I love eating outside. I have happy childhood memories of sitting down in a wet bathing suit to a meal on a white paper plate, the red plastic holder straining under the weight of potato salad, corn on the cob, and steak. I remember sitting with my brand-new husband on the tiny front deck of our first apartment, writing out thank you cards and watching him grill steaks and baked potatoes. I recollect as if it were yesterday the days when my best friend and I would watch our crew of preschoolers streak through her yard while we spooned macaroni and cheese and peas onto their plates and cold bean and quinoa salads onto ours.
We’ve been here at Floating Axe Farm for two summers now, and many, many meals have been taken outside. But it’s always been a somewhat awkward thing because truly, balancing a plate on your knees is not as easy as one always assumes it will be— especially when active kids, curious chickens, and eager dogs are somehow always in motion.
We have done it anyhow because no one in this family is willing to pass up dinner and a show. And folks, there is always a show around here. Whether its bluebirds teaching their fledgings to fly, chickens discovering an ant mound, a neighboring field having hay cut, or a random Black Hawk helicopter passing over, there’s always something to catch the eye and make the simple act of eating a meal that much more entertaining.
We’ve also done it because we see this space as a gift the Lord has given not just to us, but to our community. Our extended family, who have gathered with us to laugh and eat and swat sweat bees here. Our church family, who have broken bread and drawn nearer to one another here. And to our friends, who have shared food and blessed us with their fellowship here. Has it been a perfect entertaining experience. Nope. Not even close.
But finally, thanks to the work of my husband and two oldest sons, we have an actual table to gather around when we dine al fresco.
Using some freebie plans found on the internet, Christopher, Mathaus, and Jack crafted the perfect large family picnic table. It’s ten feet long, and solid as a rock. Our whole family can assemble on its benches and still have enough room to lift our arms and actually eat. When others join us, at least some people can have places at the table. Others will still get to keep themselves in shape by juggling plates and cups while sitting in lawn chairs.
We placed the new picnic table under the shelter of our smaller pole barn, which provides storage in its beams for the sundry items necessary for running a small farm (fencing materials, anyone?). Its real job, though, is serving as a covered deck of sorts for our family. This is where we sit around in chairs and sip tea and watch fireflies and set up church potlucks and generally enjoy life. Someday we’d like to give it a raised wood floor and make it one of those “outdoor rooms” you see on Pinterest. But for now, just having a picnic table feels like an official move to carving out a real, defined stage for those memories that we are making every day.
It’s not much. It’s just a small overture towards a bigger dream. It’s a single picnic table, for goodness sake. But it’s a welcoming space made more usable, a nod to the fact that life is lived here and now, and not in the perfection we imagine we can achieve in some future that may or may not be in God’s will. It is so easy to see a small start and forget what a gift it is, to just see how it still fails to fill the gaps. I choose to see the blessing in this beautiful picnic table, made with love and joy by three of my favorite craftsmen. I choose to feel overflowing bounty eating my lunch under visible rolls of chicken wire and stacks of tomato cages. I choose joy in a provision I didn’t have just a few weeks ago.