November 20th:

Weather

After a cold weekend when we moved in, it warmed up to the low 70’s on Wednesday before plunging again, courtesy of a rainy cold front on Thursday morning. I’m told the temperature swings are common this time of year. The last couple of mornings have been in the mid 20’s with highs in the 40’s. We’ve been having fun getting to know our wood stove, and we’ve never slept so good as these nights when the house has been in the low to mid-60’s.

Down On The Farm

Both things happening this week on the farm have been humbling. We’ve been stacking the firewood pile we bought, and splitting some pieces into kindling. Humbling experience #1: learning how to get a good fire going in the wood stove. I eventually get it going, but it shouldn’t be this difficult or take this long. However, practice is paying off and I think I’m getting a little better each time.

We came here anticipating that wild meat would be an important source of food for us, just like we rely on our domestic farm-raised meat. The timing of our arrival here was perfect as opening day of deer season was today. This also happens to be Samantha’s 13th birthday, and she jumped at the chance to go “hunting” with me. This leads to humbling experience #2: learning how to zero in a new scope so we could actually hit what we’re aiming at, should the opportunity present itself.

We know there are abundant deer all over the area and we have been seeing a big buck in our pasture every day, chasing does around and throwing caution to the wind. I say Samantha had a chance to go “hunting” with me because I’ve never really hunted before, but I think we know enough related skills to figure it out. We are really putting to practice the Picasso quote, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

With little time to correct my rifle troubles the deer were all quite safe today, and our “hunting” time turned into “scouting” time. Deer season lasts until early January, and I bet we’ll be spending more time doing some real hunting in the coming weeks.

Best Thing We Ate

“Eggy hoo’s” – a simple breakfast idea from a friend…Fried egg over easy on top of a piece of buttered toast. Slice up the egg and toast together so that it all kind of mixes together.

From Family Worship

We’ve been reading through 1 Peter in the evenings, and one night led to an interesting discussion about the fleeting nature of time and how the Bible has much to say about how short our lives are. A child may think 80 or 90 years is a long time, but I bet most 80 or 90 year old people would disagree, and say that it went by in a flash.

The wisdom of Scripture tells us how to live in light of life’s brevity. Without the proper perspective we’re left to cling desperately to life under the motto, “you only live once”. But if, because of our faith in Jesus Christ we recognize that we are passing through this world and that death is not the end, but the beginning of something greater, we’re freed to live generously and sacrificially in this world, enjoying the good gifts of life without trying to cling on to them.

Other Happenings

What do you do when you first move to Tennessee? You go to Dollywood. Actually, I don’t think we would ever have gone to Dollywood if another family didn’t generously invite us as their guests. It was a nice, mild day and we had a great time, but we also saw the family divided into two camps: roller coaster people and non-roller coaster people.

Quinn got a kitten named Summer. She has looked forward to this for some time as it was an agreement I made with her back in Florida in a moment of weakness. The agreement is she can have the kitten, but it will eventually be an outside cat. The problem is the cat is something like 4 months old but looks like it was just born. How long it will take to be viable outdoors is something I failed to account for.

Final note: I think of myself as the luckiest man in the world to be able to work from home and be around my family every day, joining them for meals and not commuting 45 miles a day. Some people can’t stand working from home, but for me it is wonderful.