Campers, Hemlocks and the Pilgrims Song

Eastern Hemlocks 

There's an old hemlock tree on the farm that I love. I'm drawn to her and wish every time I see her that she could tell me her story. We first noticed the wide girth of her trunk beside the old logging road last year where the Lawman parks his tractor. She reaches her arms into the sky almost 70 feet with bear scratchings that show, of all the trees on our farm, the black bears like her best. A young Hemlock, probably about 200 or so years old, I wonder what she's seen and heard and felt as centuries of storms and snowfalls and settlers passed her by. In my faith we believe that the earth and trees cry out glory to God. I feel certain she has expressed her praise of Him more than once.

We live on a farm. That sounds so oddly wonderful to type. We live on this land we found over a year and a half ago after looking for her longer than that and I am still in awe every day. Our home is a 30 foot camper and we love it. Most of the time.:) As we bundle up for sleeping through cold nights in August and spend warm days mowing or share a meal outside while the sun sinks behind Shinbone mountain, there is nothing, but gratitude in my heart. I would not have believed the journey it took to get us here, but here we are today. 

We are living in this 300 square foot camper - all five of us and more when big kids come home - and it's enough. We spend most of our time outside except for cooking or sleeping so the cramped space doesn't feel so cramped. We do not have running water so we bathe in the creek, take laundry to town and the little power we do have comes from a generator that likes to take a drink of gas every six hours. Often, without complaining, I'll hear the Lawman get up in the small hours of the night to refill the generator so the food wont spoil in the refrigerator. He is a good man. :) Dreams cost more than money.

We're all adjusting to living in the country. Even the dogs have stopped barking all night, praise Jesus and all the saints. There's nothing like a whole camper full of people yelling after midnight, "STOP BARKING, HAMISH!!! IT'S NOTHING!!!!" The sweet friends who check in every handful of days laugh with me as I tell them about the size of the toilet in the bathroom - the Toddler Toilet is what we call it. No running water means a trash bag stretched over the toilet bowl, kitty litter in the bag and a trip to the burn barrel as the destination for the remains later on. Using squatty pottys in Asia for a summer helped prepare us. :)

Our respect for Native Americans and pioneers has shot out into the universe. I hope their spirits can hear us shouting out "Yall are friggin AMAZING!!!" How they built their own shelter, grew their own food, weathered the elements and grew families too? I can tell you why they look a little tired in those sepia stained pictures. :):) THEY WERE TIRED, people! Our "primitive" living leaves me ready for bed when the sun goes down, yet like the Pilgrim Song in Psalm 126 says...I am laughing "with armloads of blessings" as I walk this land. 

On my walks, I pass the old Hemlock by the logging road most days. She's split down the middle now after a storm blew threw earlier this summer and shook her compromised infrastructure. But she's still reminiscent of the ancient trees in Lord of the Rings that actually came alive and I wish for a moment she could talk to me about this land. 

Spreading across Appalachia, the Hemlock provides the needed cooling effect for micro-climates necessary for brook trout and other stream animals the boughs of the tree shade and protect.  Sadly, they're dying one by one because of a small aphid like bug. 

You don't have to look too closely to see why these beautiful trees are dying, because the answer is right there if you know what to look for...the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. These small insects cover themselves in a protective woolly coat and begin the process of eating away at the tree. Since their introduction to America almost a century ago, the Adelgid have effectively destroyed over 80% of the Hemlock population in New England and the mid Atlantic states. The Woolly Adelgid is slowly destroying the Hemlocks in Appalachia and the rest of the East Coast, as well. Not a whole a lot can be done to help them. The forestry folks are trying sprays and have even introduced predator beetles that eat Adelgid, but the these small predators love the older Hemlocks and many of them are like our old girl on the farm, their compromised infrastructure leaves them laying on the ground in enormous pieces after a storm and never reaching their common 500 year birthday.

It's hard to watch a process like this take place and be able to do absolutely nothing about it. Whether it's an old Hemlock dying on our farm, a friendship redefining itself, a faith that seems to be unraveling or like my oldest daughter experiences every week as she works with addicts in hospice, seeing disease do it's job of releasing the spirit from it's shell of a body...some things in life just happen and there's really not much to be done about it either. But the things in life that seem to come along with no way of stopping them are not always sad or hard, many times they're absolutely beautiful and more so because of the hard. I appreciate the Hemlocks on our land more because I know that more than likely they will not live to see my great grandchildren play under their branches.

One of my favorite Psalms is called The Pilgrim Song. Reading the 126th chapter you can almost see the people laughing and dancing...

 It seemed like a dream, too good to be true...
    
We laughed, we sang,
    we couldn’t believe our good fortune...
    “God was wonderful to them!”
God was wonderful to us;
    we are one happy people.

And now, God, do it again—
    bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
    will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
    will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

Yes. 

Watching the maddening headlines, hearing another story of spiritual abuse or watching as the white woolly bugs spread to another Hemlock on our land, I close my eyes and breathe out Peace that passes my own understanding. He is here in all of our "drought-stricken lives" and He knows that laughter will come again, "with armloads of blessing." We personally know it to be true ~ He can pour out the oil of gladness for the spirit of heaviness, yet He was in the heaviness too. He always has been Emmanuel, God with us no matter where we might find ourselves. And like the author of the Pilgrims Song, even when all of his friends turned against him, he danced at God's goodness...and we are dancing at His goodness.

The foundation for the tiny cabin we hope people will come and find Rest in one day will be poured next week. The road up the hill will go in and the well will be dug too, before the first fall breezes blow in next month. The utilities company is planning to trench almost half a mile of dirt and going under a creek to get us electricity. #shoutsofpraise!! 

I noticed a yellow leaf float to the ground by the creek last week. As the seasons change here, we are making wedding plans for our oldest son who cannot seem to stop smiling.:) The radiant ginger haired beauty, who is not afraid of his honesty, his brave heart and who loves to climb the tallest mountains with him, is every single thing we hoped for for him. 

Our oldest daughter and second son have set up shop in a hip part of Chattanooga. Except for the chicken processing plant next door that shares the lovely smells of poultry when the wind blows. :):) She's freelancing for non profits, working at a bakery and entering into the lives of those who are letting go of this world for another. Helping an old man dying of jaw cancer tucked under his Rebel flag blanket while he tells her she's racist for not supporting the Alt Right...well, college didn't prepare her for that one, but her love for Him keeps her showing up and being present. 

Our middle son starts his second of four years at a school that teaches master wood craftsmanship where they learn to make things by hand with chisels and dovetails and everything old school. He's found his niche and we are so happy for him. The little kids start school next week too and new friendships will form and a new normal will begin for us. Dear friends call or text regular encouragements and make plans to travel across the country or from a nearby city to the farm.

At night the forest begins it's song and I sink under quilts made long ago and try to keep still as everyone falls sleep...and we find ourselves laughing as a the camper shakes when a kid turns over in their bunk bed. I also find myself shushing our small dog, Tulip, as she stares at me whining from her crate in the tub (because she barks all night otherwise), while I relieve myself before the sun comes up - cursing her if she wakes the kids who are asleep just outside the door. 

When I look out the window in the morning and see our Aussie's bright blue eyes and thank him for keeping guard through the night and pour my coffee and step outside to see the fog hanging low in the draws and valley the Pilgrim Song is in my heart. Hard times will come again, they always do; but today...

 It seemed like a dream, too good to be true...

    

We laughed, we sang,

    we couldn’t believe our good fortune...

    “God was wonderful to them!”

God was wonderful to us;

    we are one happy people.