011 – The Prep Work We Didn’t Expect: Learning to Steward Our Land with Patience

This week, we spent a lot of time walking the land—watching where the sun rises and sets, tracking the breeze, and getting a feel for how the seasons might impact us here in the Pacific Northwest. After years of dreaming, we’re finally standing on the land God provided, and there’s an undeniable sense of responsibility in that.

There’s also a strong temptation to rush in and do all the things.

Start the garden. Fence the field. Build the coop. Clear the brush. Plant the orchard.

But the land—like life—often asks us to slow down.

Early in the week, we were laser-focused on fire mitigation. With the PNW in a drought, we knew that clearing the immediate area around our home was a must. Luke did a lot of research and found a brush hog from a nearby North40. We borrowed a family trailer, hauled it home, and went to hook it up the next day—only to discover the shaft was an 8-prong connector and incompatible with our 6-prong tractor. After a few calls, we learned that the wrong part had somehow been swapped somewhere along the logistical chain and ours was the only one on the North40 lot with the wrong part. After several phone calls, and three days later, we had the correct part in hand and could finally move forward.

It felt like such a small thing—a detail overlooked—but it cost us time and momentum.

This week, our realtor, Teresa, graciously invited us over to her place to walk us through her chicken coop. Her husband is quite handy and brought her dream coop to life with all the features I appreciate. She answered so many of our questions about the build and even about caring for her chickens. (Thank you, Teresa!). 

I met Teresa almost a year ago when we really started getting serious about buying a place in this area. There was a home we wanted to see listed on Zillow and she was the “automatic” realtor assigned to us when we requested a showing. Even though we didn’t pick her, she was phenomenal from the get go and remains a friend to this day. If you’re in the market for a home in the Spokane-area, let me know! I’ll send you her info.

Inspired after my walk-through, I re-visted the shed on our own property and sketched out a plan with Luke to convert part of it into a coop and the rest into tool storage.

I was  eager and ready to break ground this week. I even bought hinges for the doors and all.

But as we walked the area, discussing layout, fencing, and logistics, we realized the ground wasn’t level, we’d need additional supplies and we couldn’t just run out and get those things. Each drive into town NOW has to be methodical and well-planned to save time and money.

We found that building the run before leveling the space would lead to a crooked fence, poor drainage, and more work down the line. Just like the brush hog, this project had a hidden prep phase we hadn’t accounted for.

We paused.

We recalibrated.

We took a deep breath and reminded ourselves: slow is steady, and steady is faithful.