The house progress
I took a trip to the farm earlier this month. Usually Greg goes to check on the progress, but since he’d been travelling so much lately, it was decided that I should go instead. It was a four day trip, something I haven’t done since four children ago. One of the advantages with Greg’s work is that we earn frequent flyer miles and car rental incentives, so it is inexpensive for us to travel. I would normally say that that is the only advantage of traveling for work, but with the economy the way it is, I am just glad for the employment.

Even though our contractor was formerly Amish (now Mennonite), he’d never done an Amish-to-English conversion and so there was a lot of things everyone learned along the way. We don’t plan on needing this kind of information again, but I suppose it might prove helpful for someone one day. For example, one way to save a lot of drywall work is to run the electric along the bottom of the wall—threading it up to the receptacle spots–so that the patching doesn’t have to be done perfectly, as the baseboards will cover it. I am partial toward high baseboards, and so having a practical reason for them was helpful. They are plain, not fancy.

We hired a cabinet maker to do our kitchen, as it turned out to be more economical than using a retail store. He is behind on the counters and cabinets, but we still expect/hope the entire project to be finished in July. We bought the farm – I see the euphemism there – last August, so it looks like the rehab will end up as a one year project.

The neighbors
I met more neighbors on this trip. After asking around, I was led to a farm down the way to inquire about keeping our place bush hogged while we were away. They already knew who I was, so I didn’t even have to introduce myself. News travels fast, I’m learning, and so now it’s just easier to say, “Hey, we’re the folks who bought Jake’s place.” That is the shorthand for my farm address, birthplace, family status, and all the work that is going on at the farm. (They already know; no need to say it.) People tell me this country telephone is good and bad, but so far for us, it’s been good.

Our neighbors are fellow Floridian transplants that moved for similar reasons. So here we are in the same little town that we both picked because it was affordable and pretty. They used to own a gas station a mile from our house in Orlando, so life is funny that way. Our neighbors on the farm south of us are also from Florida, I hear. I met a realtor that weekend from Deland, Florida. I am noticing the pattern.

I spoke with my new neighbors for several hours. They are eager to help us avoid all the mistakes they made, but not nearly as eager as I am to learn. Greg tells me that I need to learn different manners – like not being in such a hurry all the time – but I’m not sure how much of that is my personality and how much if that is surviving with a large amount of preschoolers. Really, I don’t enjoy eating fast, talking fast, getting things done chop-chop, but with the past ten years of having babies in succession….well, you know.

There is an Amish schoolhouse that used to be part of our farm, but it got divided up during an auction last year. It is across our narrow road down by the river. I heard that a newlywed Amish couple is living there and farming, but I didn’t get to meet them. They plan to build a house soon. I followed their buggy home one night, but since it was late, I didn’t stop in. (Actually, I wasn’t following them, I just decided not to pass them.) We’ll meet soon enough.

John Piper’s comments that I wrestle with
I drove the back roads of our area, and it is beautiful. While enjoying the scenery, I was thinking about one conversation Greg and I had back in 2000. It was late and we were talking about where we’d like to be in 10 years. It never occurred to us that we could leave Orlando, as (1) that’s where we were both raised and (2) because because. Yet, our kids couldn’t play outside because of the traffic and crime, and we just felt restless. There were no sidewalks even if, let’s say, there weren’t gangs.

Right around this time, I heard John Piper – back before he became a celebrity pastor – publically criticize some men (not by name) who were being interviewed for the pastoral staff at his church. During the interview process, they asked if the area (downtown Minneapolis) was safe for their kids. Boy, he went off. He explained about how the Christian life wasn’t about “safe” but that the only safe spot in the world is in the center of God’s will. (I’m paraphrasing; if I use the phrase “God-saturated” or something, you might think I’m quoting, so I’ll stick to this generic version.) I agree with this position, but I’m not sure how to unpack it.

In some way, I think it’s OK to take risks for myself, but not necessarily for my children. And by that, I mean, calculated risks for the Gospel, not just stupid stuff. This idea impacted me in a big way, as you can see from my writing about it so many years later, and in some way, I feel the need to justify my decision to withdraw from the decay instead of raising my children among the moral cesspool. Sometimes. This doesn’t mean that I’m wavering or unsure, just that I’m always thinking about how our lives can be wasted. How many of our life decisions are based on preferences and not on earnestly desiring that God’s name look great? Not that there isn’t moral degeneration wherever you go and you’ll get away from sin by moving to the country. The counter-point to Piper’s position is what Rod Dreher, the Crunchy Con, often talks about with the Benedict Option. In a lot of ways, I think it’s a “both-and” instead of an “either-or” and it all depends on what you’re trying to do.

Everyone has different callings, but no matter what, decisions ought to be based on faith and not fear. (Romans 14:23) Each side (one side being in the world, the other side being not of it–even though we’re supposed to be both, we tend toward one side or the other)tends to claim the moral high ground, whether or not they found themselves there by default. In other words, I would think sanitized bragging rights belong moreso to someone who radically changed the course of their life, choosing the harder path, as we all usually just defend the position we find ourselves in, in order to justify our laziness or whatever. I’m just saying, as I’m guilty of it.

My current thinking is that it’s possible to raise children in the middle of popular culture, but definitely harder and not without significant risks. That’s my call as a parent for my own kids. With our situation, I began looking for ways to make this easier without having to stop having children. Again, this is where I felt sure of my calling, but all the other stuff seemed negotiable. I’m not saying we are 100% making the right decision, just that it was deliberate.

It’s OK to dream
It was during the late night conversation in 2000 that we looked at each other and basically said, “You know, I don’t hear God telling us to stay, so why don’t we follow our dream?” With babies coming every year, it made sense to us to take steps in another direction, out of the city. We needed a place that I didn’t have to lose my mind playing a helicopter parent. We could’ve made the concession to just stop having babies – don’t-you-know-what’s-causing-that —but in my heart, I felt that God did have that in His plans for us. We might have been foolish in the eyes of everyone, but I felt at peace with God.

We moved to the coast to be closer to Greg’s job. This was huge, as I said, because we’ve both lived in Orlando all along. He was commuting 2 hours, 15 minutes each day, and that’s time you can never get back. Once we settled into what is our home now, we began looking for alternative ways to make a living, pay off the house, and simplify. Again, one solution is to quit the stork’s visits, but living simple isn’t about sacrificing quality of life for the easiest way to live it. So, I came up with a new idea almost everyday (think: rentals), but none of them ever amounted to much (think: rentals). The way I saw it, we had two options. Either Greg could work more hours to make more money to pay for the things we needed and wanted, or we could reduce our needs and wants and need less money. We fiddled with spreadsheets constantly, and in 2005, I was ready to sell our house at the peak of the Florida housing bubble. The trouble was, Greg didn’t have a work-from-home job, so where would we go anyway? None of my entrepreneur ideas worked.

We were rescued from probable financial ruin with all my let’s-start-a-company talk when Greg landed a work-from-anywhere job after the market decline. Notice I used “work-from-anywhere” instead of “work-from-home.” My son asked last week, “Mom, how come Daddy got a work-from-home job but he doesn’t work from home?” Actually, all his emailing and phone calling at home is part of his job, but it does involve some travel.

A miscellaneous paragraph about my baby
I think I’ve gotten off-track, but I don’t know how to get back on. Apparently from my going on and on, you can tell that the baby is still sleeping. She is six-months-old and began crawling this week. This is an official Scott baby deviation, as all the Scott babies sit up at six months and crawl at seven months. I don’t know how this Scott baby got so far off track. I will have to research this.

It’s all good
Anyway, the drive. Yes, I was driving and wondering and thinking and praying and just being happy. We’ve talked about this for so long — the chickens, the berries, the creeks, the fresh milk, the flowers — and it is given to us to enjoy. But I know that it’s not nirvana. No matter where we’ve been – in the rented 2 bedroom California apartment, downtown Orlando, this pretty farm – we’ve always had Jesus. This is the reason the Christian has joy in poverty and in plenty.

A few things have changed for us, and so we’re considering an August moving date. How cool is that.

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The road to our farm, concretely speaking