Not everyone believes in destiny. Ultimately, like an evolving garden, I feel there is a grand design for each life. We may spend all our existence trying to figure that out or rather fighting against it. All our married life was spent in town. Heathen children vandalized and stole from us. Once there was a robin nest just outside of our kitchen window. We watched that nest in awe until the little criminals from the next street stole it. I really do not exaggerate my description of these children as they did have records. I even called the police when I caught them in my goldfish pond. I later learned that they had sacrificed my fish to who knows what. Once I barged up to their door and demanded my hummingbird feeder back to which the mother handed it to me. We were patient (as we could be) knowing these children and others were brought up in a horrible environment. It was frustrating but sad. At the same time we were planning an exodus from the city.
In 2002, we acquired a piece of property outside of the city limits from Tabithia's grandfather. There were already to dilapidated houses on the front where we intended to build. These collapsing structures were in such poor condition with leaky rooves, broken windows, loose boards, and fenced yards surrounded by weeds and and trash. My dad tore down one of them and the other was burned. The fences were removed so that concrete trucks and deliveries could arrive. In just a few months a home was built and on New Year's Eve 2003 we moved in. For some time we lived "normal" lives. We really continued to live the city life in the country. Slowly that all began to change. Ducks, dogs and rabbits began to coexist here with us. Years later donkeys, miniature horses, more ducks, chickens, alpacas, llamas, goats, a miniature bull, pigs, cats and I feel like the list goes on all began to find their way to Fair Haven Farms. In fact there was a time when there was no FHF.
The thought that I wish to convey today is not so much about our destiny. It is about these 4+/- acres that we signed on the line for. The fences that we broke down have in many places gone back up. Where animals roamed long ago, they once again graze. Perhaps we are not only fulfilling a plan for us, but just as much satisfying what the this piece of earth desires to be. If left to itself land will in time revert back to a natural state. Trees emerge in the unmowed grasses and wildlife will once again live in reclaimed ecosystems. This land was carved from a swamp over a century ago. If it had a mind perhaps its true desire would be return to the ancient wetland forests that once prevailed here. With levee in place and the St. Francis River held firmly in controlled parameters, that is not possible. The next best option for this tiny parcel is to be a farm. This idea may seem a little like I am painting with all the colors of the wind. To me it is a beautiful, natural concept. I have to think that maybe we are not what we are because of who we are, but instead because of where we are.
When we lived in the city, we lived the city life. We even tried that upon our move into the county. An evolutionary process occurred within us. Those urban ideas were washed from our minds and we soon were country farmers. Perhaps we do not possess the land, but rather, the land possesses us. Perhaps this earth, comprised of the same basic elements and compounds as we, quietly communicates and guides us to our destiny. Are you fulfilling your true destiny?
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