When we butchered our pig back in November, we kept one of the hams whole, bone-in. It came to 7.5 pounds. “We gotta throw a party to eat this ham,” we said, and kept saying it all winter. We shared pork chops with friends and family, and made some delicious party batches of ham and bean soup, but we never got around to eating the 7.5er. I kept wondering, every time I looked in the chest freezer, when we’d eat that ham. Who would eat it with us?
To my surprise, the real question was where we’d eat it, and I had no idea back in November that we’d bake that ham in a new home, in a new town, in a new part of Washington State, this May. We moved nearly two months ago to a lovely home overlooking a sheep pasture and Sauk Mountain on a 300-acre property called Elysium Farms along the Skagit River. The inspiration for the move was a job for Tim at Glacier Peak Winery, up near Marblemount, a position that’s given him hands-on experience in a vineyard and winery both, a job that I can tell every day makes him so happy--a mix of satisfaction and curiosity and passion that's turning him into a pretty big grape-growing geek. But that one thing, a job, has opened up so many new possibilities to us that I’m amazed, looking back, that I actually dragged my feet about the whole thing at first. This new place has been rich and full for us, and I’ve seen the Lord’s provision everywhere, in everything.
So the other weekend we cooked the ham with family around the table, and that was the end of our Vashon pig. We mourned the pig a bit—and mourned the empty freezer, the end of easy dinners for now—but we haven’t mourned the move. The freezer is empty, ready for the next new thing (not another pig; I need a break). And we are ready, too.
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| our new home |
