We Rented A House

For seven years we lived in a tiny duplex. As our family grew, so did our desire for a bigger home. Then an amazing thing happened. We were given the opportunity to rent a house. It wasn't just any house though. We had 3 growing boys and here's what the Lord blessed us with:

• 23 acres of woods and a small meadow
• a large front field full of long, wild grass
• 3 acre pond
• an apple tree in the front yard
• berry bushes thrown in everywhere around the property
• 2 row boats
• ducks, geese, herons
• fish to catch
• turtles to catch
• beaver to observe
• microscopic creatures to study
• ice skating
• sledding
• deer to watch
• leaves, leaves, leaves to rake, jump in, and collect
• nests, cocoons, insects, pine cones, seed pods, and acorns
• bonfires and s'mores and hot dogs
• antique bottles buried into the side of a hill to dig up
• paths to chase each other through
• a loooooonnnnnnnggggggg driveway to shovel in the winter
• bird feeders with hundreds of birds to categorize
• watching squirrels gather nuts
• beautiful wildflowers surrounding the house
• the house was large-HUGE living room with a fireplace, 3 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and large windows in every room

A couple special memories we have are:

• watching the boys play "Lions in Africa" in the tall grass in the field in front of the house
• playing Frisbee, volleyball and flying kites in the same front field
• one Autumn we watched a squirrel frantically spend his days gathering nuts. He put them in an old hollow tree right outside our living room window. One morning we got up and a raccoon had moved into the food-filled tree. We never saw the poor squirrel again. (I'm sure there's a spiritual lesson in that somewhere.)
• My mother-in-law came and spent a month with us shortly after we moved into that house. One morning, at the crack of dawn, I stumbled out into the living room to find her standing in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace, our 3 sons were with her. All 4 of them were still in their jammies and you know what they were doing? Giggling and roasting marshmallows, laughing, and talking!
• Every spring we loved to watch the geese returning from the south. The pond would still have ice on it when they came. It was so fun to sit in our warm, cozy living room and watch them come in for a landing on the slippy half-melted ice. They'd slide and fall, and tip-toe around like drunken old sailors.
• Except for the summer months, when it's hot and muggy out, Mike and I sleep with our bedroom window open. One morning, late in the fall, when it was still dark out, we woke up to the sounds of crunching and munching outside our bedroom window. We went to the front door and peeked out. There, under the apple tree, were 3 deer, feasting on the apples that had fallen on the ground. The really strange thing was this: one of our cats was out there with them, weaving around their legs and rubbing up against them as only cats do!
• Every once in awhile the boys would find an enormous snapping turtle they just had to show me. To this day I have no idea how they would get the turtles into the row boat, but somehow they did. Benjamin, our oldest, would row the boat across the pond with James sitting behind him keeping a sharp lookout on the turtle. If the turtle tried to move toward the front of the boat James would whack at it with a stick.
• Because the pond was "comma" shaped, I couldn't always see the boys when they were out in the boats. It's only natural that at times I'd be worried about them and want to make sure they hadn't drowned at the back end of the pond. So, good old mom would use her "football game whistle" to call them home, just to make sure they were still alive and well. After rowing and working and sweating their way back around the pond to the house they'd call out, "What mom?" "Oh, nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were OK."
• Our youngest son was born in the living room of that house.

We've since moved on from that house.....the memories we have are priceless........