Church gives the two weeks which still remain before Easter to the commemoration of the Passion. She would not have her children come to that great day of the immolation of the Lamb, without having prepared for it by compassionating with Him in the sufferings He endured in their stead.”
• Blanched Sun, Blinded Man from Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule // Continuing on in his series.
• Clean the Clutter from Grandma Donna // “After we finish with Madge’s house I will be thinning out things here at home. What I have learned is, clean the house and clean the clutter. Move whatever we need to move to clean around it, behind it, under, top and clean the items before putting it back.”  Great motivation as I think about spring cleaning!
• Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind by Grace Olmstead // As of this writing, I’m about halfway through.  A lot of great quotes, including this one:

Rootedness and perennial belonging often make sense to us on a scientific, ecological level.  We know (or are at least realizing) what the soil needs for biological health and flourishing.  But there seems to be a widespread belief in our society that these principles do not apply to people: that we are different, that our minds and souls are, in fact, better suited to wandering and restlessness than to faithful belonging, the choice to stick.

Watching/Listening //

• OFF FOR LENT

Loving //

• these free rosary coloring pages // They are apparently based off of their book, Catechism of the Seven Sacraments (in Lego!)  Definitely going on our wishlist.
• my new carbon monoxide detector // I’m a little paranoid about carbon monoxide and gas leaks, so my volunteer firefighter son helped me purchase a tool that will determine if there’s a problem.  Next up to buy for my safety arsenal: this gas leak detector.
• the idea of a Power Down // Although we’d probably only be able to try it for a long weekend, I love what she says about the benefits:

“That sounds like a whole lot of work, Becca. Why bother?!!”
Well, because once you experience this sort of quiet focus on your real life, I think you’ll be hooked. To focus solely on your kids, uninterrupted, is a precious joy. To focus solely on your spouse, without others vying for their attention (or yours) is an immediately-felt gift. The conversations have time to linger, the most important things rise to the surface and the time-wasters quickly look ridiculous. You begin to wonder, “what am I exchanging here—quality time in my real life versus quantity time in this life of screens?” The homemaking and farming and manual labor become the most fulfilling work and it really does fill you up, bringing purpose to your people, and vision for your clan.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

Last week was tough financially.  There’s nothing sympathy-seeking or whiny in that statement; we are no different than so many other families.  I’m generally good at stretching our single income to fill all of the different parts of life – bills, long-term goals, kids needs, the farm – but man…it’s getting trickier and trickier to make it all work.

Anyway, I recalled a line I heard somewhere (you know how I collect quotes from anywhere and everywhere!) that can be best paraphrased as this: “When times are tough financially, you make it up with relationships.”  I believe this statement was spoken in terms of the Great Depression era.  Instead of wallowing in hardship, many families, while knowing on some level that they were poor, still chose to fill their home with love and laughter and generosity.  And it didn’t take a lot of money (or any!) to make it happen.

Isn’t that such a good reminder?  In our home, we can still have a home-cooked meal around the table together.  We can work on the same puzzle we’ve made a dozen times.  We can laugh at “inside jokes” that nobody else would understand.  We can do our farm chores and commiserate on the animals’ antics.  We can share a good book, go for hike, and open our home to friends and family.  These little things are not insignificant.  At the end of the day, we belong to each other – our relationships are what matter most anyway.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ giving myself a little hair trim.  I just snipped off the dead ends but it definitely looks better.

+ potting up my tomatoes and marigold seedlings.  I had an awesome germination rate this year so I’m considering selling off the extras!

+ whipping up a batch of granola so the kids would eat up two containers of plain Greek yogurt.

+ receiving 179 (175 + 4 extras) baby chicks in the mail after a hand-wringing few days.  Our chicks come from Pennsylvania and usually arrive within 24 hours, easy peasy.  This time, they were shipped Tuesday afternoon, made it to Virginia by Wednesday morning…and just sat at the distribution center.  Thankfully, we heard from the post office first thing on Thursday morning and picked them up right away.  And miracle of all miracles, not a single one had died!

+ cleaning up my strawberry beds and transplanting a bunch of runners into a brand new section.  If everything goes well, we should have double the strawberry output this spring.  (My kids will be thrilled!)

+ selling 13 unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: three books, two jeans, three shirts, two keychains, two dresses and a pair of sandals.  After shipping and fees, I made $89.10!

Reading //

• The Table Where I Belonged by Pete Kauffman at Plough //

There are situations in any kind of thankful life that take the shape of a gift that must be accepted, with its corresponding demands. We are offered the gift, but even as we do so we release our self-image of the self-made man, the individualist, who blazes his own way in the world and has gotten here by asserting his rights. When you have received a gift, you have someone to thank, and the process of thankfulness implies a debt. This debt cannot be paid with money; the only acceptable currency is a piece of yourself. You give a part of yourself to your neighbor and now you belong to him, and he to you. You have a stake in his life.

• The Dream of the Rood from Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule // Continuing on in his series.

The Enlightenment may have failed, but it taught modern Western people something useful: how to interrogate power, and identify illegitimate authority. But while I learned this early, it was much later that I learned something else, dimly and slowly, through my study of history, mythology and, well, people: that every culture, whether it knows it or not, is built around a sacred order. It does not, of course, need to be a Christian order. It could be Islamic, Hindu or Daoist. It could be based around the veneration of ancestors or the worship of Odin. But there is a throne at the heart of every culture, and whoever sits on it will be the force you take your instruction from.

Watching/Listening //

• OFF FOR LENT

Loving //

• the greeting cards at Bloomwolf Studio // I stocked up on some birthday cards and there were quite a few cute choices.
• Bea’s birth story // Is there anything better than a birth story?!  And she is absolutely precious to boot.
• this recipe for English Muffin Bread // Trying to save some money anywhere we can, so homemade bread is back!  This one is always a hit with the kids.
• my bedtime read, Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator // So bizarre and charming and funny all in one.