How do you eat an elephant...

So long since my last post in  August.  So many things changed.  Let me start with what hasn't. What hasn't changed is what we want to do for our family,  What we believe is important and the ability to go forward no matter the consequences, that the universe provides...none of that has changed, so we are sitting pretty.

A year on the farm.  Farm college if you will.  What an amazing experience.  I cant even begin to explain any of what I have learned.  Trial and error, and error and error...

We came here to make a better life for the boys, to be fearless in our faith that, things will be ok and TRY.  And we have.  We have learned that the strength of our family lies in the earth and the stars and that seasons come and go and life erupts from the earth and then is consumed by it. We live.





Sharon and I have been tested, and although the darkest days of my heart and the most crushing failures and depression tried to bury me, and that being away from support and safety is scary, it will not stamp out our fire.  We are too strong.  If I am Sharon's Oak tree, then she is my tap root. My personal family motto "The Rowland's never say I can't" has never been such a strong and binding of a scroll as it is now.


We have found love...in the earth and the fields and the silly little tumbleweed who follows us around the yard.  The ducks who I yell at "go to bed!"  And they do...and Radar, if he isn't helping me get them in, he is scattering them about like a goofy puppy will...It still is a little bit of Heaven every day.



It was tough to realize the "where" of the equation wasn't quite right.  The "what" ,"who's", "why's" and the "how's" were easy.  But we have solved the where...  We are moving to Battle Ground and are taking over a small ranch from a cousin!  WOOHOO!!

The fences I broke my back on are now down, the miles of irrigation hose are coiled, the coops deconstructed and the farmhouse is slowly going to sleep again.

What a sturdy old ship she was. Born in the 1800's first as a farm then as a roadhouse then a farm again and then she slept for 60 years in the shadow of industry, gathering dust and hearing the gravel pit go to work.  She shook awake every morning by 6am with cement trucks warming their engines.   Then we arrived, and the life we breathed, the boys rambunctious, roosters crowing, ducks quacking, dogs playing bite face in the kitchen ...happiness.   She felt her purpose and opened her arms and kept us warm and dry and gave us a place to sleep and dream.

I am glad we found this peace, this time to dream.  I am glad I took the time to just BE with my family.  I found the path I need to be on and it's just a matter of staying on target now.

We decided to move for a variety of reasons, but health of our family, and jobs that are close, tend to rank pretty high on that list.

So we are moving again, one year and a lifetime later.  But we will keep farming and perhaps even more so, now that we can really take hold and plant some roots that we know will be permanent, at least as permanent as we can be, slightly more permanent then a band of gypsies i guess.

But as the saying goes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time....so here's to strong molars!

Much love to you all and I hope to update the blog more frequently once we settle!