New beginnings

Change is hard – maybe that’s obvious to most, but until recently (I could be getting old), I’d thought I was capable of adapting quite well to change. Of course, there’s some pride in that belief I held, and I think God is giving me a path to give up my pride through all of this… But I’ll just say it outright, I’m not as strong as I once thought.

God’s blessings abound. It is my dear hope that none of my words come across as complaining; I’d far prefer to express the depth of my gratitude to our good, good Father, and also to everyone who has kept their promise to pray for us, and those who’ve physically come to support us the last few months.

We spent a lot of time in discernment in 2020, unsure of our next steps. There wasn’t a real reason at first to do anything different… Just a persistent tug from the Holy Spirit. We looked at houses, land, apartments. We bought cows, sold cows. Bought ducks, sold ducks. Everything we did seemed to have an unsettled feeling behind it… An urgency to get it wrapped up and be on the move. In the end of October, we found ourselves the owners of 20 acres in Montana. Why Montana? We’d lived and worked in Wyoming almost 3 years, appreciated our community beyond expression, and the culture all around us. Well, for starters, we didn’t go far – our property is within a 20 minute drive from the boys ranch. Secondly, it fit our needs and financial abilities (despite that it was absolutely not what we were looking for in the very beginning), and thirdly, it was slim pickings for a couple of kids like us. The year 2020, apparently, between the political unrest and the lockdowns and the uncertainty of the future, caused everyone and their mother-in-law to pack up and move to the country. We didn’t realize this until realtor after realtor told us, basically, good luck finding a home with your budget… They couldn’t keep a house on the market for more than a few days. A home seller’s dream year! Home buyer… Not so much.

So that puts us here: on our 20 acres of sagebrush and grease weed, alive with the sound of Grove Creek running through the property, vibrantly colored Magpies visiting each morning to clean up whatever corn kernels the longhorn cows have left behind.

We had a well dug, a foundation poured, and the construction of our “log cabin” was underway. It’s solid log from the bottom up, but only 3-sided. The open wall is sealed up against our camper. From inside the camper, when I open the door I step into the cabin. It’s large enough for a wood stove, a couch we brought, our dining room table, a couple of dressers, and a chest freezer. Because of the concrete, it’s cold unless the fire is going; then, it’s extremely cozy and actually warms up the whole camper as well. We put a sturdy tin roof on, cut in a door, and soon (I hope) we’ll also install a window, facing the mountains of course.

We moved out of our VERY cute and cozy home on the boys ranch, into a VERY different home of our own, at the end of November. So it’s been two months since of adapting to this way of life. For starters, we’re off-grid. This means we have to use the generator to either charge our battery bank, or plug the camper into. We’re learning a lot about power! Once we can afford it, we’ll purchase solar panels which will charge the batteries and save us time and money spent in fuel.

We’ve had lots of ups and downs, learning curves, and flat out failures due to our inexperience and mistakes, lack of forethought or laziness. That will bite you right in the tail. We’ve had to figure out solutions for frozen water, frozen sewer (ew), frozen wet laundry. We’ve had to figure out solutions for staying warm when we forgot to bring home gas from town, how to cook meals with one pan, how to refrigerate food without a fridge (hint… It’s cold outside). Note: we had a fridge, but it started on fire on Christmas Eve – thankful we were home and put it out right away before it could harm the rest of the camper! So now we’re taking advantage of the winter temps until we find a fridge OR alternative solution. Keeping an open mind!

Oh, all this has been fun, alright. I tell you, I don’t know if I have laughed harder in my life than I have these past few months!! I’ve certainly cried too when it seems like nothing at all is going as it should. How simple and peaceful our lives have become. It’s quiet, undisturbed, and the little things have become the most important things. As backbreaking as it sometimes is, the work required just to keep things going is molding my spirit and keeping us grateful. Our litany of gratitude would sound something like this:

For running water, thank You Lord!

For clean clothes to wear, thank You Lord!

For clean sheets to fall into, thank You Lord!

For a mild winter, thank You Lord!

For a home “built upon the rocks”, which stands steady when the blustering winds beat upon it, THANK YOU Lord!

For firewood to burn, thank You Lord!

For food to prepare, thank You Lord!

For healthy babies and a healthy, hardworking husband, thank You Lord!

For our incredible family and friends, thank You Lord!

For the help, generosity and encouragement our neighbors and friends have shared with us… (Thank you all so much) thank You Lord!

For solace from the noise of the world, thank You Lord.

In January, Rex started a new position as construction supervisor with Habitat for Humanity. His team is thrilled to have him, and he now has a much shorter drive to work, which means more quality family time. It’s been an enormous blessing to have Rex home every night.

And of course, though I haven’t finished writing her birth story just yet, we’ve been adjusting to life with Yvanika, who’ll soon be 4 months old! I had a harder time with the newborn phase this time than I did with Maverick, probably due to the chaos of moving out, along with having a wonderful, but very active, toddler to boot. But since we’ve gotten settled, Yvanika has been our ray of sunshine every day and we are loving every second of getting to know her as she grows.

Maverick turned two just after Christmas, it’s almost unbelievable that I’m the mother of a two year old son. He’s become so independent lately. Today he changed Yvanika’s diaper (with some help), and after he accidentally got his pants wet in the bathroom, he picked a new outfit and dressed himself, sans buttons. Also, we’re going on a month of using the potty! Don’t mind me, cheering loudly for pee and poop, but I’ll tell you what – it’s a true joy to witness a child grow from complete dependency on his mom, to a place of intelligent and careful independence. With some help, of course. God is so good!

I’ll wrap this up, more to come later, by saying that all this change has been harder than I thought it would be, and I say that only to be transparent and accountable. I’ve a long way to go before I can see in myself any semblance of “success” in maintaining this blessed homestead, but even when I feel like giving up, my family, even my babies, (with their wit and grace) encourage me to take one more step – sometimes that means starting over tomorrow, and I thank God for the second chance.

We send our love to you all, and hope to see or hear from you soon. It’s a true joy in this “hidden life” to hear from others who are on the journey of life with us, and to hear what that looks like for you! Please pray for our health, safety, and especially for the spirit of JOY in our home. God bless you, Mary keep you!

All our love,

Anna, Rex, Maverick and Yvanika