Chapter 6…

We got in the car and my wife suggested we go over to the pond and up the farm access road which is on the other side of the creek.  The weeds were getting tall next to the pond.  I got out of the car to walk to the edge of the pond.  When I got close, a whole host of frogs leapt into the pond to take cover.  The road which leads to an empty field and the forested hills had deteriorated a bit so I had to go on foot.  My wife waited in the car with our son while I proceeded with my camera.  I knew there was a large clearing that I had seen from satellite images from Google maps.  The field looked brown and the trees were bare in the image I saw online so I didn’t have high expectations.

Walking up the road I noticed many wild birds that I had never before seen.  There was one that was magnificently colored with bright blue and other colors.  I paused momentarily before proceeding to watch the birds and take in the fresh summer smell and the sound of the birds chirping in the trees.  It was beautiful and very peaceful.  As I continued walking, I went around the corner, no longer within sight of the car.  A smile gradually overtook me that I was unable to remove from my face until long after leaving the property. 

Walking only a couple hundred feet further I was able to see much of the clearing.  Despite the image I had seen online, the field was green and the trees were covered in leaves and full of life.  Looking all around, the area was completely hidden from the road and visible only to one house.  A house built here would be completely surrounded by forest.  It was very easy to visualize a safe area for my children to run and play and a house could very easily be built here.  There was more than enough room for anything we needed there.  I had found the place and the feelings just moments earlier were understood.  The future location of our family home would lie just across the creek from the family farmhouse.  We would be able to start something new and retain the old.

Why did this area seem to make me so happy?  Why the spontaneous smile and all the joy.  There was much to learn and many unanswered questions, but I felt that I had found the right place and that was enough for right now.

Chapter 5

My daughters stayed with my mother while my wife, infant son and I flew to Syracuse.  The entire day was spent traveling.  As we drove from the Syracuse airport to our hotel, we were struck by the beauty of the city.  There were so many very old buildings with amazing architecture.  We saw it in office buildings, churches, homes and businesses.  There’s a lot of history in Syracuse.  We arrived at our hotel at 11:45 pm.  It was just in time to drop off our bags and head out in search of the latest Harry Potter book which was to be released at midnight.  After finding a store that carried the book and an open drive thru for a late dinner, we got some sleep and prepared for the next day.

Saturday morning we drove to LaFayette to see the farm I last saw in 1996.  I had also visited the farm on my 4th birthday years earlier.  We celebrated with a square pink birthday cake.  I don’t have many memories of visiting the farm, but it has always felt like a very special place.  I never dreamed that I would ever move to the farm or even visit more than a couple of times, but I knew there was a good spirit there.  It was last lived in by my Great Uncle Ed and Aunt Carol until 2004 when Ed passed away.  Ed took over the farm from his father, my great grandfather who acquired it from his wife’s family.  My grandfather and all of his siblings were born in the farmhouse.  Needless to say, there is a lot of history in the walls of the farmhouse, after more than a century in the family.

My personal memories are limited, but I do remember catching frogs at the pond at age 4 and I could remember a little of what it was like around Uncle Ed and Aunt Carol.  Uncle Ed produced maple syrup from sugar maples on the property.  It’s been a long time since I tasted it, but I can still remember how good it was and how much better it tasted than any maple syrup in the stores.  Aunt Carol was blind but still very independent.  When Ed passed away, Carol moved to North Carolina to live with her son.  The farmhouse and the property has been maintained, but not lived in. 

A family member met my wife and I at the farmhouse to let us in.  Before entering, we gazed up the hill to see if we could determine the proper location for us to build a new home.  We had felt that if we did move here, we would maintain the farmhouse but not alter it too much.  We would keep anything of historical significance intact and live in a separate home on a different part of the property.  It would be our opportunity to build our dream home exactly to our specifications.  While looking across the parcel that the existing farmhouse stood on, we saw places where a home could be built, but it wouldn’t fit.  We walked towards a shelter that had been used in many family gatherings and reunions.  We peered down from the shelter at the creek which cut right through the property.  From there we were able to catch a glimpse of the pond I had remembered as a young child.  We sat on a swing that hung from the branches of a tree near the house.  It had been there for many years.

Upon entering the farmhouse, we walked first through the entry room, built by Uncle Ed decades earlier.  Many improvements and additions have been made over the years by Ed and by his father while still retaining the original look and flavor of the home.  We walked through the kitchen, living room and bedrooms.  The home seemed very familiar to me but at the same time it felt strange walking through it, now that it was deserted. 

From the farmhouse, we walked through the garage and sugar shack, both built by Ed.  It was great walking through everything, but I expected an overwhelming feeling to tell me that I was to put an offer on the house and property.  I didn’t get that feeling.  My feeling the whole week was that I needed to go with my wife to the farm.  What I was now feeling was that there was no place to build our home and that it wasn’t appropriate for us to customize the farmhouse to our tastes to live in it.  So why was I even there? 

We made a significant sacrifice running off to New York on short notice.  We had an incredibly spiritual week preparing to come to view the property.  Over and over everything lined up perfectly in our travel plans to get the right flights, hotel, and to get my mom to watch the kids.  We even had picked out the perfect floorplan for our dream home and found a builder in the area to build it for us.  We had faith promoting experiences while reading scriptures, pondering and praying all week but now things weren’t clicking like I expected they should.  What was I missing?

Chapter 4…

That Tuesday we had made flight reservations for Syracuse, New York.  They were for Friday of the same week to minimize time away from work. I couldn’t believe what I was doing but truly felt like I had no choice, that I was being pulled to New York.  While we already felt like we would be moving soon, it still appeared like a spontaneous weekend getaway.  The rest of the week would be spent learning about the family farm, trying to decipher the signals we were receiving, and packing for the weekend.

We were interested in making sure we were on the right path and not led by youthful delusions.  We spent a lot of time before Friday flipping through scriptures, seeking some sort of answers.  Right away we ended up in the New Testament and read chapter 11 of Hebrews.  It starts with “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith certainly would be required if our intuition was correct and we were on the path to a completely different situation.  The chapter continues, recounting numerous stories of miracles accomplished through faith.  Many verses screamed at us, as if they were written just for us as we contemplated our next moves.

Verse 8: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”  Yeah, that’s about how we felt.

There were many other places we turned to in the scriptures.  Each place had another nugget of wisdom that seemed to apply to our situation and the big changes that awaited us.  To some, flipping to a random scripture that really stands out would be a coincidence.  I consider it another small miracle.  Each day, we would flip through and read to eachother, say prayers together and meditate, hoping that if we had something that we should do, that it would be clear in our minds.  Each day we had similar experiences.  We found more and more examples of faith and miracles.  With no clue of what we would see at the farm or the feelings we would have, we left for the airport early Friday morning.

…Chapter Three

I will spare the lengthy details, but after a visit with my old bishop my wife and I left with some very clear impressions.  First we felt that family was to remain a top priority.  No matter what happened, we needed to remain close to our family members.  Relationships could be nurtured from a distance, though, just as well as from next door.  The second thing we felt strongly about was that we needed to fly out to New York to visit the property that we considered purchasing.  When we walk on the land that seems to be calling us, we will know whether or not we will be moving.  The third feeling was that business for us would be successful.  Since my business and my wife’s new business are internet based, location doesn’t even matter.

We began to feel at peace over our thoughts of moving across the country.  There is something frightening about this sort of peaceful feeling.  Whenever a big change feels imminent and things begin to feel right, that’s when things begin to get tricky.  But doesn’t it always get hard just before the good stuff?

Without any logical reason backing up our feelings, it was difficult to share our impressions with those around us.  Those who know us have already witnessed plenty of decisions that have appeared to be hastily made and not well thought out (whether true or not is subject to interpretation).  While spontaneity has seemed to be a theme in our 4 year old marriage, this was shaping up to be something different and bigger than anything else we had undertaken.  We were convinced that we were being led by divine inspiration rather than sudden emotion-driven actions.  Since it fits our pattern of occasional impulsiveness, we’ve been a little slow to share our developing impressions of things to come with even our closest friends and family for fear of unfair judgement.  Maybe that fear was also a hint of denial as well that we were really meant to leave all that we know behind to end up in a distant city far different from what we are accustomed to.

By Tuesday, we made a couple phone calls to a select few.  I managed to get the phone number of the man responsible for selling the farm.  His mother married my mom’s uncle after he was born which makes him related to me by marriage I guess, although I had never met him previously.  When I called him, he informed me that there was a verbal agreement to sell the farmhouse and 20 acres of the property to an interested buyer.  There was no contract yet and a survey would need to be done.  When I expressed interest it seemed like things were a little late.  I had my questions answered with kindness but got the impression that the deal was done and details just needed to be worked out to finalize before winter.  There would be an auction to sell the posessions left in the house and he would be up to visit and clear up paperwork the following week.  He would also meet with the buyer while in town.  If I submitted an offer to purchase, he would probably consider it, but he felt obligated to sell to the other buyer since plans were already being made.

The phone conversation wasn’t terribly encouraging.  A buyer was already lined up with financing and everything and was renting nearby until the sale could be finalized.  There appeared to be an opportunity yet to purchase the farm since the buyer was only seeking a portion of the land.  This potential opportunity would require me to act fast to get a solid offer submitted before the other buyer could submit his.  It seemed a difficult feat and under any other circumstances would have discouraged me from pursuing, yet the feelings persisted.  We needed to keep walking through this dark and scary tunnel, hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Not even 48 hours had elapsed from the first thought of buying the old farm and we were already feeling intense time pressure.  It was Tuesday the 17th of July and we felt that the offer would need to be made before the seller came to town 8 days later on the 25th.  That would mean flying out on just a couple days notice and doing an awful lot of additional preparation to submit an offer on time.  How could we be sure this was the right thing to do?  Why would we leave everything behind for an old farm and some extra abandoned land?  If we were sure about our decision, would we have the faith required to take such a plunge forward?  There was so much to consider.