John Adams

Just finished an HBO mini series, John Adams.  Excellent movie.  A love story.  A political drama.  A story of enduring friendship and personal growth.

My quote of the day is this, excerpted from a letter to John Adams on the death of his wife.

My dear friend,
Tried myself in the school of human affliction, I know well and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering and have yet to endure.  These same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicines.  It is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost and whom we shall still love and never lose again.
God support you under your heavy affliction.
Your friend,
Thomas Jefferson

This quote impresses me even more because now I know a little of their friendship, their political rivalry, and their personal journeys to these words. 

I was inspired by how these men continued to grow and mature throughout their lives.  I hope I can learn the things most difficult to me as John Adams learned simple pleasures and forgiveness in his 70's and 80's.

Good reads

I've got two books to recommend:  Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine, PhD and The Art and Science of Resilience: Surviving Survival by Laurence Gonzales. 

I've only read the first few chapters of Waking the Tiger and it's due back at the library.  I'll recheck it out.  It has, from what I've seen so far, some activities for physically releasing traumatic experiences.  Haven't tried many but I intend to circle back and try.

Surviving Survival is one of those books I've been talking about with everyone the last couple weeks.  Great case studies and even better neuroscience plus practical suggestions without candy coating.  Very well done.

Quote I want to remember from Surviving is:
As my father used to say of certain aircraft that had been distressed by long overuse, the brain is a collection of spare parts flying in close formation.

Farm update

Hello, neighbors!

Amy from 27900 Quarry, here, with a farm update.

We've begun to get livestock- chickens, guineas, ducks, and today are adding a livestock guardian dog.  Her name is Pax (packs) and she is an 8 month old livestock guardian dog from Grantsburg, WI.  She has grown up with sheep, goats, cows, and chickens and will begin her work at our place later today.  She's large and white and is descended from generations of flock guardians called the Maremma in Italy, the Tatra in Poland, and the Ranch Mastiff in Spain where shepherds move flocks of tens of thousands seasonally up and down mountain slopes.  Despite weighing 50+ pounds, she will still be considered a puppy for several months and as such will have a lot to learn.  All of these breeds have been selected not for appearance but for their devotion to their flocks and their people.  Their most special gentleness is reserved for children, the elderly, and other vulnerable people.  They are not aggressive nor prone to bite and will go to great lengths to scare off threats rather than fight. 

Which leads us to this email to all of you, our immediate neighbors.  We, in consultation with the shepherd who raised her, will be working consistently with Pax over the next several months until she can do her job well- stay home and guard the livestock.  We will work with her to establish the boundaries of her territory and plan to keep her on our property unless we specifically hear from you that you'd like her to visit yours.  Conversely, we ask that you and your families do continue to visit us.  Pax will learn that you are all friends and are welcome anytime and she will be especially pleased to see children.  Unfortunately, large dogs which she might perceive as a threat will be the one exception to our hospitality.  So, please leave any dogs more than 15 pounds at home.  We are in the process of clearly defining our property line, most often with pink plastic ribbons so that we keep her on our land.  If you have any boundary questions, please let us know and we'll get that clarified right away; we'd like to start her off right.  We hope to have a lot of wrinkles worked out within a month and we're hoping for a reliable guardian by late fall.  However, Pax comes with a money-back guarantee so if she's not a good fit, we'll take her back.

If you have any problems or concerns at all about Pax, Zed the tuxedo cat, the poultry, or any of the other changes around here, please let us know right away.  We are so grateful to live in such a great neighborhood.  You were here before we got here, making this such a great place to live, and we want to make sure to the best of our abilities that our farm goals and changes don't negatively impact on all of you and your quality of life.  We want to keep this neighborhood happy and strong. 

Our guineas and muscovy ducks have taken a particular shine to the Spohns' and Jewsons' properties along the water.  And Tim and the kids have been running through your yards shoo-ing them home.  If you'd prefer the poultry didn't visit, please let us know and we'll do our best to keep them away.  On the other hand, if you'd like them to eat your ticks and mosquitoes as they walk through, they'll happily oblige.

As you have been the first to be impacted by the guinea noise and livestock visitors, you will also be first for eggs, ducklings, and chicks.  We're hoping for baby Muscovies this spring, baby guineas this summer, and eggs for eating within a couple months. 

Please do let us know about small problems so they don't cause big problems.   

Pax's name is Latin for 'peace' and that's what we're hoping to grow on our farm- peace. 

Look for an invitation to come and meet Pax and the poultry gang as soon as Pax is settled in.

Blessings,
Amy, Tim, Anjali, and Mark Reisdorf
27900 Quarry Rd
612-825-2761

Chipper Shredder Party

You are invited to a

Chipper/Shredder Party at the Reisdorf's

Saturday, May 4 from 9 a.m.- 4 p.m.

We're renting the Big Mother Chipper and hope to transform the monstrous piles of branches and sticks cluttering up the orchard into beautiful mulch in a single day.

One person will feed the chipper and the rest of us will be hauling branches to the machine or tending kids and prepping food.

Bring ear protection and work gloves.  We'll have extras if you don't have them.

It's Lyme disease tick season so wear tall socks you can tuck your pants into. 

Terrain's rugged and muddy plus the weather's expected to be cold and wet so dress accordingly.

On the sunny side, Gramma Marty will be running the chuck wagon so expect great eats!  Special diets, let us know and we'll gladly accommodate.

Bad weather and good food- definitely a Minnesota party. :)

So, come join us for a day of power machinery, friendship, and food as the branches meet their Mulcher.

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true;

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

William Butler Keats

Quoted in Sex and the Soul of a Woman

Kay and the good

Tomorrow is my last visit to a dear woman, Kay Allen, my EMDR counselor of several years.  I'm not feeling particularly eloquent but I am feeling particularly grateful.  She's quite a person and has blessed me regularly through tumultuous times.  She helped me connect with a new EMDR counselor closer to home with her blessing.
Beautiful and very good.

Into the Storm and through the storm

Into the Storm, a movie about Winston and Clementine Churchill during and after WWII, was a recent assignment from Ginger.

These quotes by Winston Churchill struck me:

Let us move steadfastly together into the storm and through the storm.

This is one of those moments when [one] can draw from the heart of misfortune the vital impulses of victory.

Never maltreat the enemy by halves.

KBO- Keep buggering on


What stands out to me from the movie is that Churchill was the right man to lead Britain during World War II.  He inspired.  He demanded.  He made impossible choices.  He lead his people to victory.

Churchill was also the wrong man to lead Britain into peace after the war.  The very strengths which made him the perfect leader for war made him a lousy one for peace.  The people recognized that and promptly voted him out of office.  Churchill was heart-broken and yet acknowledged that people's freedom to choose not to follow him was the heart of what he had fought for and so he stepped down gracefully.

I've been reflecting on my own life. 

What has inspired me and lead me through my years of war which I now need to stop following in peace? 

What things ensured my survival but now ought to be voted out of office so I can grow happy? 

And rather than viewing this succession as a failure to follow the right leader from the beginning, how can I acknowledge that the freedom to choose life and flexibility and quiet of soul was the very thing I've fought for so unrelentingly and rigidly all these years.  The people of Britain cheered and applauded Churchill as the man who saved Britain just after voting him resoundingly from office.  How can my gratitude to and refusal to continue following my old ways simultaneously be true?

What works in war fails us in peace.

For two years I've been wondering how does a soldier return home to the farm after the war? 

I hadn't thought of this blog for a while and when I just now reread it, I see that quite literally, I am the soldier who returns to the farm, much more literally than I ever expected.  How exquisitely perfect that the analogy Joe gave me two years should literally come true.  I'm writing this update from a farm.  Or what will be a farm by someone who is becoming a farmer.

Wow, that's... wow.

How does a soldier truly return home after her war? 
Apparently, I reclaim my place as a nurturer of life and become a farmer.
I thought Joe was making an analogy when he was really giving me a sneak peek at my upcoming job title.

After hearing the 'soldier returning to the farm' analogy, I have prayed for years for God to show me how to come home, how to unclench my life from the sword.  Never in my wildest imaginings, which as you know can be very wild, never did I imagine that when I asked "How does the soldier go home? How does the soldier become a farmer?" that I would literally be lead to a new home and become a farmer.  Never even connected the two ideas until minutes ago.

I'm swimming around here, repeating myself, with my mouth opening and closing soundlessly like a guppy because I've come to expect surprises from my wild God but this is crazy even for God. 

After living here 7 weeks, I have to say that I am ridiculously happy.  I wake up in the night terrified sometimes but then I also wake up in the night grateful and full of plans, too.  And sometimes, I sleep right through.  I sit and do yoga as the sun comes in filtered through the trees outside my bedroom window.  We had a bunch of neighbors over for a party and I about cried watching them all roast smores and chat.  Couldn't go to bed for hours until I came down after 4H last night.

Now granted, I'm not living all sunshine and roses.  My dishwasher is dead and I hate ticks and there are some small rodents which regularly stroll back and forth above my bed between the roof and ceiling which I need to find a way to eliminate.  I'm getting bored with my Chinese medicine cold-damp diet and my Achilles tendon is still crabby.  Tim's gone more than I'd like and the kids bicker and aren't any more excited about taking out the trash here than in Minneapolis- what a shocker. 

I began this year with a desire to reinvent myself. 
My theme for this year is "Strong and satisfied enough for joy."
Most themes take years to mature.  Well, perhaps better said, most themes take years of me pressing into them for me to mature enough to comprehend them much at all.

I've been cultivating gratitude while still a leper, through illness and pain, through disappointments, frustrations, and generally not getting what I want.  Feels like forever I've been working diligently to muster even a single sincere gratitude.  In my mind, like 50 units of effort for one inch of gain.  I was working so hard cultivating thankfulness that I had to blog about it so that I would spend the time focusing on it long enough to see what to be grateful for.

And wham- I wake up in a dome house, stronger, more satisfied, 65 pounds lighter, reinvented.  And grateful. 

Whatever else I may not have for harvest yet on this fledgling farm, I do have gratitude.  By the bucketful.  I'm putting in like 1 unit of effort and getting 50 gratitudes.  So many I find myself weeping.

How does the soldier go home to the farm?
Happily and literally.

How does the soldier become a farmer?
Unexpectedly and gratefully, apparently.

I never expected to live to see my joy renewed.
I never expected to make it through the storm.

And yet, here I am.
You've got to come and see this for yourself.
No, more importantly, I hope you get to experience this for yourself in your own life.