The Road To Magnalia
Snapshots of a Homesteader’s LifeSnapshots
We Love Our Sheepish Sheep
Jun 17, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Our flock of sheep have taught me much about "the herd effect." The males tend to be out front, all ears are attentive, and the most "sheepish" go...
Leah + Michael Get Married
Jun 14, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
The wedding of Leah and Michael Reittinger lingers merrily in our souls, now two weeks afterward. Leah is the last of our four daughters to get...
Independence Day Eve! And Your Narnian Adventure….
Jun 3, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
As every patriot knows, and as Memorial Day reminds us, freedom is not free. So mark your calendars to celebrate that truth with us on Independence...
What If You Slept, and Had A Dream….
May 28, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
After days of relentless rain, a neighbor woke me from REM around 6am to say that our cows were out of their pasture, wandering along humble Hilton...
Memorial Day Artifacts to Help Remember
May 25, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Every time I stop and pause in Semper Fi Hall in front of these USMC WW1 and WW2 helmets (the former showing the full impact of a day gone bad), as...
A Visit to “The Wood Between the Worlds”
May 22, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
The place at Narnia House we call "The Wood Between the Worlds" Room is still in process, but will highlight the things of earth: plants, trees...
A Peak Into Caspian’s Quarters
May 17, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Caspian's Quarters, "Somewhere on the Eastern Sea," officially opens for guests next weekend! Nautically themed, it's complete with port holes, a...
Flashback to an Epic Orphanage
May 10, 2025 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
What a flashback experience this week! The director of Eddie's orphanage For His Children-Ecuador, Jen Thomas, came to visit Eddie & Fam at the...
Kirke’s Quarters at Narnia House
May 4, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
In "Kirke's Quarters" at the newly opened Narnia House, we celebrate the Professor who went first into Narnia (he was The Magician's Nephew), and...
Narnia House is Now Officially Open
May 2, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
C.S. Lewis wanted all who entered the world of Narnia to know that they, too, were meant to be regent Kings and Queens -- like Peter, Susan, Lucy,...
Treasuring the Heroes and Volunteers in the Community Garden
Apr 19, 2025 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
We're still treasuring up the many hugs and smiles shared (look at these pictures!) from Mount Jubilee Heroes who help our Master Gardener Dorothy...
Our Finest Farming Hour
Apr 14, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Farm math for us normally does not add up. It just doesn't. But. IF every afternoon was like yesterday afternoon, we could take an extra Sabbath day...
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...
On the Effort to Reclaim Community Tables (through Winter Feasts)
Jan 16, 2024 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
In the 17th century, the English diarist and naval leader Samuel Pepys wrote this: Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles...
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 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...
On The Passing of Batons
Apr 3, 2023 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Every family marks those moments when there is a "changing of the guard" -- when a baton of responsibility passes from one child to the next, or...
Mahindra Tractor
Dec 31, 2022 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
Definitely one of my favorite pictures from the holiday season, here's Eddie with his "best friend" and nephew, William James Wolfe. The smiling...
Magnalia Homestead Christmas Auction Now Live!
Dec 16, 2022 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
We’re so very excited, thanks to the creativity and generosity of so many in our generous community, to announce perhaps the most…
USMC Birthday #247!
Nov 11, 2022 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Semper Fi Hall was a fitting site for a gathering of Marines, their spouses, and special invited guests to commemorate the 247th Birthday of the...
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...
Doors Open at Magnalia’s Smithy!
Dec 28, 2022 | EVENTS, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
On a crisp winter evening, with the stars near enough to grab, The Village Blacksmith Shoppe at Magnalia opened its doors for a gathering for the...
Making Merriment
Dec 9, 2022 | EVENTS, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
As a change of pace, we thought we would offer you a peak into community life here at Magnalia homestead, leading with our first public event at the newly constructed…
USMC Birthday #247!
Nov 11, 2022 | EVENTS, PEOPLE, PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Semper Fi Hall was a fitting site for a gathering of Marines, their spouses, and special invited guests to commemorate the 247th Birthday of the...
A Creek Mist Rising
Nov 8, 2022 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
After an autumn rain, the midst rises up from the Hogan's Creek valley and makes a simple pasture view seem epic, almost mystical. It draws me to...
We Are Like Sheep
Nov 5, 2022 | PLACES, PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Our four sheep at Magnalia Farm have made me more aware of the many facets of me being referred to in the Scriptures as A SHEEP. All we like sheep...
Resilient Cosmos
Sep 28, 2022 | PLACES, PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
A friend of ours had the idea of planting a large bed of the Cosmos Bipinnatus flower seed (commonly called the garden cosmos or Mexican Aster) in...
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...
Feeling Loved
Jan 5, 2023 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Our affectionate new Neubian donkey named Davie has quite the personality. I'm not sure our Black Angus, named Scheffler, who once got all my...
When Farm Tough Met an Amateur Farmer…
Dec 28, 2022 | PLANTS & ANIMALS
Farm Tough met an Amateur Farmer, and left said Farmer full of wonder. 😮 What a marvel to witness Davie the Donkey and our other farm animals...
We Are Like Sheep
Nov 5, 2022 | PLACES, PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Our four sheep at Magnalia Farm have made me more aware of the many facets of me being referred to in the Scriptures as A SHEEP. All we like sheep...
We Love Our Sheepish Sheep
Jun 17, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Our flock of sheep have taught me much about "the herd effect." The males tend to be out front, all ears are attentive, and the most "sheepish" go...
Leah + Michael Get Married
Jun 14, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
The wedding of Leah and Michael Reittinger lingers merrily in our souls, now two weeks afterward. Leah is the last of our four daughters to get...
Independence Day Eve! And Your Narnian Adventure….
Jun 3, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
As every patriot knows, and as Memorial Day reminds us, freedom is not free. So mark your calendars to celebrate that truth with us on Independence...
What If You Slept, and Had A Dream….
May 28, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
After days of relentless rain, a neighbor woke me from REM around 6am to say that our cows were out of their pasture, wandering along humble Hilton...
Memorial Day Artifacts to Help Remember
May 25, 2025 | EVENTS, REFLECTIONS
Every time I stop and pause in Semper Fi Hall in front of these USMC WW1 and WW2 helmets (the former showing the full impact of a day gone bad), as...
A Visit to “The Wood Between the Worlds”
May 22, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
The place at Narnia House we call "The Wood Between the Worlds" Room is still in process, but will highlight the things of earth: plants, trees...
A Peak Into Caspian’s Quarters
May 17, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
Caspian's Quarters, "Somewhere on the Eastern Sea," officially opens for guests next weekend! Nautically themed, it's complete with port holes, a...
Flashback to an Epic Orphanage
May 10, 2025 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
What a flashback experience this week! The director of Eddie's orphanage For His Children-Ecuador, Jen Thomas, came to visit Eddie & Fam at the...
Kirke’s Quarters at Narnia House
May 4, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
In "Kirke's Quarters" at the newly opened Narnia House, we celebrate the Professor who went first into Narnia (he was The Magician's Nephew), and...
Narnia House is Now Officially Open
May 2, 2025 | PLACES, REFLECTIONS
C.S. Lewis wanted all who entered the world of Narnia to know that they, too, were meant to be regent Kings and Queens -- like Peter, Susan, Lucy,...
Treasuring the Heroes and Volunteers in the Community Garden
Apr 19, 2025 | PEOPLE, REFLECTIONS
We're still treasuring up the many hugs and smiles shared (look at these pictures!) from Mount Jubilee Heroes who help our Master Gardener Dorothy...
Our Finest Farming Hour
Apr 14, 2025 | PLANTS & ANIMALS, REFLECTIONS
Farm math for us normally does not add up. It just doesn't. But. IF every afternoon was like yesterday afternoon, we could take an extra Sabbath day...
