How Did She Get Here

If you’ve ever met mom, you know she is the quintessential teacher. Some people seem to just have a purpose/calling like this. She taught high school science for 30 years, and loved every minute of it. She taught in 2 school districts, and did both a regular classroom, and an alternative classroom. She took a break for 5 years to be a stay at home mom while we were little. She mentored kids, pushed them to do their best, held them to a higher standard, and helped them see that the world may not care, but that doesn’t mean that no one cares. She worked hard to give the students a safe place. These are the parts of the job that she is missing.

But God decided to expand His plans for her. During the last 2 years, she started feeling restless and began to understand that He was calling her elsewhere. Now don’t get me wrong, He apparently still wants her teaching, He just altered how she would be doing it. So this school year was the first year she was eligible for retirement. She hasn’t looked back. She keeps commenting that she would be alone in a classroom doing online teaching. Instead, she’s outside doing farm work.

Now this lady has got a big imagination. I made her watch Harry Potter, and she decided they needed to implement the “House System” in her school to give the kids a feeling of belonging and inclusiveness. She saw a charter school that had a wall devoted to keeping track of where the kids where in their courses and how close they were to graduating. She designed an image and her Sunday School class got together and painted the wall of the main hallway with magnetic paint so each of the kids could be represented on the wall and encourage them to keep moving their race horse forward to the finish line. SHE PAINTED HER ROOM TO BE A JUNGLE! My sister and I spent a summer with her in that room painting a Panther, Elephant, Gorilla, Python, waterfall, fish, Cockatoos, Gibbins, trees, Venus Fly Trap, frogs, and a hut all over her room. The students LOVED her room.

This imagination has carried over to the farm. She knew this was her next step, so before she had even finished school, she started getting her ideas rolling. Spring break got extended because of the pandemic, and she utilized the break. Her plans started out with: Corn Maze, chickens, goats, and Camp Golly. They have grown… The corn maze went from 5 acres of corn with paths cut to make a maze, to 10 acres of event space, food truck, picnic tables, popcorn stand, JM2 Ag and Cattle Shopping tend, handmade games, FFA animals, scarecrows, and maze activities. And all of that is just on the basic Saturday. She also added a Special Needs day, a Friday Night Fright, and an Autism Awareness Fundraiser and Scarecrow Competition. The chickens turned into egg sales, and a mural on the barn…which also exploded from being inside the chicken coop to taking up an entire side of the barn. The goats have expanded into cheese sales, and cheese making classes. I really hope we get some heads up before Camp Golly takes off. Daddy and I are still trying to make the first idea a reality.

Keep an eye out for more posts about how her presence is changing the farm.