In Pursuit of Wonder

January 2025

In early January, I resumed hiking in the woods after a couple months’ absence. At first, it was merely to exercise and let off emotional steam. My camera stayed behind, after all there was no snow, the woods were a dreary brown. My destination was the same wooded area northeast of the house that has been my usual course the last couple years when my woodland wanderings were too brief, but I changed my approach into the woods and hiked on the east side of the valley between the bluffs rather than the west side. Instead of turning left and down into the pasture lane, I stayed on top of the hill, stumbling occasionally over the rough, frozen ground, and ankle deep, dead grass. This pasture crowning the hill had been in crop rotation at the beginning of Jesse’s and my relationship, then a few years ago, it was planted to hay and grazed rather than cut and baled, morphing into pasture for heifers and dry cows. Passing along several dens dug into the pasture ground, I paused to peer into each, wondering who lived inside. Without snow there were no prints to tell the tale – fox, badger, coyote, gopher, or ground squirrel are all viable options. We had observed a badger along the road near this pasture in the summer, and numerous ground squirrels scurried about throughout the cow paddocks all summer and autumn. When the wind stung my face, as it often did on these bitterly cold days, I tucked my chin farther into my heavy winter coat, and pulled my hood up over my stocking cap to protect my ears.

 By changing my route, I only had to crawl under one temporary fence, passing between two other paddocks through single strand barbed wire gates. I sauntered down the hill between dead ash trees, careful to avoid stepping on a sapling Jesse and I planted last spring, tromping through waist tall grasses. At the bottom of the small hill, I veered right to enter another paddock, immediately climbing up a steep but moderate hill, the woods wrapped around the contour on my left. At the top of the pasture, on the right, stretched the line fence, marking the boundary between our farm and the neighbor’s. Cresting the hill, I was surprised our pasture stretched so far, I had not been in this paddock before, that I can recall. In the northeast corner of the paddock, I found a spot where the fence was high, a well worn deer trail traversing beneath. A bit farther east, lay a small pond – I had known it was there but had never seen it before. The ice thunked and groaned as it heaved. 

Ducking under the fence, I plunged down and into the woods. A deep scar marred the ground from decades of runoff from the neighbor’s fields. Our most fertile soil happens to be these pastures below this neighbor’s fields, we benefit from his runoff. The pasture grass slows the flow, hungrily gobbling up the nutrients, there is little erosion. But in the woods, the trees try to keep the hill from sliding ever downward. Deep gullies cut through to bedrock all along the bluff. Although it makes for a more interesting and varied hike, it is sad that these unnatural waterways are eating into the bluff. How much longer will land suffer before all farmers realize it is sacred and mend their ways, and nourish the land rather than defile it? For the most part these are good people just living their lives trying to earn an income, some farmers are greedy and chase every dollar they can, but most are just simply enslaved by the monster of industrial agribusiness. – People who were encouraged to produce maximum yields, egged on by government subsidies, and ever-increasing farm expenses to achieve those maximum yields while forgetting the basics of good land husbandry: building soil, mitigating runoff, planting along the contour, rotating crops, leaving waterways and field margins. I desire to buy the neighbor’s farm when he is ready to retire and plant an oak savannah that we would graze or mow a couple times a year to encourage prairie plant growth. 

I ambled up the gully, stepped onto a fallen log, walking on it over the top of a fence. The property line in this part of the woods is confusing but I wasn’t worried about trespassing, the neighbor being amiable wouldn’t care that I enjoyed their woods, as long as I didn’t interfere with deer hunting. Momentarily, I paused weighing my course of action. Brambles were thick all around so in that regard, it didn’t matter which direction I chose. Turning right, I followed a deer trail through the brambles, up the hill, heading northward. On my first walk in this part of the woods, I sought solace and answers, praying fervently, sometimes whining and sobbing, questioning God’s plan for me. Amid outbursts of emotional pain, I paused to listen, hoping to hear a response from God – what was I supposed to be doing? What was his will for me? I knew what I desire to do, and believed God put those desires in me because that is what he called me to do but I couldn’t see how he was going to bring it about. I desire to earn my income from my writing (and photography in the case of photo essay books) but so far I haven’t had time to promote my books and I am not skilled in promoting myself, so I have earned very little from my books. And the book, that is my magnum opus, has been a challenge to finish, wanting to get the discussions on human interactions with nature and the effects of those interactions just right, what would carry the most weight and encourage readers to take action. I also desire to keep working on my Mom’s farm, where we don’t use chemical warfare on nature, or synthetic fertilizers. – Growing vegetables and fruits, making bread with organic wheat grown ourselves, milking cows, turning the milk into cheese, and raising pork and beef on pasture in an ethical manner. I love spending my days weeding. I love that we sell directly to the customer and can see how we are blessing their lives and in turn they bless us. And then milking cows just a couple times a week for my husband, Jesse would be ideal. (I want to milk less not because I think the job is beneath me or undignified, it is a good and noble job, keeping a small family dairy, that allows the cows to be on pasture, going. But milking cows is just not my thing; I only began doing it to help out, never intending it to be a full-time job. I want to be doing so much more – being more active in stopping the climate crisis, perhaps running a summer camp for kids on the farm (where they learn how to do the farmwork and also how to play on a farm, learning to care for the land community), do even more writing with the hope that it will bring healing and unity to our world. My head swims with all my ideas and dreams.) I prayed, “if only my books I have already published sold incredibly well, creating a following for my writing,” I would then be able to continue working at my Mom’s. Not only had I been absent from the woods, I had been absent from my writing. As I sought answers that first day back in the woods, all I heard definitively from God was to write. The words “just write” were whispered over and over again as I ambled along, dodging brambles, trees and their branches, stepping over or walking across fallen logs. I pondered, “Jesus Christ sent a fisherman to fish when he was stressed and worried about life’s problems, and now has sent a naturalist writer/tree elf to the woods in her time of need.” His consistency and concern made me smile. But unfortunately, although the hike through the woods that first day helped raise my spirits a bit, I did not enjoy nor appreciate the beauty around me, that came on the second, third, fourth, and so on walk through the woods. On one or all these walks, I thought my niece Leah would enjoy this area as well and devised a plan to share it with her.