The DReam

Telling a story from the begging is always a hard task. Often times I catch myself starting somewhere in the middle and looping back to where it all began, only to jump to the end when I feel uncomfortable for talking so much. During my husbands Deployment to Africa I was overwhelmed and unfamiliar with what it meant to own land. He left the United States just days after our second daughter was born and just mere weeks since we had received our certificate of occupancy for our custom farmhouse. The home and property was everything I had daydreamed of as a little girl. Needless to say, there were a few problems but the most pressing one was I had never owned property before. Growing up my family’s suburban life style didn’t exactly teach me how to start a chainsaw or bury gutters. Frankly, I was lucky to get the trash to the end of our obnoxiously long driveway without spilling the juices inside my little Subaru Crosstreck along the way. Full discloser, there was a perfectly running truck in the garage made for the job. I just didn’t want to have to back it back in the garage, there is no back up camera. My husband and I had spent the previous 10 months building the custom, open concept, second story home. By building I mean we slapped my In-laws name on a builder packet for the bank spent a few months crossing our T’s and dotting I’s until we got that first draw and started digging. Tom and Debbie Farrington are Sam’s parents and they sold us the 6 acres that our flower farm paints in color. They own another 27 acres and have copious amount of knowledge in the building world from their previous careers. Tom was once a construction superintendent and Debbie managed contractors. It had been over 20 years since they worked in the field, but no one told them that. Those 10 months of building where some of the most stressful days our marriage and family have seen. They were absolutely worth every moment. On the hard days Sam and I often imagined the garden we would have and all the vegetables we would grow for canning. This topic was one of our favorite distractors. A few weeks before Sam deployed, despite being very pregnant, I downloaded a little app on my phone and insisted we map out the garden. I would plant the minute we received a certificate of occupancy. Simply because Debbie insisted that the inspector may not approve of a garden being planted any sooner. During the final phase of our home build trips to Menards were daily or more making it easy to pick up on sale vegetable seeds. One day, on what I think was my third stop for material I mindlessly picked up the oddly shaped “Cut flower garden” seed packet. There was no space for flowers in my vegetable garden unless they served a purpose of course. My primary goal was food growth and storage. I have no idea what I planned to do with that packet of pretty flowers and it showed. I didn’t get my plants in the ground until June 6th. I squeezed my cut flowers into two little rows in front of my vegetables. Stunting growth of about 12 tomato and pepper plants very early in the season because of the unplanned shade the sunflowers provided. I didn’t care about the veggies at this point because I was suddenly waking each morning to the most beautiful, colorful surprises that my toddler just adored. This was the beginning of the dream, that I didn’t know we wanted. That season I sold a few bouquets, which was rewarding but simply not the point to my work. I found so much joy in the cutting and giving away of the flowers. I took them everywhere; family, friends, and church groups. There was peace in the arranging and happiness in the giving.