A Common Life
Welcome to A Common Life where Morgan and Taylor offer month-by-month gardening advice to help your garden thrive. We also share our personal journey in seasonal living, aiming to foster a deeper connection with others, nature, and our Creator. Our hope is to encourage and equip others who are on a similar journey and to provide a space for community around these ideals.
A Common Life
Vermont: We traded screens for springs.
In this episode Morgan and I talk about our family's trip to Vermont for a Permaculture Design Course with Ben Falk, Mark Krawczyk, and Erik Schellenberg.
Mentioned in the show:
Ben Falk - The Resilient Farm and Homestead
Mark Krawczyk - Coppice Agroforestry
Community Newsletter - The Common
DM us on the Socials or email us at Taylor@acommonlife.co
Music on the podcast was composed by Kevin Dailey. The artist is Garden Friend. The track is the instrumental version of “On a Cloud”
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Common Life Podcast, and I'm here with my beautiful bride Morgan. Hi and I'm Taylor, and in today's episode we're going to be talking about our trip to Vermont. Yes. This is a first for us, because it's in the morning we're recording. We are recording in the morning.
Speaker 3:We are recording in the morning.
Speaker 1:How do you?
Speaker 3:feel about it. So far, I got hope.
Speaker 1:Well, we just started but I still have hope that this is going to be better for us.
Speaker 3:I think morning is going to be way better than night, so Wilder has been sleeping in. Yeah, big kids go to school yeah, it's definitely maybe more predictable.
Speaker 1:As far as energy goes At night, we just don't know. It's a long day and it's hard to record at night after we put the kids down. So this will hopefully be more consistent and you'll be hearing from us more will hopefully be more consistent and you'll be hearing from us more and less chance of us having an argument prior and bringing all of that to the podcast. Maybe you've never called on to, but we literally have a 40-minute podcast that we recorded that has not been edited or published because afterwards we just got in a big fight and we just weren't Okay, let's not.
Speaker 1:Go there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just because then we might get in a fight. Oh. Let's just go, okay. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 3:It's the morning, we're so glad to be here and we're going to tell you about Vermont.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So Do you first want to say like how Well? First we will say we have our. We already were in love with Vermont Because Taylor did his master's program at Green Mountain College. And so when Wendell was young so if Wendell's two and he's nine now, do the math Seven years ago we went. It was it for your graduation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy that it was seven years ago, I know. Yeah, it was my the second year and it was for like a week or shorter.
Speaker 3:Shorter. Well, we did Maine and then we went down to Vermont. Anyway, we fell in love with it then. So when this opportunity came, we were like we really want to take the kids.
Speaker 1:So yeah, really want to take the kids, so yeah. So I went to we. We were going because I was taking part in a permaculture design course, a pdc, and this is something that I've wanted to do for a long time and I could not have imagined a better one like this is pretty dreamy in terms of permaculture design courses. We went to ben falk's farm and he was the main instructor I say main instructor, I mean he taught maybe less than some of the other instructors, but it was his farm and and then two other instructors, mark and eric I not even going to try to say their last names, I'll put it in the show notes, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they're just incredible.
Speaker 3:And if you're interested in this kind of stuff, all three of them have a book right.
Speaker 1:No, eric doesn't yet, but once his book comes out it'll probably be on Centropic Agroforestry. I mean just incredible. Really really cool. Ben Falk has a great book. I think it's called the Resilient Homestead or Farmstead, and Mark Kryzhevsky or Mark Kryzhevsky, I don't know His book is on coppicing.
Speaker 1:The link will be in show notes but it's like textbook size on coppicing. It has the whole history on it and techniques. Really cool and, yeah, awesome guys. I'm gonna miss them. I do miss them. They're just living their dream, their passion, sharing what they know and love. Living their dream, their passion, sharing what they know and love.
Speaker 1:It's really cool to sit under them. Yeah, so if you're not familiar with permaculture, permaculture is a word that combines two words to make a new word, so it's permanent agriculture. So if you just think about that permanent agriculture, then you can kind of get a picture of what permaculture is. Instead of planting annuals where you seed them every year, you focus a lot more on perennials plants that keep coming back. Not that annuals aren't included, but it's a focus more on creating what a lot of people might call food forests.
Speaker 3:Instead of imagining an empty field, kind of like typical American agriculture an empty field, you plant it all and then you start all over. Plant it all, start all over, not that.
Speaker 1:No, I mean there's no annual crop production really in permaculture. But yeah, like a food forest is something that I want to say was probably popularized by the permaculture movement, where you just are planting trees that are producing fruit in an upper higher canopy, and then the mid canopy, there's fruit and food, and then there's the shrub canopy and then the ground, and just getting as much food production in and on your property as possible, and most of it being perennial crops that send roots way down into the earth and there is some room for gardens and annual production. But it's very intentionally done and placed yeah but to me.
Speaker 1:So that's it. Permanent agriculture is where permaculture came from, and it came from Australia. Actually, I think it started back in the 70s. This guy wrote the textbook on it and the movement kind of started about the same time that the organic movement started in the US. But I think his name was Bill Mollison and he essentially came up with these principles and formed a framework for solving food scarcity problems, problems, and so the way I like to explain permaculture and the way I look at it is it is really a problem solving framework. It's a set of principles that you can use to solve problems, and it's usually used in the context of food production, human resilience, human flourishing, human resilience, human flourishing, ecosystem flourishing and that's what I was going up there to learn about, and I really wanted to come away with a design framework, a framework that I could use to work with clients or friends or myself when taking a piece of land, looking at it and then coming up with a design and a plan to put in these food systems.
Speaker 1:You feel like you walked away with what you wanted to get definitely and it's not just food, but you know they, they do a lot with water water too. Yeah, like water and um, permaculture is not just about food, because you've got energy on the land. So harnessing and harvesting energy whether that be in the form of, like firewood, or solar power capturing solar with photovoltaics, with PVs, or you're capturing solar with a pasture grass, you know or harnessing the power and energy of water, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was really cool. We went up to Vermont and hung out with a lot of cool folks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we met some really cool people.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, we met some really cool people. Yeah yeah, I love Earthy, Like these people. How I would describe them is very earthy.
Speaker 3:Very earthy.
Speaker 1:And there's a big group. You know you, you had it's hard to to put.
Speaker 1:I mean there was 30 plus students 30 plus, students ranging from the ages of someone I mean like 50s to someone in their 50s to 22 yeah, uh, just fresh out of college all the way to like retired, second career maybe kind of thing, yeah, and so it's very difficult to put the whole people into one box. But generally these people are very earthy, like a lot of them are walking around no shoes all the time. No shoes, beards, oily hair, but not everyone. I mean. There were some guys there like that were more like homeschool bro. Yeah, yeah, I can think of one guy. I was homeschool bro, you know, shirt, tails, tucked in, long pants, belt had his hair brushed, trimmed beard.
Speaker 1:It's like he was definitely homeschooled yeah and then you had the water wizard water wizard who was like super wizard, like like one with nature, super cool, really liked him, great conversations and then you had, you know, the girl that just loved getting naked in the pond all the time. Mermaid, the mermaid, yeah, and then. But everyone there, earth care, creation, care, taking care of nature and trying to be good stewards.
Speaker 3:Living with very strong convictions.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Around, caring for creation.
Speaker 1:Yes, and also kind Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, kind people.
Speaker 1:Really kind people.
Speaker 3:Considerate grateful that they, ben and Erica welcomed us and allowed us to join you. I think it would have been such still would have been a great experience for you, but this is like a trip that we will never forget. At least Virginia and Wendell, our oldest two, will also never forget.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we were very fortunate that Ben allowed us to all come.
Speaker 3:So to paint the picture like most people camped in tents. So there's like around 50 people. Either there was a, there was a house with a few rooms where some people stayed, yeah, but then most people stayed in tents. And then you have people who slept in their cars, like this one guy had a really tricked out. What would you call that?
Speaker 1:Big old sprinter, van no. He had a truck and he was pulling like, uh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was pulling like a camper. But the camper was like, yeah, it was tight, it wasn't like a homeschool camper, this was like a. I ride my mountain bike and I'm like super outdoorsy and this thing I'm taking to the grand canyon camper yeah, we pull up in our like rental minivan. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:All these kids. Yeah, and it was, you know, okay, there's like okay, so you have your tents and you go up and then there's like a fire pit area and then where we would wash our dishes. Everybody had like in our family everybody had a bowl and a plate and a fork and a spoon and then after every meal we would wash them, put them away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I don't want to interrupt. Well, we can come back to that, so keep going, okay.
Speaker 3:And then there's like a big barn where most of your classes took place Right, took place Right, and so the kids and I, when Taylor were in class, we would hang around with some of the other moms and the other kids, we would go on day trips. So one of the really cool things that I love about Vermont well one you're driving from village to village. They have so many good land use laws in place to where, for instance, you can't build outside of a town center Things like.
Speaker 3:Dollar Generals. There's no like the term urban sprawl. There's like none of that. Very little, very little.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I forget the name of their land use law. I need to link it in the show notes because I studied it when I went to green mountain green mountain yeah, my master's program, but it's definitely preserved has a lot to do with the preservation of what morgan's talking about, where there's a lot of little villages and you don't just, you don't just see a gas station pop up in the middle of nowhere, and then a dollar general and then a neighborhood walmart yeah, you know those kind of things and then just junkie no, you know, mate, there's no major highways that bypass villages where bojangles moves on to like, and so it's just, oh, like I'm even missing it now.
Speaker 1:And it makes me so sad that we have that. We don't have any other places like that, Really.
Speaker 3:So you go. So if you were coming from the property and you were going to their their little town was called Rochester was where the farm was, and so you know you would get on the road and you would pass like a couple of places that do their own maple syrup, a berry picking patch you know.
Speaker 3:And then when a couple of places that do their own maple syrup, a berry picking patch, you know. And then when you get into the little town, there's a cafe, a little grocery store, a bank, a bike shop, a coffee sandwich place that's inside of a bookstore, and then another bookstore, hardware store, laundry mat all just within this little area.
Speaker 3:And then you keep going just a little bit. And it's the old Rochester Square where it's like just a big green space and you can drive around it and the bookstore. It had an old poster of what it used to look like and it's so still intact, intact, you know, from hundreds of years ago, Right? So anyway, um, oh, and I say this all the time, but they don't allow billboards. There's no billboards, so it just feels very, um, it feels very different when you're there. It feels very different when you're there.
Speaker 3:And so the kids and I would go into town, we would do laundry there, we would go into the bookstore. Wendell, you know, the food that we ate was so good. They had a chef there and he would use as much local ingredients as he could, local ingredients as he could, and they would just prepare meal after meal. That was just delicious. But you know, our little Wendell struggled a bit. So we would go to the one day we went to the cafe and got burgers. So that was a highlight for him.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that's when Taylor was in class we would do little day trips to. When Taylor was in class we would do little day trips to different ponds or spaces. And then one of the things that I love about Vermont is there are a lot of community-owned grocery stores, co-ops. So like 30 Minutes Away was a college town called Middlebury and they just have an incredible co-op and that's where we would get our extra snacks. Little bagel shop next to it just very idealistic as far as you can tell people care about the land, you can tell people care about each other. Community is important.
Speaker 1:At least that's the way it appears. It presents itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's kind of what the kids and I would do while you were in class.
Speaker 1:Yeah so.
Speaker 3:But we had every meal together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, like Morgan said, of the, there were like 30 plus I'd say 35 students signed up for the course and like 27, 28 or so were staying in tents. Some were staying in a house. We all would eat together in the barn. That's where classes were. It was a three level beautiful timber frame barn and surrounding that barn was Ben ben's farm, multiple ponds. They had some uh like four or five or three cows with their calves um roaming through uh, the pastures which were had rows of trees and shrubs, sea berries, like all edible human edible crops that they were growing and the cows were kind of going through there. It was a little chaotic looking because there's so much food and things growing in there. But I'll come back to that kind of because I just can't imagine, you know, in 20, 30 years what this farm is going to look like when these trees get to mature size.
Speaker 1:It's just going to be paradise. It already is, but you have to really look and see and understand what's happening In 20 to 30 years, when these trees reach mature size, it's just going to be really crazy cool landscape.
Speaker 1:Going to be really crazy cool landscape. Um, and so there we were, like morgan said, we would eat together. But there were, you know they. They told you bring your own plates, utensils, cups, bowls. They didn't provide any like every meal. There's not like a stack of paper plates, you know, it's like you bring your own and then afterwards you go back down and there's three pans of water, you know, a hot wash, a hot rinse and a cold rinse and you wash all your dishes. And that was kind of, yeah, the rhythm. You know we had skill shares in the morning, class and lecture after breakfast, and then in the evenings some things would do go different, but class and lecture and then, kind of like after dinner, a uh, a talk at night and so while I'm in class you know you are with the kids and they've never let families come before, really kids.
Speaker 1:They've never let kids come before.
Speaker 1:But ben was saying he's always wanted to but it's a huge risk to do that, because you've got 30 plus people that have paid good money to come not hang out with other people although that's part of it or like kids but like to come to learn and to be in class, and and so when you introduce kids into an element like that, it, it, it adds a whole new calculus that you have to think about, and so I knew, going into this, this was going to be risky, like how was this going to turn out? And I really didn't want us to cramp anyone's style or like diminish the experience for anyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was kind of the setup and he did. There were other kids there.
Speaker 1:So one of the teachers brought, his family was there, and there was another student, two other students that had their wife and one child. And then, about four days in, I, another classmate, his wife, came with his three kids, young kids, like younger than Our youngest, two of them were. And so, you know, by the middle of the week, I mean at any point in time, we were in class and all the ladies were out and there was, like you know, 10 kids running around, because Ben and Erica, their son, was also there and you know he was like what? Eight, seven.
Speaker 1:So it definitely became a little hub too where kids and the kid energy was kind of flowing and there were times throughout the week where there was some distraction happening, but overall it was not a huge distraction. I think having the kids there most people would say that it was positive and that they liked being, they liked having that life there. I'm sure it brought a different element. If there were no kids there it would have definitely had a different energy and vibe.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, you know, at the very end, like at the last fire at night, and like at the last fire at night, when we I think Steele, the other dad or you, somebody said thank you so much. I think it was Steele. He said thank you so much for embracing our kids. And someone else in the group said man, this is why we're doing this, like this is the next generation, is we're doing this for the kids you know. So I think having that there and seeing, like okay, trees take this many years to grow, and like you said once, ben's farm has 15 years from now, what it will look like, well, it's for the next generation.
Speaker 3:So I think for people to see that was was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Definitely, I mean, and having the kids there makes it a family environment. Like literally there were a lot of us. If you include the instructors, you know it's like seven or so. Families there Became a family environment and majority of the folks there were adults. And of those adults a lot of them were straight. They're single. Right.
Speaker 1:And so it definitely, I think, like I said, create created somewhat of a family environment. I could see it totally getting a little rowdy, you know, if there were no kids, and it didn't, and I was thankful, I was thankful to everyone for, I think, just well, first of all, welcoming us, being so kind and gracious to us and our family, to our kids, and also, I think, keeping it somewhat family oriented you know, so, yeah, the kids being I don't know how much where we want to go with this, because there's so much more I can say I'm super thankful that y'all could come.
Speaker 1:The experience would not have been the same at all without you guys being there. Uh, because I would just have enjoyed it. I wouldn't, I would have missed you, but the experience to be able to share with you is so much greater than having to come back and try and explain it. Yeah. You know, and it became a formative experience for our entire family. I mean we camped for nine nights in a row all six of us.
Speaker 3:Yes, we did no showers.
Speaker 1:No showers. We bathed in and with a pond around a pond, with pond water swimming, coming out, washing, dumping buckets of water on ourselves and like that was our bathing.
Speaker 3:That was stretching for me, but by the end I really loved it.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, Exactly by the end.
Speaker 3:It's like there's something about that cold water and being out in the sun bathing like it's yeah, that is one thing that I have thought about is we were not in artificial light for that amount of time, for 10 days, we were not in artificial light no at all.
Speaker 1:I mean night you had the fire right, and then we had a little bit in our tent.
Speaker 3:We did like a little twinkle lights in our tent so we could see the kids put them to bed.
Speaker 1:But and you were outside every single day. There was no ac no ac there was no air conditioning, there were no screens yeah and it was it was a really um, I want to say sweet reset.
Speaker 3:but just, you know, we came back and we have one day and then school started for us and it was just a really sweet cap to the summer end of the summer, a little like whiplash, going from being barefoot in the woods to our sweet little classical uniform school, you know.
Speaker 3:but yeah, I like um really the only thing we had on the agenda and and not feeling tied to our phones or our emails and knowing that we're like out of pocket um, you know, we had meals and we had um like a daily adventure and that was all that was on the schedule you know, and because someone was cooking all the meals and there wasn't anything really to clean besides a couple laundry trips, I felt like I was able to be so present with the kids and like be bored with them.
Speaker 3:You know to where it's like okay, what do you guys want to do? What do we want to talk about? I braided Virginia's hair every day and just sat and talked to her. You know, all the distractions were put aside and you know, wilder fell in love with catching frogs and and even just like the noticing that our kids did, like noticing the frogs up here are really different than the frogs we have down in Alabama and noticing the environment around them. You know, and it's neat to watch each kid.
Speaker 3:Like we've been talking about how Wendell Wendell, you know he has gotten to where he he likes the finer things in life. When he talks about his future, he wants to have a mansion and butlers and we just kind of laugh about it. But so we were like how's Wendell going to handle this? You know, and I think out of all the kids he did the best, like just he. He got to be friends with the kitchen staff and he was just like living his best life.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the men there had a tiny home. He lived on the property and he came in about halfway through, showed Wendell all his tiny home and now Wendell's on a tiny home, kick, you know, but just just to watch them have an experience and to be able to, because a lot of times in our stage of life I feel like you know you go to the beach or you go somewhere, but you're basically just in a new place doing the exact same things that you're doing at home, but I felt so cared for and and being cooked for and, um, it was so simple, everything was so simple, dishes were simple, sleeping was simple and, you know, our bodies adjusted and yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I think something that I'm like thinking through right now is integrating back into you know, we do have to have our phones, we do have to answer emails, and how do you take, like, the healthiness of what we experienced and integrate it into everyday life? You know I'm thinking through that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think, carving out space for these experiences, I think that's important. And I'm just sitting here thinking camping definitely going to be an important thing for us. I mean, if you're trying to do this, yeah, if you go camping, you have to cook for yourself. This was a very special thing because we had amazing food, three meals a day, um, but yeah, just getting getting disconnected from all the screens, from from the artificial light, simplifying life for a little bit. And I've come back and I haven't gone back to my normal podcasting routine or my normal scrolling media news. Definitely did not want to just jump back into that. I'm sure eventually I'll get back into that rhythm, but it was hard enough jumping back into life. I didn't want to add all the extra noise myself and was not performing, and that felt really nice.
Speaker 3:so really good to it felt nice to be able to be who you are without. It's like you're meeting a whole bunch of new people and you were just yourself yeah, yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 1:There was no pressure to be anyone and I was not trying to be anyone other than myself, and so to be anyone other than myself and so that I can't say that's always been the case when I go to events with people, but this time, yeah, so it felt really really good to just kind of be me.
Speaker 3:It makes me think about the conversation you had with elise there about belonging that most people want to belong, isn't that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that conversation was probably the peak or highlight of the week because it kind of encapsulated so much of what I was feeling towards the end and the gift and gifts that I had received unexpectedly. It was unexpected to get or receive during this trip. I think hearing that Wendell was given a marble was like icing on the cake.
Speaker 3:It was very touching to me was like icing on the cake. It was very touching to me and that was symbolic of so much.
Speaker 1:Explain that for a sec. People don't know what you're talking about. Giving a marble Well, the conversation with Elise was probably the pinnacle. And then Wendell telling me that Jim gave him a marble was just the icing on the cake. Jim was, and is, somebody that works on Ben's farm. So the farm's huge Ben runs it. It's a permaculture farm and he's got all kinds of stuff going on. Jim was a student, I think, in his PDC, like two or three years ago, and then needed some full-time help, and so Jim was like I'll do it. And so Jim works and lives. He's the guy that that has a time.
Speaker 1:That had or no. That was Alex. He's one of the guys who lives on the farm with Ben and so he was there. He was there for the PDC but helping, doing all kinds of everything. You know anything Ben or the kitchen staff needed, but he was kind of on staff. He was on staff, is on staff and the staff that was teaching was always with the students, but then you had this whole separate staff that was cooking and Jim that was cooking and Jim that was doing any bit anything of everything and everything.
Speaker 1:And so when we were in class, the rest of the kitchen staff and Jim, and they were prepping meals, yeah, and taking care of all kinds of stuff, and Wendell would be riding his bike playing around them and Wendell struck up just a friendship with all of them and especially Jim, yeah. And you know, without getting Wendell, I'll just say of my four kids, wendell is sometimes the hardest for me to parent and connect with, really connect. When I do connect with him it's the sweetest because it can be so hard for me to connect with him and I can tell that Wendell wants affirmation, he wants to be different um he is not, he's just, yeah, like he's growing up fast and he's the second born, but the oldest boy and I put a lot of pressure on him second born.
Speaker 1:But the oldest boy and I put a lot of pressure on him and I think I worry, I wonder. I don't worry a whole bunch, but I wonder the most about what kind of young man he's going to grow up into. Love him dearly, of course, and, like I said, when I connect with him it is and can be the sweetest. So here we are on this trip and Wendell just really connected with staff and they had great things to say about Wendell and I just watched them interact and and he was connecting with them and they were connecting with him and they included him, loved on him, made me really proud of him and he was great throughout the whole week and jim blows glass like he's a glass blower and he showed off his marbles to to wendell and like really beautiful, yeah, I mean he was showing them to up to every, to most everybody that was interested, I mean he wasn't like going around pushing in people's faces, but he had them out once and I just knew this was.
Speaker 1:These are really special, important stuff like he sell.
Speaker 3:This is what he does for his living, besides working with them he sells these marbles yeah, like, this is his art, his craft.
Speaker 1:He makes marbles and all kinds of other glassware. So at the end of the weekell just came up to me and was like Dad, jim gave me a marble. And it just really touched me Because I knew how special those marbles were and I knew Jim wasn't just going to flippantly give out a marble, wasn't just going to flippantly give out a marble. And for him to give Wendell a marble was just as a dad. It meant a lot to me and I don't know For my son, I want him Like for my son, I want him. It just was. It made me proud to see him, as a nine-year-old boy, be totally outside of his normal element and to step into a place and really thrive socially, to be pretty independent and also respectful to us. You know, when we asked him to do something, we asked him not to do something and to also be a kid. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He was still a kid and to just I don't know. I feel like I'm rambling. I've been going on for no telling how long, but it just was really impactful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so tying that back to Elise and in the conversation with elise and belonging and the importance of feeling like you belong wendell found like exactly.
Speaker 1:He found a little crevice in this whole community where he felt like he belonged and for jim and and the rest of those guys and gals could have not included him yeah, could have not loved on him yeah yeah, and they didn't.
Speaker 1:and I mean, yeah, I think wendell had his own part in that and being honorable, respectable, reading the room and if he needed to leave, he left right All those things I would think. But they were just so kind and to include him and to, yeah, like um, just be be nice to him and let him feel like he belonged, and that was really special. Very thankful for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really special. Very thankful for that. Yeah yeah, my conversation with Elise was um, towards the end of the week it was, we were about to leave and I don't remember what we were talking about. That led up to her asking me what role does faith play in my life? Faith play in my life, but I had had some conversations throughout the week that, again, was just me being me and talking about my life and my experiences, and some of them were my beliefs about my faith. My faith did come up up, but it was just the flow of the conversation and it ebbed in and out and it just kind of was what it was and people the same. With them. It was relationship, and this was the second to last day, so so we were kind of towards the. We were definitely downhill, going towards the leaving, and I was sitting at the around the fire pit and Elise was somebody that we had connected with throughout the week. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes we found ourselves eating breakfast around with her and around her, and she was, of course, in her own way, very cool, very unique and had her own perspective on life. And she was a schoolteacher young kids and just like, felt like an expert. I mean she might shy away from me calling her that, but she certainly knew what she was talking about, yes. Very.
Speaker 3:Montessori yeah, very passionate about.
Speaker 1:I honestly hope we get a chance to interview her. We will, yeah For sure, on this podcast, be really cool. But we were just having a conversation and then, all of a sudden, she asked me what role does faith play in your life? As a person who takes their faith very seriously, and it is such a big part of my life for someone to ask me that, you know, was like. I remember when she asked me I was like, oh, wow, god, like you're putting this one on the tee for me. Well, you know, this one's on the tee, yeah, and it didn't catch me off guard necessarily, but it kind of did, because I just wasn't, you know, expecting that. So I was able to answer her question and the rest of the conversation flowed really well. I think I was able to connect with her, to share with her. I think she saw the burden or saw, saw what I was trying to say you know I felt like I communicated my heart and burden.
Speaker 1:Well, and the belonging comment was it came after. I asked her what about you? What role does faith play in your life? And she gave me an answer that, um, she's not a Christian. And she said basically, she finds she connects with the higher power. I don't know if she used these words, but she connects with the higher power through nature, she finds it in nature and I think she said, like nature is her truth, it in nature. And I think she said, like nature is her truth. And man.
Speaker 1:Like hearing her say that, to be honest, I knew I had to follow up to that and it was beautiful because I was my heart just like broke a little bit and I did get emotional in the conversation with her and I'm a part of me is glad because I think it helped her see that what I'm about to say is not me trying to win over a soul or be a missionary or be right, huh or be right yeah or no, like it was genuinely my heart broke because when I think what I said was basically like I can only speak from my own experience and and like I hear you and my heart and hope would be for her to know that she is loved by her creator and to have that connection with him that I feel like I have and it really I was talking to her, but I was talking about everyone there because it's like man. Talking about everyone there Because it's like man. I know Jesus loves all of them, but I know they would love Jesus yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and so I, I just remember saying, I mean, it's like, yeah, it's like for someone like Elise, it's like I just finding belonging is so important and I don't know I don't remember how I said it or really where the conversation went, but I can kind of tell the heart and the essence of it. Belonging is so important and if someone like Elise or someone like anyone there, anyone, if they're searching, if the Lord is pulling on their heart or they're wanting to connect with Jesus, with Yahweh, which they would say probably the divine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the divine, yeah, but for for the in the christian faith, like, for them to do, like, how do they do that? It's so important that there's this place that they feel safe to be themselves. I think most of the people that we were there with would feel so out of place, especially in the Southern culture, going to a Southern Christian church. It would take a real radical work of the Holy Spirit to move them to a place To walk into those doors.
Speaker 1:To walk through those doors and move them to a place where they would feel safe and comfortable, right, right. And so I was just telling her. I was like well, actually I told her. I was like. I heard my pastor say that this guy said to him that what mattered to him was less about the actual truth and more about going somewhere where he felt like he belonged. That's what this guy's heart was craving to feel like I belong somewhere. Amen, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the truth to him was secondary, and so our pastor was just saying, like they have to go hand in hand, like, yes, we care about the truth and that's not going to matter if people don't feel like they belong. And so in that moment talking to Elise, my heart was just breaking Cause I'm like I want every all these people here to feel like they belong.
Speaker 3:In the family of God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. To feel Absolutely and find a place with other believers where they can feel like they belong and so that they can be ministered to, so that they can be loved on right and come face to face with Jesus through his people. Amen yeah, and so I just yeah. And then I think I started praying come face to face with Jesus through his people, and so I just yeah, and then I think I started praying. I don't even really remember. I know it's just like that is my hope in my prayer.
Speaker 1:That was my hope in my prayer and it's like the pinnacle of the week because I was so, I felt so connected to all of these people. I cared so much for all these people. My heart then was like breaking for all these people. I cared so much for all these people. My heart then was like breaking for all these people, and I wasn't expecting any of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I wasn't expecting to have the opportunity to share that part of my life, necessarily, and all of that was made possible, I think, because my family was there, you were there, kids were there, we were able to build trust and favor with, with these people, and and so my words had somewhat of a weight and an impact behind them, and it ties back into I wasn't performing right, you were just being yourself.
Speaker 1:I was just being myself and didn't have any pressure on myself to like, try to win anyone's favor or win anyone's friendship or admiration, Like I mean. If I'm being honest, I did feel it with Ben. I wanted Ben to like me. You know, that's kind of like oh, he's the teacher, he's the instructor. I feel like that's pretty normal. You know, you kind of put those kind of people up on pedestals.
Speaker 1:At least I have, and he's the instructor. I feel like that's pretty normal. You know, you kind of put those kind of people up on pedestals. At least I have, and he's a male. I want him to like me, and so that's the only part where I was like kind of probably battling a little bit like hey.
Speaker 1:Taylor, just be yourself. It's okay if he's not. That's so silly, but it's true. But yeah, so that was just the pinnacle, because it just wrapped up so much of the again the blessing and the gifts of the week and the faithfulness of God to for me answer my prayers.
Speaker 3:Like going in, I was praying for who we would meet, who our kids would be around. This was, you know, the first time we've taken them into a community where we're living life with people that we don't know. So I was really praying into the people that were going to be there, and he's so provided in that. For sure, and there was another man there that Taylor talked about earlier that ended up bringing his family, steele, and that was God providing another believer there for us.
Speaker 1:To connect with. We connected with. Be with yeah.
Speaker 3:They want to do. They feel like a very similar calling on their life as we do, and so it was just like wow, god, you went before us, you were with us. We learned so much.
Speaker 1:Like oh man, we haven't even touched on the actual content which was just incredible Go ahead?
Speaker 3:I will. I just wanted to end with um, like if we're talking about a common life and bringing back lost arts that used to be common Okay, skillshare's were kind of that right, the lost arts, or like different skills that people might not have. So maybe name like your two, like go into Mark's house, mark, one of the teachers made his own furniture, you know stuff like that but maybe like two of the common things that used to be common, that were skills that maybe you learned about or you're excited to implement or learn how to do.
Speaker 1:Well, I am excited about spring management, managing springs. We have a couple here. We live in a spring rich area of the country and, yeah, I want to take the springs that we have on our property and try to uh get the most out of them, either by turning them into little ponds, um, but capturing the water and moving it and and building some really sweet little pond holes. I mean, they're gonna be small, so I'm gonna be huge ponds yeah but hopefully big enough to where it can.
Speaker 1:It can produce somewhat of a little ecosystem and big enough for us to take a quick dip in throughout the year with some cold spring water right by our house in zone one. I'm really excited about that. And uh, other skills, um, yeah, I mean I really want to graft and propagate trees and plants and so I need to get get out there and and do that. There was a skill share on it.
Speaker 1:Those, those are probably the two that I know I'll be using and trying to get better into Grafting propagating would be like grafting fruit trees and you know like, for instance, there's an apple tree. There's an apple tree we have here that is really doing well compared to a lot of our other apples, and it hasn't gotten affected by aphids or cedar apple rust, and so I'm going to keep watching that. But I will probably take a few cuttings from that this fall and graft it onto another apple seed rootstock so that we can have more of those apple trees, because they're doing it's doing so well right now, when all of our other apples are really honestly struggling, but this one's just like. Hey, I'm chilling I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:I'm happy. So things like that, cool, cool. Yeah, if you're into permaculture ben falk I'll put his name and, like some of the resources in the show notes, definitely check out his stuff. He's got an awesome book.
Speaker 3:It's really great a lot of content in there and or any other like questions or topics around permaculture, because it's something you could talk about for a long time oh, yeah, that you'd want to learn more about. Let us know and maybe we could cover it. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was a fun, amazing trip and, uh, I'm glad, glad we did it. Special shout out and thanks to all the people who were there, to Ben and Erica for welcoming us to their family or to their home. Yeah yeah, Eric and Mark amazing teachers and Sycamore and Lauren just knocked it out with the food. It's incredible. Special, special trip. So special. All right everybody.
Speaker 3:Until next time, happy gardening. I'm going to use a little bit of water to get the water out. I'm going to pour it into a glass. I'm going to pour it into a glass. I'm going to Thank you. Thank you, I'm going to use a little bit of water to get the water out of the pot. I'm going to pour the water into the pot and I'm going to pour. Thank you.