Backyard Adventurlings!

Leaving a hospital and reacclimatizing one's self to the outside world can prove to be a disorienting endeavor.  Shifting from an existence within a well-tended box into the wide-openness of spring's exuberance induces almost more happiness than my heart can bear.

When I awoke this morning and realized how much of a gift today's weather is (not to mention that we have a penned-up Pygmy doe in the early stages of labor!), I gobbled down some breakfast, wound the Moby around my awkward post-birth body, slid my little hushpuppy inside, and off we went back yard adventuring!

 The puglets 
couldn't bear to be left behind, so I allowed them to slip out behind me and wander the blossoming fields by my side.

Watch out, mush-heads!  Cactus is unkind to tender paws.

My husband, he the keeper of grandfatherly nature knowledge, told me that such seemingly random riots of the prickly plant often mark former garden sites.  The stuff is plowed up and broken, which only serves to redistribute it and further propagate its spread. 

(From what we've been told by some of the small-town sages around here, our property was once a cotton field conveniently planted two blocks away from the local cotton gin. You can still see partial
foundation of the gin building just a gum ball's throw down the way.  Gah! I love living in the South.)

Even our neighbors were caught up in the spirit of backyard wanderlust, giving us a peek at their athletic magnificence as they grazed the adjoining pasture.

This five acre sojourn makes me realize that I live in just the perfect place for me at this moment in
my life. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude toward my husband, who has broken his back over the past
four years in order to cultivate the beauty we enjoy right outside our door.  

I bless the family who raised the house on this property, and who had the foresight to make it so sturdy and enjoyable to live in.

And most of all, I give glory to my Heavenly Father, who planted our family's roots at Sassafras Farm and blessed our efforts to create a joyful mode of living here.  When I walk this property, I think of how my New Jersey friend Joe used to teasingly call me Scarlett O'Hara.  I feigned offense, but I was secretly pleased... And am even more so now, for maybe he saw something within me that I didn't: a deep love of my home, and a willingness to work tirelessly and sacrifice endlessly in order for our family to have a place that becomes an inextricable part of them.