August: Month of Transitions
God's Faithfulness in Shifting Seasons
Confession: I ADORE autumn. My family just might carve that on my tombstone. I can’t get enough of the crispness in the air, the rainbow of foliage, steaming hot tea (or cider), and the sweet spice of all things pumpkin, apple, and chai.
Yes, I know we still have thirty-three days until September 22nd. But my family’s fall schedule starts in mid August. And even in August, hot as it may be, I can start seeing the transitional signs as the best season of the year draws nigh.
Several years ago, I was walking in the woods with my children and started my tradition of pointing out the early fall-colored leaves. “Red leaf!” I announced with a grin. “Yellow leaf!” “Orange leaf!” “Brown leaf!”
To which my smart Alec kids responded in monotone with, “Green leaf. Green leaf. Green leaf. Green leaf.”
How did my offspring turn out so snarky?
But in all seriousness, August is the month where we move from an often-irregular summer into a more focused fall. As the school schedule resumes, so do all the extracurricular activities like dance class, youth group (high school and middle school), mock trial, Bible studies, and Sunday school.
Things on the homestead start transitioning, too. My summer chicks have grown their feathers and no longer need to live in the garage. Yesterday, they graduated to the larger chicken coop. Meanwhile, the rest of my flock has started shedding their old plumage to grow new feather coats ready for cooler weather.
My beautiful goats who’d spent most of the summer as rotund expectant mothers have all delivered their kids and started new routines on the milk stand. Fall farm tours are ramping up. I’m trying to process the elderberries I picked before they go bad in my fridge so I can make elderberry syrup to ward off winter colds. And I’m already late getting my kale and carrots into the raised beds for a fall garden and still have to pick my butternut squash before it rots.
Things are busy as they always are this time of year. But this particular August has brought about some transitions which are completely new territory for me.
For starters, this is the first August in thirteen years that I will not be actively homeschooling my children. (Technically, my eldest daughter is still learning at home. But since she’s a self-motivated high school junior who drives herself to a weekly Classical Conversations co-op which provides her with all her assignments, my involvement is minimal.)
I’m thankful to have had over a decade in which to lay a good educational foundation for my kids through a Biblical worldview. I have no regrets and will even miss reading classic literature aloud to them (at least for a grade). But I’m excited to start using the freed-up time to lean into my passions of sharing my animals with people through tours and workshops and devoting more time to writing.
Another tricky transition has been dropping off my eldest son at college. *Sniff.*
Don’t get me wrong; we are super proud of him and excited to see where this next season of life takes him. His college is only 45 mins away, but I am telling myself to not expect him home for Sunday dinner each week. I want him to form new friendships and routines where he is. I want him to spread his wings a little. And I want to avoid smothering him so that when he does visit he’s doing so because he wants to and not because I’ve pressured him.
Sometimes motherhood feels like a never-ending train of diapers, dinners, and doctor’s appointments. But now that train has one less passenger in the club car, and we notice.
Not that my son doesn’t have a ticket home whenever needed, to continue the analogy. But the daily Autumn routine of seeing him during the school year and at the dinner table has shifted forever. It’s the first of five shifts I expect to encounter in August for the next eight years to come …
It’s fine.
It’s even good.
But it’s also a little sad, if I’m honest. And that’s okay, because I’m also transitioning to the next season God has for me, and He’s promised to be with me wherever I go. (Though this is a good reminder for me to pray more for my kids as they start going wherever they go, too.)
Normally, this is the part of the post where I start wrapping things up. But last night, something happened which helped shift my perspective of what I’d mostly considered to be a season of homesteading failure.
Remember several months back when I shared about how my cow just couldn’t seem to get it together and have a calf? We’d spent the better part of a year (and the better part of a grand) having the vet come out to artificially inseminate our mini jersey month after month. On the seventh (yes, you read that correctly) try, she did finally get pregnant only to lose the calf in her first trimester.
It seemed like such a waste of time and money. Not only had I paid for all the vet visits, but I’d also bought several now-useless items to assist with the cow’s birth — including calcium gel to help prevent eclampsia.
(That’s important.)
Fast forward a year.
Last month our dog, Tetley, gave birth to a litter of nine purebred Golden Retriever puppies (five of which are unspoken for, I may add!). This was not her first litter, and everything seemed to be going fine until we noticed she wasn’t jumping up at the opportunity to lick the dinner plate Jason offered her last night. She seemed weak.
I went ahead and fed her a dinner of kibble in goat’s milk, but after she finished she laid down and didn’t rise. Very un-Tetley like. A quick Google search led us to a series of possible explanations. The diagnosis which appeared to match her symptoms best was eclampsia — which can be life-threatening. We called the vet and were promptly informed that we’d have to pay way more than we were comfortable with just to get her seen, never mind the cost of actual treatment.
Now if Tetley had been acting in distress or was whining a lot, having muscle spasms, panting uncontrollably, or appearing to be unaware of her surroundings, we would have placed her in the car post haste and driven across town to get her emergency care.
But she didn’t seem to be in distress. And because I’d already done research on eclampsia in preparation for our cow’s birth and just “happened” to have the calcium treatment on hand, I made a judgment call to start treating Tetley immediately. I gave her two doses of oral calcium gel and followed those up with a dose of a vitamin cocktail containing potassium because I “happened” to remember that potassium helps the body synthesize calcium. I also prayed A LOT and encouraged our children to do the same.
We kept an eye on Tetley late into the evening with the understanding that if she seemed to be getting worse, I’d drive her to the emergency vet. Thankfully, her condition remained stable.
This morning, my husband woke early and found (and cleaned up, to his credit!) evidence that Tetley had voluntarily gotten up on her own. I’ve never been happier to hear about poop on the carpet.
Furthermore, when I was in the other room preparing the dogs’ breakfast, Tetley trotted up to me of her own accord, ate ravenously like she usually does, and even went outside without any prompting from me. I am so grateful.
Now, I couldn’t have told you last year that the “failed” cow pregnancy experiment would one day have such a silver lining. I just can’t see that far ahead. And I am fully aware that things could have gone the other way with Tetley. But they didn’t.
In addition to being encouraged that God answers prayers even regarding Golden Retrievers, I’m humbled (in a good way) to be reminded that seasons of frustration and failure may prove life-giving in the end. Isn’t that what the Gospel aims for? The redemption of creation?
We’re still keeping a close eye on Tetley, of course and offering her supplemental nutrition to keep her body healthy. We’ll also be offering her pups more goat’s milk so they won’t be making so much demand on their mother’s calcium levels in future. Plus we just “happen” to have another goat ready to start milking this weekend, so we’ll have plenty of fresh supplementation available. And thankfully, we’d already started transitioning the puppies over to wet kibble anyway, so there. I tied this story back to this post’s original premise.
Blessings on you as you transition into a new season. Only 32 days till Fall!!!!!
(And please reach out if you’re interested in a puppy. They’ll be fully weaned by September 20th. *Wink. Wink.)
Happy Fall--I am excited to hear of God's grace in your life.
I love the reminder that God works even in the things we thought were "failures!"