The Beauty of Ordinary Days

In 2025 my posts have been confined to a single location: My home.  Different spots around the farm of course, but ultimately, all within walking distance of my front door.  The reason is two fold: 1.  I have become rather lazy about getting up early in the morning to take photos, much preferring to lounge in my robe until after sunrise when I change into my old work clothes to start my farm chores.  2.  We have spent every possible free moment in construction.  On the nice days we built with wood; on the not so nice days we built with concrete; on the bad days, well if it was too nasty out to work it was certainly too nasty to go out for photos. I tried at the end of summer to schedule a location session for some great new pieces I acquired for my birthday, but in the end we just had too much good weather and loads of work to do to spare a whole morning.

We intended all this work to give more space to our family in this tiny house, but before we could get it done, our oldest grew up and moved out. At the rate things are going, I'm afraid our youngest may be moved out too before we are all done, but we tried our best.

Almost every inch of this construction was done by my husband and myself.  Let me emphasize that:  Every. Single. Inch.  Squaring dirt walls by hand, hauling out fill, bringing back fill, pouring concrete, hefting cinder blocks, hoisting walls: we've done it all ourselves.  I grew up on a functioning farm, not the glorified petting zoos that most people call farms now, but an actual working farm, and I can safely say this has been the most labor intensive work of my life and yet the most rewarding as well.

There is an indescribable satisfaction that comes from making something new or restoring something old, especially something like this, which was in the home that dad grew up in and it has been rescued and moved to a home that, God willing, my grandchildren will one day spend many happy days in.