October is my favorite month, and this year especially, the mornings feel so fresh! I step out into the new light, let the birds out for the day, feed the goats, and let the autumn breezes wake me.

There is nothing better on an October morning than hot coffee and the sound of crows calling up in the trees. We have so many crows in October and November – they cluster together at the tops of the tall pines, and on the roadside.

This week the wind is blowing in real, autumnal weather. I have plans to take the kids picnic-ing at out local cemetery, as well as walking down to visit the beavers. Much of our focus this week though, will be on trying to recapture our order. We’re still finishing up the big-yurt-overhall. It’s been back up and together for a few weeks now, but it’s far from finished for winter! We have a beautiful new door, a lovely, colorful ceiling, and less clutter, but we’re still unsettled. We have shelving to build and the tub to bring in, we have wood to split and stack, and of course, we have schoolwork to do and animals to tend. It all adds up, with Seth’s art and my writing, to an abundance of work!

And I am awful at focus, so this week, I’ll be practicing my ‘daily rule’ again with intensity.

Morning and evening routines are the most essential. I feel as if I can muscle my way through a rough day if it’s begun well, and if I know the evening is waiting for me. If I can fill my morning with journaling, coffee, and quite moments outside; and my evening with writing, books, and a cozy chat with my husband – I know I can bring order back to the house!

This morning I’m also thinking of things beyond my little home.  I hear again and again that my generation is selfish, incapable, excessively consuming, ‘special snowflakes’.. and then I look around and see my generation reclaiming old ways of living, making-do with less, building homes intentionally free of material and technological clutter, and working toward something wholesome and loving in our relationships to others. It’s a tough time to be settling down and raising children. I had our little radio off much of the week, to keep the updates from Las Vegas from creeping into my children’s ears.  There is a reason this off-grid life is attractive to so many, most of whom will probably never pursue it.

In the world today, with so many people bitter at my generation for ‘killing the paper napkin industry’ or the diamond industry, or the 40 work week, or any other unnecessary conventionality, we some times forget what we’re building: free-form small businesses, a renewal of artisan-crafts, authentic beauty in the home, intentional relationships, and we’re building them amid the rubble of a nation so angry and divided that it is devouring its own.

My birches are swaying in the breeze. Their leaves are gold and green as they’re just beginning to turn. My children love their trees, their sky, their rocks and ferns. They feel so safe here. I feel safe here. I’m blessed that amid the rubble, members of my generation are building little hermitages of beauty, of intentionality, and of hospitality. Thousands of little abbas and ammas, learning again what is worth saving and what – like the paper napkin industry – can easily pass away.

#worthrevisit · Linking up with Reconciled to you.