When Joe returned to the family farm in the summer of 2019, he planned to move into the old granary building that he and his brother had begun renovating several years before.
We had been dating for 6 months. I remember sharing with my mom my excitement for Joe's plan, gushing about his manliness, adventurous attitude, and countless handyman skills. She simply looked at me with a smile that held some sort of prophetic motherly instinct, and said, "Mm-hm, I bet he's planning for y'all to live there when you get married."
We were engaged less than a month later.
And sure enough, in weighing our options for the future, we realized we both were deeply drawn toward settling in Minnesota, farming together, and calling the granary home. What motivated this desire? Was it the Holy Spirit? Or maybe stubbornness? Stupidity? Being in-love? Being poor? A mutual childhood idolization of "Little House on the Prairie" and “Farmer Boy”? A combination of all these things?
Probably so.
Call it what you will, once we set on the idea, we never looked back. And both of our families supportively (though perhaps somewhat dubiously) grinned their approval….
As the summer wore on, Joe spent his free time making the structure more and more livable. When he wasn't busy on the farm or working long hours landscaping, he would update me on his progress with granary-improvement and whenever I visited, I got to join in the fun.
There were so many little victories – putting in the old staircase that had been stored in the machine shed for years, and grinning when it didn’t collapse under our weight; installing windows; adding countertops that his cousin donated; clearing out old furniture, farm equipment, dead birds, kids’ toys, wasp nests, and ancient oats that had been resting undisturbed in crevices for decades; installing light fixtures; wiring the place with enough electricity to keep his lamps, fans and speaker going without shorting something out; not falling to our deaths when we put new tin on the steeply slanted roof with a somewhat unprofessional technique...
To Joe, task-oriented, realistic, and patient, these were just small steps on a long list of updates needed before our marriage, while to me these milestones were more thrilling and glamorous than even the wildest episodes of “Extreme Makeover; Home Edition.” And somehow, despite the intense humidity, the uninvited gnats, and a lack of plumbing and AC, Joe was able to move in by fall.
Fall quickly vanished beneath a layer of snow. Joe installed a wood-burning stove and began insulating the ceiling. The insulation process took time, and the cold air came in aggressively beneath the raised floor. The chimney vent for his wood stove froze over and smoked him out a couple times. But with about 27 blankets on his bed and a continual fire burning, he managed to not freeze to death at night and only lost a few fingers and toes to frostbite (OK, perhaps some small exaggerations there, but you get the point ;).
Thanks to his brothers pitching in for hours of help, the upstairs was insulated, the ceiling sheet- rocked, and more windows installed. A generous snowfall caused drifts to build up around the base which keeps the floor much warmer for the time being. Now even on cold nights, it will stay between 60-70 degrees with a consistent fire going.
Though there is much more to be done, we wouldn’t trade the adventure for anything. In graces, blessings, and moments of growth, the end goal could never outweigh the journey it's taking to get there.
This granary has taught us a lot about each other. Even more so, it has brought family together and reminded us how loved we are by those around us. We've received such an outpouring of support and community: cousins stopping in to see the progress, grandmothers prayerfully asking guardian angels to keep us from falling off the roof, my parents giggling about how they first envisioned our future home as tiny cylindrical grain-bin, sisters and cousins offering tasteful interior décor wisdom that would put Joanna Gaines to shame, relatives donating furniture, and making countless trips to Menards and Ace, helping with carpentry, sheetrock, and laborious clean-ups, and even generously starting the fire in the stove to warm the house for Joe before he gets back from a long day of snowplowing...the list goes on and on.
We know this is what marriage and family life is all about, regardless of whether or not the light switches all work or the door lets the breeze or the sheetrock has a few lumps in it. And as we work to make the granary into a true home for our family to start out in, we are reminded that “there is no permanent city for us here; we are looking for the one which is yet to be.” (Hebrews 13:14) and that “unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build.” (Psalm 127:1)
Here we will continue to share updates of the honest, humorous, and exciting stories of our granary adventure, in hopes that you receive joy and encouragement as you join us on this journey!