To celebrate our one year anniversary, Wade and I travelled to Ireland where we camped and journeyed across the vast and beautiful countryside. We were inspired by the natural wonder of the place and the lifestyle of Irish farmers. The trip planted the seeds of a dream to own and operate a farm that would allow us to live simple lives connected to the land.

For a dozen years, the dream remained, but little progress was made towards its conception. Two children joined the pursuit and with their crazy parents travelled across the United States seeking the place to call home. We found options throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina. Yet nothing felt right, or when offers were placed on properties, something fell through.

Eventually, the dream became the epitome of hyperbolic hope - little more that the thing about which the family talked and planned as the years passed. Friends and family listened to our endless chatter about "the farm" with the quiet attention of duty, recognizing the brittle impossibility of our ambitions. We doubted our own trajectory would lead us to our goals. At some point during these years, Wade discovered an old Croatian folk-saying: Kad na vrbi rodi grozde (When the willow bears grapes). This idiom, like "when pigs fly", encapsulated our chances of success, but we adopted it nonetheless: We'll get the farm when willows bear grapes.

In the fall of 2019, a property in the North East Kingdom of Vermont became available along with several other viable options in the Northeast Region which had previously been neglected because of its short growing season and bitter winters. An old farmhouse set amidst over fifty acres of mixed woods in the Connecticut River Valley felt familiar at first sight. The crooked floorboards and slanting walls seemed to be held together with love and stobbornness. The children claimed rooms, and I set my heart to make this "the farm". We put in an offer and were declined.

Crestfallen, the family travelled to yet another farm for sale, this time in Southern Ohio. Wade rallied the team, but we all agreed, it was back to the drawing board yet again. That winter, without so much of a whisper, Wade purchased the beloved farm in Vermont and revealed his secret as the most epic Christmas present to his family. In March 2020, (the literal day the state shut down for COVID-19), the family closed on the property we now call home. We named it WillowGrape as a testament to the resiliency of dreams, the power of tenacity, and the pure bliss of unexpected success - we found a pig that flies, a willow that bears grapes.