We don’t have land yet.
Not because the vision isn’t clear, and not because the desire isn’t strong, but because circumstances haven’t aligned in a way that makes ownership possible right now. Legal uncertainty, financial constraint, and the simple fact that we don’t know where we’ll be allowed to put down roots have all made long-term decisions feel provisional.
And yet, the calling hasn’t gone away.
If anything, it’s become more specific.
What I’ve been learning is that stewardship doesn’t begin with ownership. It begins with attention. With care. With the decision to start where you are instead of waiting for permission to begin.
So we’re starting with soil.
Not acres. Not livestock. Not a food forest. Just soil—in a backyard, in containers, in small beds that don’t pretend to be more than they are.
At first, this felt almost embarrassing. There’s a temptation to think that anything short of the full vision doesn’t count. That until you have land, infrastructure, and scale, you’re just playing at the edges.
I don’t believe that anymore.
One of the first things I ran into when trying to grow food this way was how difficult it is to actually start from seed.
Most fruit sold in grocery stores won’t produce viable seeds. Many are irradiated or treated in ways that prevent germination. Even when seeds do exist, they’re often hybrids designed for uniformity, shipping durability, or shelf life—not for reproduction.
The same is true with trees. Nearly everything available through nurseries is grafted. That’s not inherently bad—it’s efficient, predictable, and commercially practical—but it bypasses the long process of growing something from its beginning. From uncertainty. From variation.
I found myself wanting to start earlier than that. Earlier than grafts. Earlier than convenience. I wanted to understand what it means to grow something slowly, imperfectly, and honestly—without shortcuts that hide the cost.
That desire revealed something uncomfortable: how far removed most of us are from the systems that sustain us.
Food appears fully formed, wrapped in plastic, disconnected from seasons, soil health, and time. Seeds are commodities. Growth is optimized. Failure is hidden. The entire system is designed to make us forget how fragile life actually is.
Starting with soil makes that impossible.
Soil doesn’t care about your timeline. It responds to consistency, not urgency. You can’t negotiate with it. You can only learn to work with it—or watch things fail.
Working this way, in a backyard that was never meant to support abundance, has been instructive.
Some things grow. Some don’t. Some seeds germinate quickly and then stall. Others surprise you by pushing through despite conditions that seem inadequate. Every small success carries a lesson. Every failure does too.
I’m learning how little control I actually have.
That’s not discouraging. It’s grounding.
When I’m planting, tending, or simply paying attention to what’s happening in the soil, I feel closer to God than I do in most other places. Not because I’m accomplishing something impressive, but because the work strips away illusions of self-sufficiency. Growth happens, or it doesn’t. Life responds, or it doesn’t. And none of it bends to my will.
It’s a reminder that creation is not a machine to be optimized, but something designed to be stewarded. There’s a rhythm to it—work, rest, waiting—that can’t be rushed without consequence.
That posture has been forming me.
In many ways, this feels like rehearsal—not for a future farm, but for the kind of faithfulness required to steward anything responsibly. You don’t suddenly become patient when you acquire land. You practice patience long before you’re trusted with more.
There’s also something clarifying about starting small when the future is uncertain.
When you don’t know where you’ll live, how much time you have, or what constraints may appear next, it forces you to strip the work down to its essentials. What actually matters? What can’t be outsourced? What kind of attention is required even when the outcome isn’t guaranteed?
For me, this season has made one thing clear: obedience isn’t conditional on clarity.
My wife and I felt called to this work independently, without coordinating our thoughts, drawn toward the same vision. That hasn’t changed just because the path forward is slower or less visible than we hoped.
Sometimes only the next step is lit.
Right now, that step looks like soil in containers. Learning. Paying attention. Planting seeds that may never reach maturity where they’re planted. And trusting that none of it is wasted.
This work won’t scale yet. It won’t feed a community. It won’t sustain a business. It may not even look impressive to anyone watching.
That’s fine.
What it’s doing is forming habits—of care, patience, restraint, and humility—that will matter far more when the stakes are higher. When animals depend on the system. When people depend on the food. When mistakes have consequences that can’t be shrugged off.
Starting with soil, without land, has taught me that preparation often looks like obedience in small, unremarkable places.
And that faith is sometimes built the same way—quietly, slowly, with your hands in the dirt, trusting that growth will come in its time.
That’s enough for now.