It’s 7am on Friday morning. Doug is reading NT Wright and I’m snuggled up in bed with Annabel (8 mo), a cup of black coffee and a hand-me-down laptop. Both boys, Finn (8 yrs) and Shepherd (6 yrs), sometime in the night dragged their beanbags by our bed and are sleeping soundly still. We have been sharing a home with our friends since November and it all seems so normal now… farming, living, eating, making decisions, raising children together. But as I sit here… my 20 year high school reunion just around the corner… I wonder, who would have ever thought this would be my life? And that, on most days, I would not change it. 🙂

I am Molly Mae, used to be O’Connor, now Wharton. In the fall of 2005, I married the man that had pursued me with great tenacity and consistency for 8 years, and we headed straight to Honduras where I had already accepted a position as the in-country director of a home for children with HIV/AIDS. During the 2 years we were there, we decided not to have children of our own, and just commit to the children of the world that didn’t have a reliable adult in their life. I remember at our going away party, trying to explain this to everyone, feeling very sure of myself… not knowing the whole time that I was pregnant with our first child.

We spent the majority of that pregnancy in Trinidad and Tobago, relaxing at a hotel owned by “Dr. P” and hanging out on a beach with friends called “Ras” and “Jungle”, and then in the Dominican Republic, running a hospitality house for Peace Corps volunteers. I spent the whole pregnancy learning to not fear birth, but to embrace it, which led us to finding a midwife to have a home birth. I remember two very specific life altering revelations in the 3rd trimester… 1. I may die in childbirth and I’m okay with that, and 2. I want to  become a midwife and protect women in pregnancy and child-bearing.

When Finn was about four months old, we moved back to central Ohio. There were many reasons for this, but one was that I was in great need of women in my life to teach me and support me in this thing called motherhood. For a year we lived with gracious friends until we bought a run down old farmhouse on 4 acres an hour outside of Columbus. And for 5 years we called that place on Aspen Rd home. This is where we lived, gave birth to Shepherd, made compost, I became a doula, lactation counselor and midwife apprentice, we raised a puppy, had a garden, raised and harvested our own pigs and chickens, built a treehouse, and found new friends that would become our current community. It was during the time of my midwifery apprenticeship that we started talking about living on the same land with the Lanes. We didn’t know where that would be for sure, but I remember saying to Doug something like… “we know we can’t do it on our own, I think we will end up on Andy’s grandma’s property one day”. This was before we had even seen this beautiful place.

After a series of events, that idea became a plan. At the end of 2014 we met amazing new friends that wanted to buy our farmhouse. In January of 2015 I found out I was pregnant with baby number 3, in February, Doug quit his job and I flew to Idaho for midwifery school  In March, after packing up and moving all of our belongings to Grandma’s farm, Doug and the boys loaded up the Prius and caught up with me in Boise.  And by the end of May my little family was living in a former chicken coop/wood shed across the yard from Grandma’s kitchen window! I finished up my midwifery apprenticeship just in time for Annabel’s birth in September. All the while, Doug had been working full time on the farm with pigs, chickens, turkeys, water, buildings, moving things, cleaning things and just spending quality time with Grandma Patterson.

So our dream, in 2009 when we purchased the old farmhouse on Aspen road… was for me to be a midwife, for Doug to be a farmer, and for us to work from home with our children. We chose this dream (or better said, the dream chose us) because we wanted to tend to the basic needs of life. People are going to keep having babies, and need help doing so. People are going to keep eating, and need help either getting what they want or learning how to do it themselves. And our children are the next generation… caring for a broken world and a land that needs restored.

Sometimes I look around my current basement apartment and think… What are we doing?!? We are almost 40 years old, we don’t actually have an income, we are living in a basement with other people on the 1st and 2nd floor… sometimes the noise, chaos and confusion seem unbearable… and that’s when the doubts will grow. But when I sit in the morning light having coffee with my husband, when I hike in the woods with the boys, when I imagine a midwifery business plan, when the kids and I successfully feed the pigs, when I enjoy dinner with the others in this house as we laugh around the table… I think Yes. And I choose Yes.

It’s almost 9am now. The sun is out, I have written, prayed, nursed Annabel, snuggled Shepherd (who climbed into our bed), had another cup of coffee, finished this blog… The boys are awake, and Doug just shot a wild rabbit in the garden which will no doubt become a part of our Sunday dinner. Today we will spend the day with our friends. We will prepare for and attend the Canal Street farmers market in Newark, Ohio and perhaps see some of the hot air balloons in Coshocton on our way home. It will be a tiring day, but life-giving as well… And I’m happy to spend it here on Hand Hewn Farm.