Some may wish for city streets, jewels or silken gowns
Some may crave unbounded wealth, fame or beauty’s crown;

Some may long for sunny paths that lure the pleasure bent-
But simpler things by far than these would keep my soul content.

A bit of God’s green country, with the blue sky overhead;

A tiny shack, white curtained; on the sill, a posy red;

A laughing, chubby baby, playing inside on the floor,

And a little flower garden, growing near the open door.

A table set for supper, fresh fruit, and honeycomb,
Little breezes whispering, “Your man’s a comin’ home.”

Simple things, with love and faith-far from worldly strife,
God granting these, before I die, I’d ask no more of life.

Poem “Wishes” by A.C. Childs, from the book “Poems that Touch the Heart”

All images, mine, except the one that I am in which is courtesy of Joy Prouty/Wildflowers Photography

“Mommy, maybe it will snow tomorrow,” my little Farmer boy half asks, half declares at bedtime.  He looks longingly out the bedroom window, white curtain brushed aside and fingertips pressed to the cool glass.

“Maybe . . . ” I offer tentatively, kindly.  The forecast shows temperatures in the 50s and 60s for days on end, the chance of snow only real in the mind of a hopeful child who leaves a snow shovel outside the front door each night, an invitation.

“Only God knows what weather He will send,” I finish saying, a favorite reminder of mine, continually relayed to the children.

My Farmer Boy stands at the window and prays for snow.  He isn’t one to pray silently.  He prays out loud with a faith that makes me stop and listen well, I who taught him to pray in the first place.  The student becoming the teacher. Two students actually, he and I, with one mighty Teacher, the Giver of the Snow.

There is no snow for Christmas but there are snow-white camellias blooming on vibrant green bushes outside the kitchen window as I make cranberry jam to usher in the new year.  Bright red jars of promise.  Jam to pour on top of a scone, jam to drizzle on top of vanilla ice cream.  I think of the end of Proverbs 31: she does not fear the snow because she and her household are clothed in scarlet.

December is a peculiar month to welcome ducklings to our little hobby farm but they come just the same, six little bundles of puffy yellow joy.  They spend the first several weeks in a metal washtub in the house and swim (on days I can manage it) in the bathroom sink.  When they outgrow their space I move them to the barn and they live under a heat lamp until they soon grow white fluffy down for warmth.  Every passing day they are less baby-yellow and more grownup-white.  They are warmed by our Heavenly Father.  Before the snow flies, he dresses them warmly.

It is two days before the new year and I am sound asleep in my bed as morning dawns over the Blue Ridge.  In my dream, it is snowing.  I am running with my Little Farmer Boy and snow falls all around us.  I reach my hands to gather the snow but stop short as it is warm and soft in my hands.  I look closely and see that it isn’t snow at all but downy soft duck feathers.  We glance up and see millions and millions of feathers falling down around us.

“You see, my love, I tell my Little Farmer Boy as the feathers tickle our faces, “only God knows what weather He is going to send!”  My boy reaches out for me.  His fingers lace through mine and he pulls me in a circle, faster and faster, with his head thrown back in little boy laughter.  The world is a blur of love and down.  I could stay for ages in this holy place but little feet pitter-patter into the bedroom and I am pulled most reluctantly from my dream.

“Mommy, mommy!!!” My children call expectantly.  I open my eyes and see my 4 year-old just inches from my face.  He grips my cheeks inside his precious little hands and together with his brother says, “you’ll never guess!!”

The curtains are thrown back and the world outside our window is covered in the finest dusting of December snow.  The children are silhouetted against the window.  Maybe an answered prayer is more precious when the answer takes its time in coming.

I brace for the commotion to follow: the boots and the mittens and the tracking inside the house.  All the while I thank God for His provision.  I toast thick slices of bread and spread them generously with cranberry jam. I daydream about feathers falling as I watch the children out the window, my husband’s hand warm and sure on my back.

Clothed in Scarlett Cranberry Jam

2 bags fresh cranberries (approximately 6 cups)

1 cup orange juice

2   1/4 cups sugar

2 cups water

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbl orange zest

Combine all ingredients in large pot (I use a dutch oven) and bring to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.  When mixture comes to a boil, the cranberries will pop open.  Stir well (and carefully, as cranberries popping may splatter a bit) and reduce heat to a gentle simmer.  Allow jam to simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  As jam cools, use a potato masher to blend and thin jam.  Jam will thicken as it cools.  When cooled, store in mason jars in refrigerator for up to 1 week.  Enjoy, share, gift!

Happy New Year, Friends!

At the end of the summer we had the awesome privilege of having photographer Joy Prouty and her family at our home for one beautiful sun-drenched August evening. Joy made the loveliest video for us and I will never be able to thank her enough for the authentic moments and interaction she was able to preserve. This time with littles is such a whirlwind of busy days and short nights, I wonder far too often if I will remember the way that my oldest boy throws his head back when he laughs or the way my 4 year-old is always playing with my hair or the connection that my baby girl and I have at this stage, before we are even able to share words. Joy captured all of those things and more. My heart is so full and happy to be able to share this beautiful video of our family at home.

p.s., funny fact, I am 5’8″ and our oldest is 6 years-old. You can see just how TALL this boy is when I pick him up about half-way through . . .

Southwell Family Session at Home [Wilkesboro, NC] from joy prouty on Vimeo.

A rare “big camera” capture of me with all three of my little ones.  This was May, I believe.

Sweet sleeping babe, 7 months.

James and Evelyn in the kitchen sink.

I love the light and shadows inside our barn.  I want to hang an old fashioned rope swing from the rafters near the barn doors.  We read Charlotte’s Web together this past winter and the children in the story (Fern and Avery) play on a thick rope with a knot at the bottom fashioned into a swing in their uncle’s barn.

I have no idea what my James is doing in this picture, but it’s hilarious to me.  He is our entertainment, continually.  He complains every morning on our walk to the barn that the grass is wet and uncomfortable on his legs. I am teaching him that it is okay to be uncomfortable sometimes-that is life.

This spring we brought home 2 more pekin ducklings.  They are males and now fully grown with fun curly drake feathers.  We also raised 3 Easter Egger chicks and now have 2 beautiful laying hens.  The third chick turned out to be a rooster and we couldn’t keep him because he was a bully with the others.  The hens lay the most beautiful blue/green eggs.  One hen, “Goldie”, lays eggs that are more blue than green and the other hen, “Nonnie”, lays eggs that are more green and speckled.

A “Nonnie Egg”

Every time I have baby birds in a brooder I swear I will never do it again because they are so messy and smelly.  I was so relieved when they were big enough to be out from under the heat lamp and inside the barn.

Good thing they’re so cute.

Two favorite pictures from this past spring:  Wynn with Fluffy and James with Clover Bunny.

Wynn rounding the ducks up for bed.

My precious girl at 8 months.  She was so fussy the first 4 months but then transitioned into the happiest baby, always smiling. Her hair is red and her eyes are blue.  I call her “my little red-haired girl.”  She is fascinated by all the animals and adores her big brothers.

When the forsythia started to bloom this spring.

James in a favorite spot near our house, April.

Make-believe and dress-up.  This boy is almost always in a costume or playing some part.

One of the coolest things we did this past year in homeschool was to start our own little business we call The Golden Egg Company.

My Farmer Boy has been selling our eggs and other homemade locally-sourced goodies each month.  We have been whipping butter from cream and then making: cinnamon honey butter (using local Brushy Mountain honey), garlic rosemary butter (using herbs from our garden) and a really yummy maple nutmeg (local syrup and hand-grated nutmeg).  In May we picked 8 gallons of strawberries and made and sold (and ate and ate and ate) strawberry jam.

This has been a really amazing way to incorporate math into homeschool.  We did not use any sort of math curriculum this past year (after starting off with one and seeing my 5 year-old dread it).  Our little company has given us practice with graphing, counting, money and making change, measuring, etc.  My Farmer Boy has really thrived with this style of learning.

We went to Michigan and spent 7 weeks at our beach cottage this summer.  Wynn sat in our front yard over the 4th of July and sold $200 worth of butter, ice cream and lemonade, haha.  I thought we had made enough jars of butter to keep him busy for at least a day but he sold out of butter in one hour and we ended up giving him lemonade and ice cream bars to sell-he was thrilled.  He is happiest when he is working hard. 

A few favorite pictures from our Michigan summer:

And finally, we celebrated our baby girl’s first birthday at the end of August.  I could cry buckets of tears if I let myself dwell on the fact that she is so quickly transitioning from baby to toddler, but she is also so much fun at this age, so full of life and giggles and personality.  In many ways I feel like I am just now coming out of a 2 year-long fog that started with a long, very sick pregnancy and then figuring out life as a mother of 3 with a newborn.  Honestly, it feels so good to be at the stage we are now.  My cup runneth over.

For more daily goodness, feel free to follow along on Instagram!

The winter days spent mothering can feel long and robbed of fresh air and sunlight.  I find myself seeing rays of light in places I would have overlooked at another time of year.  I am hungry for it.  Light falls through the kitchen window on babies in the sink.  There is light, a golden honey, that falls on wrinkled baby toes.  I live in yoga pants, hair swept up in a messy bun and I serve and give from the moment my eyes open in the morning until they are asleep for the night.  There are days when I don’t think I will make it until bedtime.  I do.  I miss them while they are sleeping and I pray over them and think back over the day and vow to love even more the next day, speak even more gently, somehow become wise enough to divide one mother-heart between three babes who would prefer to have all of me.  Tonight my 3 year-old snuggles deeper into my pillow, an hour into dreaming and still searching for mommy’s scent.

“I just want to be with you, mommy,” he pleads at bedtime, his tears falling, his baby sister squirming in my arms to be swaddled and nursed.  “You and Evie snuggle me under the covers.”

I tell him that I am here.

“Your room is full of light, mommy.  My room is too dark.”

I think of the nightlights his daddy has placed lovingly throughout his room and his big brother sleeping in the twin bed next to his and I run my fingers through his fine blonde hair.

“You can stay, baby.”

Relief and peace flood his face and he is asleep in minutes, head on my pillow, heart of my heart.  When everything is still for the first time all day regret seeps into the quiet, it begs my attention, it wants to breed condemnation.

Why do I let sibling squabbles and all the messes steal joy from my day?  I do.  We all do it.

“Teach us to number our days, oh Lord,” I whisper into the baby’s ear.  She nurses hungrily as her brother’s chest rises and falls beneath my outstretched palm.

The daffodils and crocuses emerged from the earth before Christmas this year, confused by December’s unseasonable warmth.  Now they are covered in a fine dust of January snow.  It is startlingly beautiful.  In the morning our ducks roam the yard and I run my hand down their downy feathers and they are covered with tiny crystals of ice.  My 5 year-old has planted so many seeds and bulbs around our property I have no idea what will come up this spring.  What gift is just beneath the surface, biding it’s time?

We started a greenhouse of sorts in the canning kitchen at the back of our old house.  Every chance I get I bring another packet of seeds home to him.  We bond over little pots of terra cotta.  He folds lavender seeds, basil, wildflower seeds into potting soil.   He adds so much water I am certain the seeds will never germinate.  They do.  They emerge tiny shoots of chartreuse.  Like me, they are hungry for the light.  This boy that I grew inside of me is now a little farmer growing things beside of me.  I praise God for him, for the seeds, for the light that knits everything together.

“Teach us to number our days, oh Lord,” I whisper into the falling snow, face upturned toward heaven.

There is silence again but this time there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1).  Rather grace falls from the sky, covering everything. (Psalm 51:7)

It took me three months to finish this project but I managed to compile all of my favorite images from the day our sweet Evelyn was born and put them all in a music video.   I am sharing so that you might see more than our joy. Come and see the love of God which is as to you and yours every bit as much as it is to me and mine.  Come and see what God has done . . .

Wishing you the merriest of Christmases . . .

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33

October marked the 8 year anniversary of this blog.  8 years. That blows my mind.  Where does the time go?

I want to start writing again regularly, maybe once each week, but I wonder if there is anyone still reading amid the cobwebs of this unattended space where I have poured out my heart for so long.  And now with my heart full to bursting, there is so much I want to share with you.  So many stories I want to tell.

Life with Evelyn is wonderful.  She is joy beyond measure.  She has been a rather fussy baby during the day these first few months but sleeps well at night.  I believe we are coming out of the colicky newborn phase now that she has turned 3 months.

We honestly do stare at her in disbelief that she is really our girl!   I wonder if I will always look at her this way.

We have had a beautiful, albeit rainy fall, here at the foot of our Brushy Mountains.

Life with our ducks continues to be fun and entertaining.  They started laying eggs a few months ago and we collect 2 or 3 each morning (they are fantastic for baking and good to just eat as well).

Our sweet baby James turned 3 in September.  After a difficult period following Evelyn’s birth, he is back to being the charmer of the family and happy-go-lucky.

Sweet Evelyn Delphine at 2 months (end of October)

And my industrious, outdoor-loving Wynn, who is still never far from my side.

I remember the snow globe and its black velveteen bottom as I lay with my toddler boy tonight, his little frame, half asleep, cradled against my side. His heart, his beautiful little heart, is spinning inside this beautiful frenzy.  There is a new baby in his house, a shift in his foundation.

Days ago I sat with him as he painted a picture with watercolors. Blues and violets bled together on a page of white.

“This is the sky, mama,” he says, pointing with his brush.

“It’s pretty, baby,” I answer halfheartedly, my attention in part on his newborn sister nursing in my lap.

“And this ,” he says painting a smudge of royal blue atop watery lavender clouds, “is God.”

My attention snaps to his paper.  The room is now quiet and large, this moment set apart.  My toddler boy leans over his art and whispers with conviction into the paper, “My mommy loves you, God.”

I pray for his beautiful heart tonight as I lay beside him. Everyone says this time will pass soon.  The behavior that I see from him now, the separation anxiety and the anger, so contrary to the beautiful heart I know, will end.  But while I wait on that calm to return, my child is hurting and my concerns and my own anxieties have me truly rattled.

I take it to the Lord in prayer, asking Him very simply for wisdom and discernment, according to His perfect will, in raising my three year-old and shepherding his heart.  And then I let it go.  I have earnestly sought the Lord in prayer and I am assured He will give me wisdom and discernment.  He will help me. His Word promises me this.  I believe His word.  He will help me tomorrow.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
  1 John 5:14

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.* Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11 

* “rest” in the original Greek of the New Testament is the word anapausis which translates: to keep quiet, of calm and patient expectation.

I rest tonight.  Anapausis.  My heart quiet and calm in patient expectation.  I look up and let the proverbial snow fall and fall into a silent blanket of white.  For this is our Lord, the Holy One of Israel, who hears the prayers of His children and who gives freely His peace and rest to all who believe and call on His name.