Fifteen years ago this week Ed and I changed our lives fundamentally by moving from town to Farm Dover. It’s not like we always dreamed of moving to the country; it just happened.
You may have heard our story: We found note in our mailbox asking if we knew of anyone wanting to sell their house in our neighborhood. Our youngest, Mary, had just left for college; Ed and I looked at each other and said, “Why not us?”
So we sold our much-loved home in Cherokee Gardens, rented a house for a year, and set about finding a piece of land and designing and building a house. On March 17, 2011, we handed back the keys to our rental house and followed the moving van to Dover Road.
I can still conjure up the excitement and newness of those first days in Shelby County: The smell of fresh paint, the sight of the first daffodils “fluttering and dancing in the breeze,” the trilling sound of a Red-winged Blackbird (which I had never noticed before)....
Fortunately, that enchantment has not left me. Daily, I am astonished by the beauty of this bit of land; I am also humbled by its bounty.
On my morning walks, I delight in seeing the subtle quickening of the earth: Tight buds of daffodils emerging from their papery sheaths, neighboring farm fields appearing in a purple haze from wild nettles, red, silver and sugar maples swelling and breaking bud, snowdrops and hellebores mingling in the borders, scarlet peony shoots pushing their way up through the soil.
And the birds, oh the birds! In the early, quiet and cool air, the Robin, the Blackbird, the Carolina Wren begin their dawn chorus, soon to be joined by the Mockingbird, the Cardinal, the Song Sparrow. The males sing the loudest, proclaiming that they have survived the night and are ready to defend their territories and raise some chicks.
And I mustn't forget the sun, rising from the back field, spreading its first light through the trees and across the pond. I lean into it. It warms and cheers me.
Slowly, over this decade and a half, we have learned to pay attention to every turn of the season – dreaming of what we want this place to become – giving back all that we can. Day by day, season by season, year by year, we have come to love the land and, in return, the land has loved us. With every decision we make, we seek to make our 40 acres better -- not just for us, but for all the creatures that call Farm Dover home.
On our daily rounds, Ed and I are on the constant lookout for invasive honeysuckle, multi-floral rose, and bradford pear, nipping them before they take over. Our planting of native trees goes on and on -- more than 2500 to date. And we can’t seem to stop. With great eagerness, we look forward to this time of year when we can inspect all that we have planted and delight upon finding green buds on them.
These days, I am most grateful to this place for its ability to be my solace, my refuge. When life beyond our front gate gets to be too much, I can walk our paths. They lead me out of my darkness. When the news of the world overwhelms me, I force myself to focus on the piece of the earth I can influence: This place.
With my hands in the soil, placing shelling peas (1" down and 2" apart), I can feel my worldview shift from gloom and doom to something more loving: That of repairing the part of the world that I can see and touch. By simply spending a morning working outside, the weight of my grief wanes. I find some measure of peace.
Sharing that peace has been always been a delight to both Ed and me. Welcoming all to come and experience this place has brought us great joy (and hopefully brought the same to our visitors, be they two or ninety-two).
From creek-walking to blackberry picking, from soup in front of the fire to celebrating milestones, from sleepovers to artists-in-residencies, we want Farm Dover to be a retreat: A place to grow in wonder, where hearts are lifted, worried minds stilled.
What comes of the rest of our time at Farm Dover is anyone’s guess. Ed and I hope our remaining years here will be healthy ones -- for us, for our land, and for its flora and fauna.
We hope that Farm Dover continues to be a place where our friends and family can gather to celebrate the magic of this spot. And, perhaps most of all, we long for our visitors (especially children) to catch a vision for what life can be like when you love and nurture the place you call home.
As Hannah Coulter says in Wendell Berry’s novel by the same name: “There is no better place in this world.”
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