"What brought ya's here?"

Wait....Rewind.

We have had a very busy day and I am excited to write this weeks newsletter later than usual. I am not on the farm, I am in Republic. Monday night, I believe the baby moved down. I thought I was having contractions and even called my friend to tell her to keep her phone handy, just incase. I have butchered two roosters now and have officially graduated to “homesteader.” We stayed in Arkansas last week, through the weekend and the roosters were sort of a necessity, as we were ready for more than SpaghettiOs. We needed some real protein in our lives. Our very generous neighbors blessed us with potatoes and tomatoes, as well as delicious, fresh eggs. The process was easier than I expected, from dispatching and skinning to butchering.

---

Our progress on the farm has come to a halt as far as moving the camper, trimming trees, building fences and buying additional livestock. So, this week I thought it would be nice to rewind a bit, to explain why we came to Arkansas to purchase 40 acres and a chicken coop.

Some of you know that from 2017 to 2020 I was completing the Teacher Education Program at UIS. We lived in a beautiful home, in a gorgeous neighborhood, near UIS. We had been praying to have one more baby, one more. I was in my final semester as a student teacher in the Springfield Public school system. My mentor teacher, Mrs. Fox, had slowly begun to loosen her iron-clad grip on her classroom routine and was allowing me to teach the math lessons each day. On Friday the 13th, of March, 2020, we were told to have the students take home packets to work on at home because the Governor Pritzker had decided to close the schools, we told the children it would probably only be about two weeks due to a Chinese flu that was mostly dangerous to older people. I knew children have very resilient immune systems, but thought, “well, they canceled March Madness, so this must be serious.” I had been juggling a full time student teacher schedule, finding babysitters for Josie(6) and Bruce(5), so it was a relief at first to be home with the kids. My stepson, Thomas was 15, a freshman in highschool, and he had been living with us for several years. My one concern was I hope this doesn’t impact me earning my teaching license.

I had been waitressing at a fancy downtown restaurant, serving politicians in the state capital until the governor announced all businesses would be closed, indefinitely, unless they were “essential businesses.” This included gas stations, big box stores, banks, pharmacies. As a homeschool mom we were used to having play dates with our neighbors, homeschool co-op, swimming pool parties, going to museums, and church. Many of our friends were afraid. I had taught yoga classes at the YMCA and had a little salon in my basement. Spring had sprung so our family was outside, planting, watering, mowing, mulching, but the streets were bare. Our neighborhood was usually full of walkers and joggers, no one was out. After a few weeks, the school closings were extended indefinitely and I found a curriculum I could use with Thomas and the littles.

On April 21, I found out I was pregnant. Around this time the governor enacted an 8 o’clock curfew for the city of Springfield. This was strange. I will admit my resistance to authority was not comfortable with this. I had always been interested in German history, with my maiden name having been “Warner,” which is German, and this reminded me of the restrictions I had read about in the “ghettos.” Police officers were posting videos online, explaining that this is not what they had signed up for, asking people to see proof that they were indeed on their way to work, not just breaking the curfew for any reason, these videos would quickly disappear from internet, and social media was removing posts that questioned the shut down. They had begun the “fact checking,” and if you questioned any of this you were most likely a “paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorist.” We all experienced this, so, as you know, we were asked to wear masks everywhere. Although we could share many things with the public, such as but not limited to, toilet seats, door handles, shopping carts, this flu was spread through the air they said, we could not share the air, or group conversations. Small business managers, the clerks of the world, were eager to flex their authority and demand that you put on a mask if you want the goods, you have to put on the mask. I found myself at my favorite Gyro restaurant waiting for our food with a mask on, I was like, “who am I? We can’t go to church but we can go wait for gyros. Is this real life?” The news reel showed how “irresponsible” Spring breakers were in Florida galivanting around, breathing on each other, touching, partying it up on vacation.

We decided we wanted to get out of the house and go camping with our family, before they decided to restrict interstate travel. My husband and I had memories of family vacations as children going with our parents to Johnson Shut-ins, the Current River, and Merrimac Caverns and wanted to be out in nature. As we drove away from Springfield, we noticed less masks, nicer people, and the atmosphere was not so frightful. We enjoyed our vacation and agreed we both had a strong feeling that our family needed to move. Without hesitating we began finishing every home improvement project throughout our home, and put the house on the market. We were energized by strong feelings that this was what God wanted us to do.

We found a piece of property in Eminence, Missouri, with a pond and 20 acres. We went to see the property and planned another vacation to Galvaston, Texas, the kids would see the ocean. We sang this song as we packed to leave and many times on the way there. Galvaston by Glen Campbell

There is more to this story, however, thanks for reading this far, I will wait to tell you what happened… clearly, we moved to Arkansas not Missouri and I am so glad that we did.

I will pick up here next week.