Seeking our Connection

Connected and happy. This week Jim is writing the blog while Rhenda completes the weekly newsletter. We are scheduled to have both ready for publication before bedtime. Moving has been challenging for our Youtube production and our blogs and a few days with limited to no Internet has limited our abilities.

Today, we finally unpacked the computers in anticipation of our Internet connection installation. The connection speed was worth the wait. Although not fiber types of speed what we have exceeds what we had in Oregon.

For both Rhenda and I, this last week has been disruptive. Once again we left comfort and familiarity. Disconnecting always causes some amount of grief.

Leaving the Comfortable Behind

We disconnected from a home and the local community. Even though we had been there only a short time we had established connections. We connected with many people. We learned our way around the local area and connected with the community. We established some daily and weekly routines that connected us to that place and time.

When we left Pittsburgh we were not traveling directly to our next home but to a stopover. During that short four days, we connected with our homesteading community. Meeting many names and putting a face and a hug to those names connected us to this community even more than we already were.

New Community and Connection

Interstate 70 has been our trail during most of our cross-country travels, but not this time. Our journey from North Carolina to Missouri connected us to states and towns we had only heard about. Wonderful beauty and friendly people connected us to a part of America that has long been foreign to us.

Connecting With our New Homestead

Once we arrived at our new home we began exploring. Our late arrival prevented extensive exploring of the property but did give us time to explore our feelings before sleep overcame us.  This move started becoming real.

The first full day was cold and windy but we started looking at the land that we will become intimate with. We encountered many surprises, most of them pleasant. For me, a sense of connection has started forming. Both for the pleasant surprises, the expected, and even the challenges that we face. Life without challenges is boring.

Today, our second full day in our new home, was warmer and sunnier, conditions that pulled us to walk the entire perimeter of the property.  The bonds of love and growing and our connection deepening.

Our Worldwide Community

As our connection to the homestead form we also have friends who are watching and cheering us on. The comments we receive every day let us know that we are part of a wonderful community.

Sharing our learning and accomplishing with our homesteading community keeps us connected. Cheering us on and finding hope and courage from our activities and words keeps our homesteading friends connected to us.

If you do not realize it, let me assure you that as you interact with us and other homesteaders you are connected to an international group committed to improving their lives by eating healthy food and encouraging others to do the same. And food is only the beginning.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

Please carry this thought with you:

• Realize that everyone has challenges, some smaller than your and some greater.
• Realize that you will make the most progress from focusing on your gifts, whether small or large and making the most of them.
• Helping others is always a good choice.

Stay connected!