Growth and Change

“Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I guess I haven't really been driving around much lately because just recently in the past couple of days I've noticed the explosion of colors! Its beautiful. I feel like this is the first time in my life I've ever experienced fall and I am in awe of what God has created. The reds and oranges and yellows! I am in love with these colors. 

When I first arrived here to North Carolina things were so different. The trees were all green and in bloom. I was showering outside and sweating buckets because of the heat and the garden was full of summer veggies. Things change. Now in order to stay warm I am pretty much always wearing my long johns and beanie. Its a mystery to me that after experiencing change in a variety of situations and times, it still surprises me. I've had a line from a John Denver song stuck in my head for the past several days "The changes sometimes frightening, still I have to smile. It turns me on to think of growing old". I'm not quite sure if its that I have been feeling "old" lately, but I have most definitely been feeling a strong pull towards stability and being settled somewhere. My time on the farm has been full of new experiences and so many learning opportunities. I feel a sense of peace about my decision to come here because it made me realize even more how much I love working outside and helped me discover my love of gardening and my new long term goal. My time here has also shown me how much I need to be doing something where I'm working with kids and/or youth. I miss that dearly and have been a slight crazy pants whenever I have the opportunity to interact with kids. I go nuts. The co-op grocery store where I work is apparently a breading ground for cute and adorable babies. They are everywhere and it takes everything in me to remain calm and not freak out every time one of them is rolled by my counter. I do however know several of the regular babies by name and now feel ok about squeezing their little cheeks and getting in their little faces. I just can't help myself. And I digress. Oops. Babies are not the theme of this blog post. Moving on. 
In the past couple of weeks though, I've begun to feel a pull back towards Texas sooner than what I had originally thought. I had been feeling homesick for a while so I decided very suddenly (me making sudden decisions?? get out of town!) to make a quick trip back to Texas for a couple of days. It was very quick and I really only saw my family and a couple of friends. It was so good for my soul to be around them and to be reminded why I had gone to the farm in the first place. I felt so loved and encouraged that when I came back it was hard for me to shake my feelings of really just wanting to be in Texas.

I also got to see Juliette, but we didn't take a picture together, So I just tried to find the most flattering picture I could of her. 

I realized within about the first month of being over here that Texas was where I wanted to end up. I wasn't ready to leave what I had started, but I was happy with this feeling of mine. Was was weirder though was the more I learned about farming and gardening and the value of being connected to your food source, I felt myself wanting to move back to the Bryan/ College Station area. This was such a strange thing for me to understand, because I never saw myself wanting to move back there. But now I do. And I am. I have made some decisions in the past couple of days regarding my time here in North Carolina and my future. I've decided that I'm going to move it on home around December 22nd and work on making a life for myself in Bryan. I want to be settled in place and start building my own mini urban homestead with chickens, bees a garden and beyond! I am finishing out my time here in this wonderful area living at a friend's house. I have been so blessed to meet so many wonderful people who instantly accepted me into their lives. I couldn't of asked for a better place.

The garden has changed so much since I first arrived. I'm glad I can relate. 

Baby broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower early in the season

Look how they've grown!