Like Living In Your Own State Park!
You wake up, roll over, look out your window and see a doe with her fawn silhouetted and gracefully grazing on the ledge of one of your ponds, with gorgeous pine trees as your backdrop.
Things are so peaceful here that you no longer just get to see a glimpse of the fawn, but both the doe and fawn hang around long enough for you to ponder whether the spots on the fawn are scattered or in a row.
Is this little one a doe or a buck? Either way, it doesn’t really matter because you are enjoying God’s show of nature at its finest. Slowly, the doe meanders off with its precious fawn trailing closely behind.
While you are thinking about the day ahead of you, you continue to look and see how the sun and shadows have moved across the variety of pines and catch your breath at the majestic strength of these beautiful pines.
It is a gorgeous day, so you decide to go pine cone and wildflower hunting. Will you walk the trails or will you create new ones? Either will result in a new viewing memory, which you will gladly accept. Secretly, you are hoping to find another antler. Each one is so different and unique.
Once you reach the lower pond on your hike, you pause to listen to the glorious ribetting of the frogs and watch the graceful geese in pairs of two slowly wading in the pond back to their nest, announcing to the other pond life they have a visitor.
Next, as you cross your land and come home for lunch, you think forward to the many blessings and options you have on your land:
- 2 ponds and a small creek
- loads of pines (all year long, not just for Christmas)
- hardwoods – for harvest, beauty or firewood
- crop or pasture land
- rich soil for a vineyard
- trails for ATV’s, horses and possibly even sleigh rides in the snow.
You can even cut some boughs for wreath making and giving or selling.
Soon your mind races forward to winter, cool nights and your own firewood for the coziest fireplace ever. This is especially nice after a hike or sledding in the snow. On you walk, you even see a few more areas for the kids to snowboard in.
But for now, winter is a ways off. Even so, a soft, slow rain starts. Could rain really be this beautiful and sound this nice? Yes, out here it can. After lunch you go out and sit on your front porch which is covered just enough to keep you dry while you watch puddles form and birds fly in for a splash and a drink.
In a few hours, the ground is drier and you lay in the cool, soft grass of your expansive lawn. Almost shriekingly, and much to your pleasant surprise, a mother hawk flies directly over your head, swoops down and pulls back up. As you watch her fly away, you realize that she has a few baby hawks with her and that they are in training!
You make a mental note to be on the lookout for fallen hawk feathers in which you use to decorate the indoors with the outdoors.
Evening is coming and as much as you wish to stay out longer, you really must go get dinner ready. But actually, you don’t mind, because you have a comfortably sized gourmet kitchen in which to work.
Later, as the double dishwashers are cleaning up the dishes, you head back outside to play ball with the kids and watch the fireflies come out and the bright stars too.
All of the sudden you look to the sky and ask yourself, is this really the Milky Way; have I ever really seen it this clearly before?
Certainly not! There are no city lights to drown out the beauty of the night sky and certainly no smog. You are amazed that this is actually your home.
You and your family spend more of the evening locating the huge variety of constellations God has provided. But alas, you do live in the 21st century and it is getting late. You decide to go in a play a quick video game in your completely finished lower level.
After a few missions you decide to go to bed.
Oh what joy, you don’t have to get in your car to go home or to a hotel, You LIVE here! This is a vacation everyday!
You settle down and listen to the barn owls conversing across your land to each other and drift off, dreaming of what you will do tomorrow on your beautiful property, a country home on 87 acres of land that is like living in your own state park. And yes, it really is that good here!
