Just as we were gearing up for a busy season of baseball and ballet, wondering when we would ever get in a good spring weekend at the farm, we were hit with the reality of a new season known as quarantine. A new virus known first as the coronavirus and later as COVID-19 was spreading at a rapid pace, particularly in Albany, GA, and the news was a constant roll of closings and cancellations. Instead of wondering how we would fill the time at our sad rental house with three active young children, we knew what we would do. We would go to the farm every weekend we could to escape the news, enjoy the beautiful spring weather in our very own woodlands, and eat the best food we could throw on the grill or in a fryer. And that is just what we did.
The first weekend we were all a little shocked and confused at our new reality. The men (Mike, Kemble, and Henry) enjoyed a canoe adventure down Buck Creek, we let Henry fish to his heart's content, and we all watched Stella's favorite movie, "The Sound of Music" to cheer ourselves up.
The second weekend we made the most of it and let Henry and Stella enjoy the sinking sand in the wading creek, watched Henry take some golf lessons from his Daddy, and let Texas continue his sampling out of Grandpa's tractors. During nap time before we headed home on Sunday, Henry and I ventured out to Rice Branch right as a thunderstorm was starting to hit to work on our rock-skipping skills.
The third weekend, we took the boat out on the pond, celebrated Kemble killing his first turkey early on Saturday morning, cheered as Stella and Texas drove the gator around the Bluff House loop over and over, and let the kids get in the wading creek again, this time with swimwear on.
The next weekend Texas continued his sampling of tractors and we enjoyed playing "guess who" in the cabin.
Some highlight suppers during our weekend retreats include hamburgers, a fish fry, fried turkey, ribs, all the s'mores a three and six-year-old could handle. We quickly forgot that not a single restaurant was open.
Since then we have moved into our new home and enjoyed settling in or being in the pool during the summer heat, but we had to escape to the farm again for some blackberry picking and Rice Branch exploring.
We are so thankful to have the farm and the Bluff House as a refuge when the world turns upside down, which it certainly did during the spring of 2020. We enjoyed safety, togetherness, and the beauty of God's creation all around us.
