God is Faithful

I saw a friend post a rain gauge with a glorious inch of rain in it this morning with the caption, “God is faithful!” Indeed He is, and we should post about it every time we have that full rain gauge. But it strikes me, the same is true when our rain gauge is empty.

Remembering Nana

The first time I met Ty’s Nana was Thanksgiving at her house when Ty and I had been dating about 6 months. I hadn’t been there 15 minutes when she pulled out a photo album full of pictures of wedding cakes she made and tasked me with finding the ones I liked. Ty and I

Hope Remains

This article was initially published as part of the Our Rural Roots column for Progressive Farmer. As I write this, the wind is blowing at sustained speeds of 45 miles per hour with gusts even higher. The sky is brown from all the dust in the air. Stubble from the sorghum field north of our

The Chocolate Bars

The kids’ school did a chocolate bar selling fundraiser. They got their boxes of 60 bars each and had big dreams about how many they could sell. I tried to temper expectations. Every elementary kid in town is selling them, we aren’t from here, we don’t have family around here… I didn’t want them to

Our Own Pharaohs

I am listening to Father Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year podcast in 2022. Today, he said something that completely stopped me in my tracks. We are reading in Exodus. The Israelites are slaves in Egypt. When Moses and Aaron try to get Pharaoh to allow their people a three-day reprieve to workshop in the

Jesus Storybook Bible

A couple of months ago, we decided to read our Jesus Story Book Bible cover-to-cover. Our goal was to do it by the end of the year. Tonight, we finished. We’ve read the stories in this book for years, but never in order all the way through. It has been amazing to see what the

Let Grief Open Hearts

This article was published in Progressive Farmer as part of their Our Rural Roots column. The end of 2021 was filled with loss for our family. The two most profound being our 13-year-old neighbor, Kooper, who died in a car accident, our 28-year-old saint of a quarter horse, Lou. I’ve read articles about how farm

Hell of a Year

As Parker McCollum says, “It’s been a hell of a year.” From some of my very favorite memories to some of the most tragic losses. Watching my kids paddle around Lake Tahoe and put their feet into the ocean for the first time time and breaking ice and saving calves in a winter storm the

Nana’s Prayer

Since she had a stroke in July, Ty’s Nana has struggled with her words. She can still talk, but sometimes she just says the wrong words. It’s been frustrating for her. As we gathered up to say grace before our Christmas Eve lunch, we asked her to pray, just like she has every year. She

Tiger Butter Tradition

I make my Gran’s Tiger Butter every year for the holidays. She has been gone for almost 20 years. It still tastes like Christmas to me. I can close my eyes and be sitting right at her kitchen table. Harper asked me today what she talked like. Of course, I can remember her voice, but