Farmer Girl Meets City Life

I have to laugh to myself…
The Lord is completely amazing.
I grew up in the city, 
but every single day longed for the country.
After closing Dw’s law practice and heading to seminary,
we eventually pastored our first church and had a
beautiful rolling hilled property on 21 acres complete
with vast woods, gorgeous pastures 
and a beautiful pond and stream which even had
a little water falls.
I affectionately named the falls – Little Niagara.
Our second pastorate we lived on a cul-de-sac
 in a sub-division across from the church.
It was a pretty big lot and this country girl 
found it bearable.
In our third pastorate we lived on 29 acres
set way, way, way off the road.
I was in ecstasy.
  
On that 29 acres was a gorgeous bunch of 
enormous woods, acres and acres of pasture 
where we planted an enormous garden 
that yielded bountiful blessings each year.  
We actually even grew hay, baled it and put it
in the barn that Dw and our boys built.
We sold the hay to other farmers.
We were diggin’ it.
True story.
It was my dream come true.
But then the MS got bad and we had to sell 
and build a wheelchair
accessible home on 15 acres to accommodate me. 
We named that place Blackberry Landing
because of gigantic blackberry patches 
which we organically grew. 
Oh, they were so delicious and Graham was
a little tike and he would stand for hours in the 
Blackberry patch…chomping away as I picked them to 
make boatloads of scrumptious Blackberry Jam.
Eventually God called us to pastor in Colorado
and we lived at 7,400′ on the side of a mountain.
We just couldn’t get a garden to take 
due to the rocky soil of the area we were in.
Somehow we managed.  
Ya’ know….
roughin’ it with a view of the Rocky Mountains.  
Boy-oh-boy did this “Farmer Girl” 
ever love our “country life” over the years.
Chickens, roosters, huge gardens,
enormous blackberry patches, horses,
a goat, barn cats and open space.
But city life in the desert is where God has placed us now,
so reckoning it all in my head, I began to ask the Lord if 
He would help us somehow to have a garden that we could harvest
yummy things.
And then one day Graham asked if I knew that what the things were
growing on the Palm Trees?  

Nope.
No clue.
Graham researched and found that they were…
Are you ready for this?
Dates!

Cutest little farmer kids harvesting our “crops.”
I giggled with joy!
We are gonna’ be “city farmers” yet.  
And so, without any effort on our part,
we had the joy of ‘harvesting’ the dates the other day….
Graham tasted them from the tree.
We separated them.
Washing.

We dehydrated them
and I am happy to report that
they are beyond delicious.
And this farmer girl at heart 
is pretty doggone tickled
with our sweet little harvest in the 
middle of Phoenix.
Delight yourself in the Lord and 
He will give you 
the desires of your heart. 
Psalm 37:4

10 thoughts on “Farmer Girl Meets City Life

  1. im wodering now if you live in the part of town where the "world famous" dates grow…. here in phoenix in a certain part of town grow a certain kind of date (i dont know the name) that in all the world can only be found here…… isnt that cool? I read about it in the "phoenix" magazine once.
    You have had some pretty exciting living arrangments over the years. thanks for sharing.

  2. I have lived in Arizona almost my whole entire life and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I DID NOT KNOW dates grew in Palm trees. WOW! Just Wow.

  3. As a fellow desert-inhabitant (and former farm girl), I really loved this post. None of our palm trees are secretly date trees! Now I am educated! 😀

  4. Love me some dates. 🙂 I knew what those were, actually, because I saw them in Greece years ago.

    How about figs? You could probably do those too, and sit under your proverbial fig tree. Dates and figs – very biblical. 🙂

  5. Oh that's awesome! Dates are on of my favorites!!

    I imagine there are lots of things you can grow in AZ- you just need to figure out what and what time of year. As I live in Upstate NY, I don't know of what those things are off the top of my head. But there are a million blogs and websites and YouTube videos and of course, local small garden centers. I bet you can grow more than you realize- even if you grow things in pots and containers in winter instead of summer months.

    KK

  6. Thanks for noticing our Father answering up your prayers! BTW – while in the middle east I learned how to eat a real date – hold the stem – push a fingernail in the point on the other end and peel like a banana – give it a try!

    hugs – aus and co.

  7. My dream for a long time was to live in the country, and specifically in the Northern Rockies. I had that dream on a 40 horse ranch, but it came to an end due to a severely abusive situation. So now, on my own, it is just lonely here, even though I still love the mountains. My heart was broken for orphans a few years ago, and now that is all my heart desires, to work with them and love them. Back in the 90's I wanted God to send me overseas, but He said no, and I eventually quit asking. Two weeks ago I asked for the first time in years, and I think the answer is YES! EE here I come! I am hoping to do a DTS with YWAM this winter and have it lead to long term missions! People are going to think I have lost my mind 🙂 I am in my 50's and no one needs me around here anymore…but the orphans in UKR do!!!

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