End of March 2021
Today I had the privilege of taking a walk through our back woods for a few precious moments. This is our first spring season here on the property and it’s filled with lessons from the land. With every opportunity comes a course in humility and grace. Just yesterday we tapped our walnut trees, only to see an immediate stream of droplets pouring from the spout and drip-dropping into a bucket. The sound of it reminds me of the coming heavy summer rains hitting the roof. You know, the ones that keep me up at night wondering if my flowers are dancing with joy or being pounded with terror.
This time of year baby buds are beginning to shed their winter coats and emerge. You can smell the wetness of winter sinking into the ground to nourish the new life through this very darwinian season. With every step, I see so many more varieties of life helping me to become aware of the quantities of living species that surround us. This world is much bigger than the one I have known for my whole life. The culturally influenced life cycles that we live and feel that we have so much control over are truly a ploy. I have subscribed to the thought that my life could be, rather would be linear and predictable. That I could plan and protect the things I loved and worked so hard for. With time being an incredibly limited resource with unreliable predictability, there’s always been a heavy pressured fog laying over me to be efficient and productive. Knowing this, I felt like I’d discovered the fountain of youth. Sustaining structure and control over life has been an impossible task though.
When the structure of our family’s businesses was rumbled by the global health crisis of 2020, we stumbled on a home. One we could grow our family in. A property we could host gatherings outside with our friends and neighbors to celebrate the things that make life feel GOOD. At a time where my material world was crumbling, I was reminded of the challenges I’d faced prior to my success as an entrepreneur. It felt, and often continues to feel like an impossible task to start anew. But if mother nature can pull it off every spring, so can I. She’s got a lot more little lives to look after than we do. She’s probably developed a knack for letting go of the failures… I hope to establish a confidence in that realm someday.
This world is so much bigger than me and my scope of thoughts. It’s filled with exceptions to the rules and disorganized chaos and obstacles. It’s filled with challenges, rainstorms, late frosts, garden insect infestations, and invasive species. I hope to make Goodmaker Acres a place where people can learn about these cycles and challenges within the education of diverse ecological systems housed here to support our farm. Where we can share our lessons learned over a drink so that the fog doesn’t feel too thick to trudge through. Where we can tell stories by the fire about the things we’ve seen and heard and been through. Where we can dance under the stars. and dine under the moon.
As I turned the corner around our spring house, our dog Fiona splashed across the stream that flows behind. I squat next to the stream and ran my hands across a damp moss covered rock. Memories of the little girl version of me day dreaming by a stream about the life I would grow up to have begin to flood my mind. Though the details may have scattered alongside the river of thoughts, everything I’d hoped for came true. A Mr. Goodmaker to show me the world is bigger than I allow myself to see. A partner who wants to follow me as I create the vision. Someone I can teach, learn from, and grow with. Children to help teach the preciousness of patience. Patience is the super power for slowing time. A home to grow roots. Plants, because they don’t talk back. A place to share the good things in our lives with others. That’s Goodmaker Acres.