Saturday. Day 256.

The whirring of the green and yellow lawnmower becomes loud, then fades, and repeats over and over again while Baylee attempts to created the best lines, the ones that will look better than Max’s, or so he hopes. Curving so gracefully and in cadence with the shape of the front yard. Long slim letter S after long slim letter S.

Wanda pants nervously and paces in front of the glass front door I just Windexed while she watches her best friend, the one who sleeps next to her at night, and the one who rarely leaves her side, waiting to be needed. She secretly wills the neighbor dogs to dare touch their dirty toes on her property, becoming pre-angry. The others rest lazily in the air-conditioned place they’ve called home for one year, lounging by my feet as I type my narcistic words, waiting for Wanda to let them know if they’re needed. Did you miss that? One year.

So much has happened since we arrived on May 19, 2021, the day four of us traveled twelve hours from our lovely old farmhouse in Massachusetts with three dogs, two cats, a lizard, and sixteen chickens. It sounds comical, yes, but it was everything but. (Click HERE to read about it.)

We attempt to live by the motto Forward ever, backward never, and our beginning here began slowly, with us not quite knowing where we belonged or where we were to be needed. We spent time with Tyler and Deaven and began frantically and hesitantly planning, squeezing our eyes tightly in an attempt to imagine what would come next. We would reach forward with our chipped nails and dig into the future, fighting our urge to close the curtains and also our minds, wanting to curl up sometimes.

We made our house, the perfect, beige palette or blank, white canvas, a home. We built chicken coops with runs under the protective shade of a sweet tree, a vegetable garden with zucchini, tomatoes, mint, and more, had a fence put in so the pups could dig their non-existent heels into the ground and run full-speed, and we learned the area. Our sweet little town is one from story books, novels that people read on the beaches around here during their vacations, complete with an old train station and its own post office, and we’re starting to recognize our neighbors.

There are days when we become overwhelmed, but there’s always one of us who will carry the others, pep-talk and pick up the slack, share funny memes. So, although we’re accomplishing individual feats, we’re continuing on with our family unit and being individuals together, soaking it all in. We truly are each other’s greatest supporters, and although we like to tease and compete, nobody will ever cheer us on as much as the other.

Happy one year to us in this new town, Willard, NC, and cheers once again to our forward ever.