This Side of Yesterday

Out of the shack came the man, a hermit, who had been the resident of the dwelling for over 20 years. He introduced himself as Will Honeycutt. Will had once been a sharecropper for the farm at the base of the mountain, having lived for years in one of the sharecropper’s homes on that farm. When his wife died, he approached the owners of the mountain top and asked if he could move into the shack and, in turn, watch over the property. At that time the pastures had been leased out for cattle. I know I heard the story correctly that some of the cows lived in the shack before Will arrived. He simply chased them out and moved right in himself. Dave had a strong conviction this mountaintop is where God wanted us to build New Direction Farm. After walking the property and meeting the hermit, he came back to middle class America to pick me up, so, very excited to take me up to the mountain to show me where we would be starting the farm. Important to know: #1 I was deathly afraid of steep roads having slid backwards down an icy street during our days in WV. This was not merely a steep hill leading up to the farm. This was a narrow mountain road with no guard rails. A “feels like you can fall off the side of the cliff” mountain road that led up to the entrance of the farm. #2: I enjoy having neighbors. Lights on at night in other homes bring me a sense of communal comfort and safety. It took only a few minutes of being on that mountain top farm to know that, indeed, this was where God would have us to move. A very strong KNOWING. No neighbors, total darkness at night, a mountain man with no teeth, weeds as tall as fences and only remnants of old dwellings. I was emotionally ill regarding this new chapter of our pilgrim journey. For days I was nauseated, barely able to utter a word to my husband. The question arose about what should be done with Will the hermit? Would we allow him to stay or send him packing? We tussled through this. It troubled us this had been his only home for 20 years. Would it be right to evict him? After all, Jesus is clear in His instructions regarding taking care of those in need. So we hired Will to be the caretaker of the property. As he began to have more purpose and meaning in his life and earn an honest paycheck, we began seeing him come to life. Sometimes he would wait on his porch until the sun would rise just so he could begin a day of work. Again, God in His providence, had this man waiting for us to arrive on the mountain so we city folks could be taught how to survive on the top of that mountain. Little did we know our first winter would be one with 13 snowstorms. We had no clue what this new life would be like. A very good thing. Had we known the difficulties we would face we would have quickly aborted the plan. There were certain pertinent pieces of history that had been kept from us and revealed long after our purchase of the farm. Had we known these details the coffin would have been quickly sealed. A few months prior to our finding the property a man had been duct taped to a tree, naked, and left to die. The tree was right at the entrance to our farm. Just the mere thought of such evil at the entrance of the premises would have been a “no trespassing” warning for us. Will Honeycutt happened to be the one to cut the man out of the duct tape and mend him back to health. Secondly, we believed it to be true that Will’s major cash crop was tomatoes. He was a master tomato grower who had won awards from A and P grocery stores back in the day. Folks would come from miles around to buy his beautiful tomatoes. Later we found there was another class of customers who had a beaten path to his doorway to purchase marijuana for which Will was famed for being a master grower. Apparently, the Holy Spirit came like a mighty rushing wind blowing over that property and uprooting the evil as we claimed it for the work of the Kingdom. Initially upon moving onto the property we wondered why fancy helicopters kept regularly hovering over the property. We were informed these had THC monitors.