By Rachael Jones, Locovore Farm
Hello, Friends!
I’m sure many of you have your own stories from recent storms. Here’s mine.
I had reserved Monday as a catch-up day: deep-clean the floors, tackle the laundry, make those follow-up appointments, work on school plans—all the things that had been waiting. But Monday’s rainy forecast turned brutal. Many of us found ourselves in basements, weathering power outages and damage from fierce winds and tornadoes—eight reportedly confirmed across the Chicagoland area.
When we finally made our way down the farm drive, we noticed an unfamiliar gap between the utility poles running along the tree line that separates our neighbor’s property from our twenty-acre prairie.
Hmmm. Maybe there had never been a pole there. And yet, our mind’s eye insisted something was missing.
We walked the farm. No major limbs were down. The roofs were intact. Only our extremely tall sunflowers appeared to have taken a beating, bent low across the garden pathways.
And then we spotted it.
The electrical service line that winds up the drive, through the forest, and toward the transformer between our two farm stays had been ripped apart. That gap we noticed wasn’t imagined. Winds reaching nearly 100 miles per hour had snapped two utility poles and taken down the service wire.
We were without power.
And that entire run, we learned shortly after purchasing the property, is our responsibility. I’ve written about this before. ComEd, the public utility, abandoned ownership sometime in the 1980s—no contract, agreement, or announcement required. From that point forward, the burden of maintaining it fell to the landowner.
Farmer Jones and I just sank.
This was going to hurt.
We were facing highly specialized work—utility poles, electrical lines, and very few private contractors equipped to handle it. ComEd was already overwhelmed by outages across neighboring communities, and we knew those contractors would be stretched thin, too. The work would be expensive. Insurance was uncertain.
And then there was the calendar: both farm stays booked, a sold-out Thursday gathering, and a sold-out Saturday dinner with Chef Bradyn.
We were standing at the foot of a mountain.
I’ve lived at the foot of mountains so many times in my life—and in absolutely every season, heck, every week—of Locavore. It’s a familiar look up. A familiar reminder of complete dependence. A familiar call to surrender.
It means weighing worst-case scenarios while pleading for mercy, surrendering to the truth that ultimately all will be well, and then watching for His Providence. In all the spaces in between, I may be shaking like a leaf, but I hold to Great Faithfulness, to Promises, and to the reality that there is Grace more than sufficient within the Storm—and a Hand that is with us, present—so all can be well.
Chris and I lay on the couch and rested after we made calls to contractors, sent texts, updated a few inquiring guests regarding their reservations, and reached out to our inner circle for prayer.
We rested.
What? Yeah.
Together with a cat and a puppy, we enjoyed the silence—beneath the hum of the generators—and waited in peace.
And there, in the resting and the waiting, what we could not yet see was already being worked out for our good: The fact that the downed utility poles were our responsibility meant we could rely on a private company working from its own schedule. Knowing that our livestock and livelihood were at stake, they prioritized us. We had just enough financially to begin the repairs and a kind, generous business owner willing to be patient with us, too.
The power was back by Wednesday, with two strong new poles and tighter wire tension leaving us in better condition than before the storm. We opened Thursday. Welcomed guests Friday. And on Saturday, with the rain still falling, we hosted a fabulous dinner in the barn – every light on – with Chef Bradyn and the Catalpa crew.
Watching our guests connect with the farm, appreciate the spaces we nurture, and be nourished by food and fellowship reminded us that this adventure is supported by arms ready to save us and lead us through.
Trust me, I still stand at the base of many mountains: circumstances, trials, relationships, health, and more. There is not always an immediate remedy like there was for our utility pole and power predicament. In fact, I may not be meant to pass over a few of them. I may be guided around them, or they may be revealed as more a part of the landscape than an obstacle.
For all of us, mountains don’t have the final word, and we don’t need to live in their shadows. They are placed along the way as an opportunity for us to look up.
And we share these stories because gratitude should not remain quiet. We tell them not to boast in our own strength, but to make our boast in the Lord—to invite others to see His faithfulness and magnify His name with us:
“My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.”
Psalm 34:2–3