Christine Marie Bailey - The Kindred Life: Stories and Recipes to Cultivate a Life of Organic Connection

The Kindred Life

Copyright 2022 by Christine Bailey

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Published in association with literary agent Jenni Burke of Illuminate Literary Agency, www.illluminateliterary.com.

Unless otherwise noted below, photos are courtesy of the authors personal archives.

The photos on the following pages are copyright Sarah B. Gilliam: 12, 22, 54, 66, 80, 100, 103, 105, 12021, 162, 186, 18889, 192, 204, 210, 220, 222, 224, 228.

The photos on the following pages are copyright Jeremy Cowart: 13435, 202, 230.

Any internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Harper Horizon, nor does Harper Horizon vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked tpt are taken from The Passion Translation. Copyright 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

This is a work of nonfiction. The events and experiences detailed herein are all true and have been faithfully rendered as remembered by the author, to the best of her ability. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Epub Edition February 2022 9780785241102

ISBN 978-0-7852-4110-2 (eBook)

ISBN 978-0-7852-4109-6 (HC)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944114

Printed in South Korea

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To Jesus, my Rescuer, Friend, Comforter, and Guide.

You have saved me,
spoken love over me,
given me a voice,
walked beside me,
fought my battles,
and wooed me with beauty,
every single day of my life.
In the end, its you and me.

The world will tell you how

to live, if you let it.

Dont let it.

Take up your space.

Raise your voice.

Sing your song.

This is your chance to

make or remake a

life that thrills you.

SHAUNA NIEQUIST,
PRESENT OVER PERFECT

THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT

Voice

We all have a song inside thats waiting to be sung. Our voices may be gritty and imperfect at first, but its time to start singing.

• What does bravery mean to you?
• Name a time when you felt the most you youve ever been. Write a few thoughts about when and where you were and how it felt.
• While reading this chapter, what inner song began to come to the surface? Pay attention to that now and make note of what youre sensing.
• What does your unique voice sound and look like?
• What are you proud of in yourself? What do you like about the life youre living?
• What are some things youd like to change?

It turns out that playing it safe,

at least in matters of the heart, is

the most dangerous

thing you can do.

By that route, you become a butterfly pinned

to the wall, with wonderful colors and all

kinds of potential but going nowhere.

Your wings are clipped. To really fly you must

claim the courage to

live out of your real self,

the one God called you into being.

PAULA RINEHART,
STRONG WOMEN, SOFT HEARTS

H ave you ever heard a mockingbird singing in the middle of the night? One evening, tucked under my white comforter in our cozy 1940s farmhouse, I did. It stirred my husband, Steven, and me as we were drifting away in that drowsy state of almost-but-not-quite asleep.

Thats one confused mockingbird, he mumbled, while I lay there alert, in wonder. For the next thirty minutes, its solo song delightfully haunted me. During the day on our land in Tennessee, birdsong is usually accompanied by many other sounds: hums of mowers and cars whizzing down the country road at fifty miles per hour, our little girls voices and giggles, our cats meows, dramatic chicken cacklesall the banging and clanging of daily farm life.

As the state bird of Tennessee, mockingbirds are common here. They serenade us from the treetops above the produce field and from the barn roof apex. They dive-bomb us when we pass too closely to their nests. But a single mockingbird singing an ever-changing song in the middle of the night outside our bedroom window? This was a first. It had me pondering. Did it not know it was nighttime? Did it realize it was the only one singing? Did it even care?

***

We moved to our land in Tennessee in December 2016, the dead of winter. It had been a farm in World War II times, but no remnant of anything fruitful remained except for a totally endearing yet scraggly apple tree enjoyed primarily by squirrels. We settled into the restored olive-green farmhouse on seventeen acres of possibility and started drawing out plans for our dreams: to beautify the land, to make it a home for us and for animals, to grow organic food for us and the community, and to gather people around the table at farm dinners filled with abundance.

We broke ground on the first day of spring 2017, and before that, Id never farmed a day in my life. Steven and I had dreamed of having our own farm one day, but when it became a reality, I resisted it wholeheartedly at first, fearing the potential isolation of living in the country and not knowing if I was cut out for the taxing manual labor of birthing a farm.

Grit was practically a foreign word to me. I didnt like pushing through hard things, and my first instinct was to quit when situations got too tough, messy, or uncomfortable. Heck, I didnt even like being dirty, and I really, really liked wearing makeup.

But only three months after that groundbreaking day, Id worn some serious creases into my leather farm boots, and my palms had not one but two rows of calluses. Wed transformed a huge open field full of three-foot-tall weeds into a lush organic garden: a half acre of every shade of green, vines heavy with cucumbers snaking the ground, armfuls of magenta radishes and crimson beets, mini forests of kale and rainbow chard. People were buying our stuff at farmers markets. The meadows where the piglets roamed were regrowing a deep emerald green.