The Road To Magnalia
Snapshots of a Homesteader’s LifeSnapshots
The Sheep Barn Hosts Some Kids
Jan 13, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
In the cold Homestead Sheep Barn tonight... are three kids birthed by our prolific dwarf Nigerian goat that we named, with admiration, "The Momma."...
The Feast Of St. Nicholas Is A Feast of Gratitude
Jan 6, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
A week ago we marked the waning days of Christmastide with our annual Feast of St. Nicholas, which specially celebrates children who've been...
A New Year Dawning: Further Up and Further In!
Jan 1, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Dear Family and Friends, How grateful we are to step into a New Year knowing that the Lord is good, even in hardship and suffering, and sovereign...
Narnian Magic In The Making
Dec 31, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Narnia Cottage is just weeks from opening for guests like you! ❤️ 🙏 Reepicheep arrived just yesterday, thanks to the felt artistry of Joel...
Christmas Greetings From The Homestead
Dec 25, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to all of you who've warmed this humble place with life, and light, and love. Merry Christmastide (it's a season, not a day!), and God's...
The Homestead Four
Dec 17, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Almost as hard as getting 11 kids or 14 grandkids to smile and keep their eyes open at the same time is this group. It’s The Homestead Four:...
5th Annual Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction
Dec 14, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
5th Annual Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction Is Live! If you're looking for some unique gifts (and gift experiences!) for some special someone,...
Magnalia Harvest Festival on 10/26 for NC Mountains Relief
Oct 18, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Magnalia's Annual Harvest Festival is a celebration of community, and the goodness of God in the glories of Autumn. It marks the traditional...
Work Hard, Play Hard, Rest Well!
Sep 25, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
#ShoutoutSeptember must include a post about our work interns! In young Caleb Vogel's third summer of work here at Magnalia Farm, we wanted him to...
Village Blacksmith Brings History to Life, With Love
Sep 25, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Our Village Blacksmith, Scott Smith, stewards an age-old tradition (as his last name suggests his forebears once did). Pounding and bending and...
On the Making of Hesed Hitching Post
Sep 25, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Among our growing number of students who have come to work and learn this summer is a lad from Washington DC named Titus. His earnestness and...
Magnalia’s Community Garden Marks Special Milestones
Sep 13, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to our Master Gardener Dorothy Clement and her very able apprentices, Laurel and Izzy Bird, and a host of volunteers from Mount Jubilee...
The Feast Of St. Nicholas Is A Feast of Gratitude
Jan 6, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
A week ago we marked the waning days of Christmastide with our annual Feast of St. Nicholas, which specially celebrates children who've been...
Christmas Greetings From The Homestead
Dec 25, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to all of you who've warmed this humble place with life, and light, and love. Merry Christmastide (it's a season, not a day!), and God's...
5th Annual Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction
Dec 14, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
5th Annual Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction Is Live! If you're looking for some unique gifts (and gift experiences!) for some special someone,...
Magnalia Harvest Festival on 10/26 for NC Mountains Relief
Oct 18, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Magnalia's Annual Harvest Festival is a celebration of community, and the goodness of God in the glories of Autumn. It marks the traditional...
Magnalia’s Community Garden Marks Special Milestones
Sep 13, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to our Master Gardener Dorothy Clement and her very able apprentices, Laurel and Izzy Bird, and a host of volunteers from Mount Jubilee...
Pickleball Tournament
Sep 2, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Pickleball has taken America (and the world) by storm. Invented in the Northwest, it is is a racket sport in which two players or four players use a...
An Independence Day Celebration with the Team Magnalia
Jul 6, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Our hearts are full to overflowing with gratitude to all the "Team Magnalia" helpers who made this our grandest Independence Day celebration...
An Independence Day Eve to Remember
May 31, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
As every patriot (young and old) remembers, and as Memorial Day reminds us: FREEDOM IS NOT FREE! So mark your calendars to celebrate that truth with...
A Maundy Thursday Rainbow
Mar 28, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Rachel met with a friend about a month ago who encouraged her to pray for God's protection, for His provision, and for His multiplication of worthy...
About Daddy-Daughter Date Night
Feb 14, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
We're still in the afterglow of the first annual Daddy-Daughter Date Night here at the Homestead. It was a priceless celebration of the unique kind...
Celebrating Love in Grand Style
Feb 9, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
The Feast of Saint Valentine at the Homestead was a grand celebration of "all love's martyrdoms" for 16 couples in the context of a memorable,...
On Courage and Faith
Jan 31, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
As a new week in a New Year dawns may we all have courage and faith, like our three-year-old grandson John-Henry Pierson Van Eerden, who decided to...
Work Hard, Play Hard, Rest Well!
Sep 25, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
#ShoutoutSeptember must include a post about our work interns! In young Caleb Vogel's third summer of work here at Magnalia Farm, we wanted him to...
Village Blacksmith Brings History to Life, With Love
Sep 25, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Our Village Blacksmith, Scott Smith, stewards an age-old tradition (as his last name suggests his forebears once did). Pounding and bending and...
Cold-Plunging at The Homestead
Jul 11, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Peter Van Eerden, fresh from USMC Basic School, became the first to hit the ice-filled water of the Homestead's new cold plunge tank. Teddy...
Artifacts Matter!
Jun 14, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Artifacts are little things that remind us of grander things, visible elements connected by a thread to elements invisible. But sometimes they're...
Community Gardeners
May 7, 2024 | PEOPLE, PLANTS & ANIMALS
Oh, how full of gratitude we are for the work of the "Heroes" and staff at Mount Jubilee Ministries for joining in with us to plant the 2024 Spring...
Homestead’s Paddington Bear
Jan 31, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
With my excess holiday chub and my knee-high yellow farm boots, my family is calling me the Homestead's very own Paddington Bear. (But they're...
On Creating Community, Together
Jan 8, 2024 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
A beacon is regarded by many people as a symbol. But it’s more. If it does its job, it’s also functional in the way it warns and welcomes travelers....
A Gift of a Guest Journal
Dec 29, 2023 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Our daughter Elizabeth has blessed us by helping to coordinate guest logistics at Magnalia. What a joy it has been to host people from near and far,...
On the Power of Story
Sep 29, 2023 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
In working to create a community at Magnalia that is a "Beacon of Hope," we’re trying to be intentional in creating spaces that prompt people to...
A Holy Hush
Aug 30, 2023 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Sometimes a holy hush is just what we need at the end of a week of bustle, to put us in a Sabbath state of mind. But the Lord is in His holy temple....
A Framed Letter from Maj. Gen. Purdy
Jul 19, 2023 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Maj. Curan Clonch and Kristen Nance Clonch just delivered to Semper Fi Hall a framed letter from Maj. Gen. Purdy, US Space Force Commander, and an...
Not an Ordinary Cup of Tea
Jun 15, 2023 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Epic Annie Talton from Alabama leaves the Homestead today for DC after a great run of weeks working in Magnalia's OnePull Community Garden under the...
A New Year Dawning: Further Up and Further In!
Jan 1, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Dear Family and Friends, How grateful we are to step into a New Year knowing that the Lord is good, even in hardship and suffering, and sovereign...
Narnian Magic In The Making
Dec 31, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Narnia Cottage is just weeks from opening for guests like you! ❤️ 🙏 Reepicheep arrived just yesterday, thanks to the felt artistry of Joel...
On the Making of Hesed Hitching Post
Sep 25, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Among our growing number of students who have come to work and learn this summer is a lad from Washington DC named Titus. His earnestness and...
A New Place, Called Ebenezer Creek
Jul 21, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
In between Magnalia’s 22-box community garden and the grounds of Narnia Cottage, there’s a (usually) dry creek. It’s comprised of river rock,...
On the Road to Narnia
Mar 27, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
The slab for Narnia Guest House was poured TODAY, in God's providence, as we endeavor to create another place of shalom that is inspired by the home...
Magnalia’s Walden Pond
Jan 11, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Here's the view on a crisp winter day over Magnalia's Walden Pond. One couple visiting had the idea and matched us to bring it to life....
On Creating Community, Together
Jan 8, 2024 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
A beacon is regarded by many people as a symbol. But it’s more. If it does its job, it’s also functional in the way it warns and welcomes travelers....
Setting a Table, For a Better World?
Oct 14, 2023 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
People are made in the image of a trinitarian God and we are, therefore, designed to be in relationships. We become incomplete when we're in a state...
A Framed Letter from Maj. Gen. Purdy
Jul 19, 2023 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Maj. Curan Clonch and Kristen Nance Clonch just delivered to Semper Fi Hall a framed letter from Maj. Gen. Purdy, US Space Force Commander, and an...
Not an Ordinary Cup of Tea
Jun 15, 2023 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Epic Annie Talton from Alabama leaves the Homestead today for DC after a great run of weeks working in Magnalia's OnePull Community Garden under the...
A Place in Time
May 15, 2023 | PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Sometimes when we travel we get to visit a Place that inspires us. A Place that gives us a vision of things Beautiful, Good and True. A Place...
Easter Sign Glory
Apr 4, 2023 | PLACES, PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Signs of Easter are everywhere! Resurrection glory: things dying to bring new life. The Dutch tulips were my favorite sight here, until we realized...
The Sheep Barn Hosts Some Kids
Jan 13, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
In the cold Homestead Sheep Barn tonight... are three kids birthed by our prolific dwarf Nigerian goat that we named, with admiration, "The Momma."...
The Homestead Four
Dec 17, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Almost as hard as getting 11 kids or 14 grandkids to smile and keep their eyes open at the same time is this group. It’s The Homestead Four:...
An Angus Calf Arrives, and There’s a Problem!
Sep 6, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to our herd guru, seasoned farmer Rodney Hardy, Magnalia’s herd is growing! Our black Angus cow named Scottie or Scheffler (named after the...
Chopping Your Own Wood Will Warm You Twice
Aug 17, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Many thanks to Paul Van Eerden, Jack Hobson, Joshua Van Eerden, Joel Germeroth, Peter Van Eerden, Caleb Vogel, Joel Bowman, Edison Van Eerden and...
Community Gardeners
May 7, 2024 | PEOPLE, PLANTS & ANIMALS
Oh, how full of gratitude we are for the work of the "Heroes" and staff at Mount Jubilee Ministries for joining in with us to plant the 2024 Spring...
Strutting like a Peacock
Mar 23, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
We’re so glad that our neighbor has a peacock, and we’re so glad that her peacock likes to strut through the Homestead lawns! These creatures are a...
Cuddling in the Cold
Jan 31, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
One of the (few) things we like about the co-ooold is the nightly Snuggle Fests with the sheep in the barn. They almost all want to cuddle. And...
Holy Cow!
Oct 6, 2023 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
That’s an expression I heard often from generations before me. We’ve been using it around here of late, in jest, because the Homestead now has a...
On Listening to Cato
Sep 15, 2023 | CAT, PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Cato, the Roman legend who inspired our founding fathers in the quest toward liberty, wrote a famous treatise on farming and agriculture for his...
Easter Sign Glory
Apr 4, 2023 | PLACES, PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Signs of Easter are everywhere! Resurrection glory: things dying to bring new life. The Dutch tulips were my favorite sight here, until we realized...
A Festival of Firsts
Feb 27, 2023 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
So this just happened at Magnalia Farm today: our first ewe lamb, and our first calf (endowed with a bull's paraphernalia), were born within hours...
The Magnalia Mark
Feb 16, 2023 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Magnalia's logo is a silhouette of a recurring moment with our playful black Labrador retriever named Bella June. She's ever the loyal companion for...
The Sheep Barn Hosts Some Kids
Jan 13, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
In the cold Homestead Sheep Barn tonight... are three kids birthed by our prolific dwarf Nigerian goat that we named, with admiration, "The Momma."...
The Feast Of St. Nicholas Is A Feast of Gratitude
Jan 6, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
A week ago we marked the waning days of Christmastide with our annual Feast of St. Nicholas, which specially celebrates children who've been...
A New Year Dawning: Further Up and Further In!
Jan 1, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Dear Family and Friends, How grateful we are to step into a New Year knowing that the Lord is good, even in hardship and suffering, and sovereign...
Narnian Magic In The Making
Dec 31, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Narnia Cottage is just weeks from opening for guests like you! ❤️ 🙏 Reepicheep arrived just yesterday, thanks to the felt artistry of Joel...
Christmas Greetings From The Homestead
Dec 25, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to all of you who've warmed this humble place with life, and light, and love. Merry Christmastide (it's a season, not a day!), and God's...
The Homestead Four
Dec 17, 2024 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Almost as hard as getting 11 kids or 14 grandkids to smile and keep their eyes open at the same time is this group. It’s The Homestead Four:...
5th Annual Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction
Dec 14, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
5th Annual Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction Is Live! If you're looking for some unique gifts (and gift experiences!) for some special someone,...
Magnalia Harvest Festival on 10/26 for NC Mountains Relief
Oct 18, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Magnalia's Annual Harvest Festival is a celebration of community, and the goodness of God in the glories of Autumn. It marks the traditional...
Work Hard, Play Hard, Rest Well!
Sep 25, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
#ShoutoutSeptember must include a post about our work interns! In young Caleb Vogel's third summer of work here at Magnalia Farm, we wanted him to...
Village Blacksmith Brings History to Life, With Love
Sep 25, 2024 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Our Village Blacksmith, Scott Smith, stewards an age-old tradition (as his last name suggests his forebears once did). Pounding and bending and...
On the Making of Hesed Hitching Post
Sep 25, 2024 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Among our growing number of students who have come to work and learn this summer is a lad from Washington DC named Titus. His earnestness and...
Magnalia’s Community Garden Marks Special Milestones
Sep 13, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Thanks to our Master Gardener Dorothy Clement and her very able apprentices, Laurel and Izzy Bird, and a host of volunteers from Mount Jubilee...
