G R A C E N O T E F A R M
As I sit down to write about our farm we are deep into winter and the thermometer has plummeted below zero. All the animals are snugged in for the night and my family is well bundled into bed. The night is even quieter here in winter and with my sons asleep I have a few moments to think about Grace Note Farm and how much I love this life we’ve created together on our farm.
We live on just under twelve acres of land at the bottom of the Kettle Morraine State Forest in Southeastern Wisconsin. Our land does have some small kettles on it and we love the texture the glaciers left behind for us. Our land was allowed to grow wild for many years before we moved here and we continue to work to encourage the native plants and remove the invasive ones ( my husband Dave claims to be a buckthorn farmer because he has spent so much time clearing them from around our oak trees).
When I was a tiny girl I spent my summers hoping to catch a duck. Now in my grown-up life I watch my beautiful hens strut and scratch as my roosters stand guard. Roo a young Araucana rooster we raised this year followed me down the driveway all summer and “helped” me with my chores. We love to watch the chickens and are spoiled by their yummy brown eggs. Five beautiful goats provide us with milk for our soap and milk, cheese and yogurt for our table. Our garden keeps growing and I try to remind myself in the winter when I am studying the seed catalogs that everything I plant I will have to weed! I love cooking a meal for my family when all or most of the ingredients were grown right here and the boys tease me about my dinner table litany of what we grew. I admit I may be a bit too proud but mostly I am grateful and humbled by what we have been offered. Thankful for the miracle of life whether I witness it unfurling from a seed, in the flash of a smile across my son’s face, or slipping suddenly alive, warm and new from a mother goat.
Here our life is filled with unexpected grace notes: sitting around the fire with little boys in our laps and dogs at our feet; running back from my evening chores, helping boys into snowsuits and walking out into the glowing snowy woods to share the otherworldly moonlight on the snowcapped branches; feeling the cool spring breeze seep in through my window and hearing the screech owl calling; riding our bikes to eat bread and butter, eggsalad and oranges by the lake; a warm egg in the palm of my hand; boys catching slow moving fireflies; the sound of Dave’s axe sinking deep into the heart of a log; bread rising in a bowl by the fire; fat slices of tomato on a small blue plate, a glimpse of a sandhill crane at dawn. All of these mean home to me now.