Part Three: You never know where life will take you

I always teased Lee that we were lucky we met – I from Michigan, he from Kentucky, to meet in Ohio in the middle, where neither of us wanted to be or intended to stay!

And early in our marriage, our naturopathic doctor told Lee his asthma and breathing complications would not improve while we continued to live in this area – that his body was unaccustomed to such things as the molds in the corn, and the best thing he could do for his lungs would be to move. Needless to say we didn’t take him seriously in the least. Not then, anyway.

When he got a call that the full-time farmer position at Carriage Hill was open, he went back to work there in June of 2018. It was a place we both loved – not just from the historical aspect and because it was fun for the whole family to volunteer with Daddy, but because we’d met there, he proposed there, we took our wedding pictures there – it felt as if we’d grown as a couple and a family all over that farm.

And if he’d been looking for a job to make actual money he’d have gone elsewhere, but 1880s farming at Carriage Hill meant a lot to him, and he went back, intending to save up his salary so we could afford another few acres around Fletcher and expand our livestock. Things went smoothly until his newly appointed manager in late 2020 refused to honor Lee’s Federal Holidays or saved up vacation, sick, and personal days, actually telling him to his face the work at Carriage Hill was more important than God, his health, his family’s health, and his own farm work at home; that if Lee used any of his many weeks of saved up and earned time off, he’d take it without pay and be written up.

So when I continued to have complications from a difficult pregnancy and delivery of our last child, hemorrhaging again, Lee called in to stay home with me and the children – only to be told it was an unapproved use of a sick day, he’d have to take it unpaid, and was being written up. No matter it was only the second sick day he had used that calendar year, the first being for his grandmother’s funeral because no one told him he got five paid bereavement days. It was the beginning of the end for his involvement with Carriage Hill, and the end of my support of a union.

We knew he was having more regular breathing attacks – we also knew we were under a lot of stress, he was working too hard on both farms, not getting enough sleep, had plenty of environmental airborne complications that negatively affected his breathing if he wasn’t careful, as we faced this past summer…

When he was hired, Lee agreed to forgo his nine Federal Holidays, working seven of them if he was guaranteed instead three religious holidays off – Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. His former manager thanked him and accepted his acquiescence. His new manager, himself a father of four and supposedly a Christian, refused and told Lee he’d work a full shift on Christmas, regardless that the park was closed. When Lee suggested he simply drive in to feed the animals and go home as was past practice, he was told he’d work a full shift – the manager’s concession was to allow Lee to bring his family to work with him for the day. Christmas Day.

Needless to say, when he quit just before Christmas 2020, we were all done with the stress of the previous year and got serious about actually moving out of state. Land being cheaper in Kentucky than Ohio or Michigan (since we agreed to at least look where my family was), we were Blessed to find a farm – further away than we expected, South of Lexington, but things work out, not always how you expect!

So yes – we are in the process this year of consolidating our farm, moving lock stock and barrel 200+ miles south to a new farm – more secluded, more land, more possibilities for our homesteading dream.

It’s been so much back and forth, working here and there, wondering how long it’d be before we’re ready to sell and move, finding someone to continue the Market, not knowing what, when or how to tell anyone – it’s been a heck of a year for us. And harder each week to think about being permanently gone, wanting to hold off saying anything to anyone until I couldn’t wait any longer. When my in laws asked questions about a timetable for our move, and we tried explaining we’re day by day trying to keep our heads above water, I mentioned the Market, that I wasn’t sure how I was going to leave you. My father in law acted as if it should be no big deal. I realized how little they understood what it meant to us to have built this business from scratch that was less business and more network, more family of like-minded people – people who chose to support each other, their neighbors and family farmers – who’d grown closer to us than most of our family members, offering to babysit and help on the farm, bringing flowers, gifts, snacks, flower and plant seeds you’d saved, diapers when our babies were born, and more than anything smiles, kindness and generosity. I can’t tell you what this Market has meant to me, and my whole little family. I can’t even write without getting emotional – I just could not tell it in person.

The moment it hit us we were moving… when we sold that beautiful orange combine. It’d never survive the trip down or be safe on the gentlest of our rolling KY hills. Lee drove it down the driveway the final time as I stood at the window bawling like a baby, pulling myself together so my wet face wouldn’t freeze when I went out to see him load it on the semi in the frigid air. It felt right that that ended the Ohio chapter of our life together. I no longer would need my Allis to look at when we disagreed or times got harder than normal, to remind us we could survive anything. Maybe I matured so my memories are enough, or maybe we have enough other instances to point to and say, Yes, see? We can make it.

Lee was hospitalized in July for his asthma. We then ramped up the move. When he flatlined on the table for a full ten seconds I, yes I, was speechless. I felt it was a wake up call we must heed, that a permanent move to the clean mountain air, where he knew he felt better, was best. ASAP.

While I know the Market will be in the good hands of our friend and customer Erin Harris as of the Christmas Break, I’d be lying if I said the thought of leaving wasn’t oh so hard. My parents are in Michigan, Lee’s family is in Kentucky, and my scattered brothers we only see sporadically. The Market has been a constant in our family’s life each week, more family than just friends. And part of me has had a very difficult time wrapping my head around leaving. Yet when we go down to Kentucky every Tuesday after Market to be ready for work on the new farm Wednesday, whether it’s moving gravel, building fence, clearing hedgerows and trees, fixing barns, painting the house, ripping out carpet or making it our own in a million other ways, it’s so peaceful and quiet in our corner of the Daniel Boone National Forest that when the time comes for us to pack up and head back to Ohio, all seven of us are truly sad to leave our newfound serenity and peace. And are excited to be starting anew, together.

With four of our five children now in school (plus two year old Anna thinking she is as well), and so much to learn and share together, I’m glad I have the ability to stay home full-time, as I can look at how much they’ve grown since yesterday and know any hour that slips away we can’t get back. Just as true, Lee and I aren’t getting any younger, and goodness, if there was a big difference having the last baby at 36 compared to our first at 27, I hope if we’re Blessed with more they come soon before I get much older! A mischievous older gentleman told me last year after I’d come back from having Anna that he’d read older mothers were more susceptible to twins, so if I was planning any more I’d better get on it before I was too tired. I kindly showed him the door, of course, wondering how much more tired we could get. And I do look forward to that final trip south, when we as a family can sigh, rest, look around and know we’re home, ironically just on a new road that dead ends on our new farm at our End of the Road.