A Little Kindness Goes A Long Way

When we bought our property it was merely two undeveloped acres of pasture, beautiful pasture with an amazing view. Now three and a half years later a lot has changed. Through the process of adding a driveway, drilling wells (yes, plural, but that's a whole other story), building a house, adding fences, remaking pasture space, and s-l-o-w-l-y landscaping I've always been a bit curious as to what the neighbors are thinking. Did we ruin perfectly good pasture? Are they disgruntled another house is here? Do they like what we're doing? I'm sure it's not uncommon to be curious about this kind of thing. Especially when months at a time would go by when, from the road, it didn't look like any progress was being made and weeds were threatening to take over everything.

Which is why it was so refreshing to find a letter taped to our mailbox a couple of weeks ago.

A woman named Cecilia whom we've never met, but apparently lives around the corner from us and drives on our road daily, took the time to write the sweetest card. She said, "It is a joy to see your calfs (I call them Beef), sheep, and chickens. You take such good care of them."

The note was very kind and a really pleasant way to find out that people are happy we are here. It also made me really think about how a simple act, like writing a note, can go such a long way to make others feel good.

I've been reading a lot of news lately, thank you middle of the night nursing sessions, and man, are there a lot of sad things going on in the world right now. I can't help but think that if we were all a bit more like Cecilia and took the time to share some kindness the world might be just a little bit nicer.