(this can be read without part 1, but here's the link if you're interested)
In a lot of ways we have beaten the Goatstead into submission. We have cut many a tree (mostly dead), hauled sticks and branches and logs, taken down old fences, added new, told which woodland creatures who could come near and who couldn’t. Inside I'm pretty sure every surface has been touched, though I did find the last globe light in a hall closet yesterday. A relic that will linger I suppose. I worked so hard this year on the pear trees. Fertilizing, watching, waiting, watering and over watering (sorry Rob for the $500 water bill). They grew beautifully, but were as hard as rocks. I refrigerated them because the internet told me to. Then I waited, waited, waited. Almost too long actually. I had given some away to owners of goats and pigs. Rob had dumped a bunch into a field. I was ready to trash them all but then I cut into one, weeks after picking, and it was pure candy.
I had perfectly ripe pears, everything I had dreamed and worked for, and in water bills paid for, and it seemed my only option was to give them all away. I realized that this was always going to be the gig. Farmers don't grow large crops for themselves. It is to sell or give, for the purpose of feeding others. And so were my trees. They were for giving, for the feeding and nourishing of someone else. How sweet.
Let’s talk about our garden. This garden was the fruition of a ten year dream. I planned it out in my mind and with a garden consultant. Watched the you tube videos, phoned a friend and then pushed, “GO.” We got a late start according to the growing season and worked hard to get pipes for irrigation and most importantly to get the soil in the beds so I could plant before it got too hot. As I was shoveling one day (of many days), I felt the Lord say, “This is someone else's garden.”
Umm what.
This is all I have dreamed of and wanted and it's right outside my kitchen table window with the trellis and everything?! I like to pretend I don’t hear things but God is relentless in the best way. I had been listening to Jamie Nato’s book, This Must Be the Place, and then chapter 9 started… “Chapter 9: Someone else’s Garden.” I stopped dead in my shoveling.
The chapter was about moving away, buying a property and finding the fruit of someone else’s labor. In her case it was leaving peonies and then finding new ones. Then there was this line, “With fresh dirt on my face I will say, I did my best for you, I didn’t just take what was mine. There is hope for you in the soil, I sowed seeds of joy for you.” And so with that, and a feeling in my bones, I planted seeds knowing I would soon walk away from them.
I walk alot. 10 miles a week seems to be just enough. It's mostly for my mental state but my body doesn’t hate it either. The Goatstead is located on a street that winds into the hill country and is not friendly to walkers as the many residents use this one main road to access their properties and homes. Just behind our neighborhood is another much smaller one, with wider and less deadly streets and so I hop in my car most days and drive there to walk. About 50 miles into my walks, I fell in love. I picked all my favorite houses and peeked in their magical backyards. I was sure there was suspicious facebook chatter about the lady walking in a black hat with a red phone looking around the neighborhood everyday.
And so I walked. I prayed and walked. I walked just to walk. I walked just to stalk.
There were a couple houses for sale but one was “meh,” and the other was just too much and not that impressive. So I just continued walking, the gnawing feeling of a move ever present. I told Rob about all this. He was mostly just annoyed at me, why would we move after all this work? But it was also becoming clear his office situation at home wasn’t working. The loft was cool but lacked a door, and after the kids came home from school it was nearly impossible to keep them quiet enough.
It had been about 7 months of feeling a move. The “not that impressive house,” was still for sale. There was an open house. Turns out, it was actually a lot more impressive in person. Every surface needed paint, but that is what we are used to. The backyard is pure heaven. Long story short, we offered well below asking and it all just worked out. One night I dreamed about walking to the creek behind the new house and finding a hidden pear tree with gorgeous green pears bigger than my hand. I knew I couldn’t be so lucky twice.
We needed to add a fence so we talked to our neighbor and tried to figure out where the property line was. “I think it's right through this tree,” I said. Looking up I noticed something. No. It can't be. Little rotting fruits barely hanging on. A pear tree. I started bawling in front of my new neighbor and had to walk away to get a hold of myself. “We have a history with pear trees,” Rob explained to him.
“Those never ripen,” said the neighbor.
Oh, but they do.
In many ways the Goatstead has beaten us into submission. We have learned the meaning of the cursed ground and toil of eating from it. The long suffering of the land, of drought, and of an old house with all its quirks and faulty updates from the previous owner. It taught me about figs, fox dens, and wild grapes. How my version of perfection doesn’t exist in nature and how to just let things be. The fallen leaves and branches, the mess, will in time feed the living. The ugly parts serve a purpose too. I sat in Little Narnia, the wooded part of the Goatstead, the other day just praying about the property and what will happen to her. As the sun came up through the trees, it illuminated spider webs, turning them gold, and connecting what seemed to be every tree to one another, to the ground, like spiritual lifelines, weaving all things together. It reminded me of this:
When God created the heavens and the earth, he wove it all together like a million silk threads forming a dazzling garment never before seen – each thread passing over, under and around millions of others to create a perfectly complementary, tightly-woven interdependent, amazing whole. This wondrous webbing together of God and man and all of creation is what the Hebrew prophets called shalom. Shalom is a word packed with hope for a broken, bruised, and wounded world. It speaks of wholeness, right relationships, justice, salvation, and righteousness, all of which can be missed when we simply read the English word, ‘peace.’ God’s intention for every community is that his shalom would reign.
Almost three years after purchasing the Goatstead, she finally feels ripe, and ready to be given for the feeding and nourishing of someone else. For now we plan to rent the property, but I hope and feel there is more. More golden threads will illuminate and will connect more people to her story.
“Plant your trees today
Grow your flowers like you’ll stay
Cause the ones before you did the same and knew
To everything there is a season
And our days on earth are few
So plant the seeds in your pocket
Even if they’re not for you.”
Kristen DiMarco
