The timing could not have been more perfect. We had been sitting out back last week talking about our zoning and our place and the plans I once had for my life, how they overlap and where they depart from how life actually played out.  We talked about the possibility of doing more urban homesteading.  As we talked about this I occasionally glanced down at the withering marigold seedling that had been fighting a losing battle in the shiny blue pot that sat between us. 

There are goats at the farm way down below us.  Their bleating can be heard in the early morning and late evenings.  The rooster's crow echoes up the mountainside before dawn. (4:50am thankyouverymuch)  It reminds me of the different farms we have lived on and that agrarian spirit in me stirs and thinks, "We could put up a small coop. We could build some grow boxes. Get bee hives.  We could…."

We could.  

This morning I was grinding the coffee beans when I caught something moving outside in the corner of my eye.  Sure enough, first moose sighting of the year. We stood face to face for just a moment before it wandered off to hang out near our neighbors' flagpole. 

We could homestead some again - plant things, milk animals.  Moose won't be passing through if we fence ourselves in up here though.  And those plants and livestock wouldn't tend themselves while we tagged along on business trips or sat at ballgames or cared for sick relatives and friends or planned weddings or remodeled basements or go to swimming lessons – all things that currently take up the better part of my waking hours.  The plants I am in charge of often go the way of the marigold. Often. Very often. The little animals might not fare much better living here on the cusp of mountain and city where hawks circle overhead and deer nibble at the trees and shrubs.

Reality. I come to it reluctantly very often, often only after much wrestling.  I know this and know it well: you can have it all (ok, not really 'all' though you can have many different experiences in life) just not at the same time.

God knew better than I where we would thrive and what place fit the life He was planning and the things He would be asking of us.  This visit reminds me it is still wild and so very beautiful.