Somewhere down the trail I got distracted and veered off onto a side trail. This is one of the difficulties with hiking seldom used trails and my lack of attention lead me away from where I wanted to be. I should have been looking harder for the blazes that are there for me to see, but easy to miss when I’m not looking forward.  The path I veered onto was clearly marked and very scenic. I even met some great people out on that trail, but it wasn’t the path for me. Thankfully, I looked up to see that I was down the wrong path before I got too far away from my intended trail.

All metaphor aside, I opened up a retail gallery/studio downtown Greenville. While it was great getting immersed in the Greenville art scene, I ended up focusing more on me and my individual success and less on honoring God through the talents He gave me.  There wasn’t anything wrong with me opening up a gallery, but I allowed it to keep me from moving toward the bigger mission.

So here I am on back on the trail at the point where I 1st veered off. Thankfully, though I lost some time, I did gain some wisdom. And who knows, maybe some of the folks I met will end up joining me on this journey at some point.

Before moving forward toward the next blaze I see off in the distance, let me update you on where I am on this journey:

I now live with my family on about 6 acres of land just north of Travelers Rest, SC.

We now have 3 apple trees, 4 blueberry bushes, 4 blackberry canes, and 2 raspberry canes established. I planted more but the deer and drought took their toll.

We have 2 decent barns on the property. 1 which will be usable for livestock and 1 that I will be converting into studio & teaching workspace and a gallery.

Our gardens last year on the new property didn’t do very well, but we learned a l0t that will lead to improvements this upcoming growing season.

In my next post I will lay out some of  refinements of my original ideas and also talk about how YOU can get involved.

Created & Creative by God’s Design,

Rich Nicoloff

(update: As of 2/1/2012 all of the broken image links should be fixed)

But today is a new day and I am a new man. I am thankful to God for opening my eyes and my heart and changing the way I see the world over these last 10 years. I have found a better way. Though, I often fail miserably, I try to seek peace and understanding. I realize that hate only begets hate. I have learned that might does not make right. I see much more of the bigger picture, fuzzy though it may be. And though I still wonder what kind of world my kids are inheriting, it is because I still see too many people who still think the way I used to. Today I shed tears for all the lives that were lost on 9-11-01 and the lives that continue to be lost because of hate, pride, intolerance, imperialism, misunderstanding, etc. I shed tears for lives that are lost, but I am joyful for the life I am gaining and for the hope of a less polarized and more understanding, cooperative, peaceful world. After all, if I can undergo a deep shift in my view of this world, anyone can. May we bless God and all of His Creation with our open eyes, open minds, open hearts, and open hands.

The 3 reasons why I believe in God:

• I see.
• I hear.
• I feel.

Pretty simple AND pretty complex. My reason are somewhat difficult explain to others because they are experienced rather than thought. But I will give it a shot.

My three reasons are both separate from each other and interlinked.  They are both logical and illogical.  They are both physical and spiritual.  They are on the tip of my tongue and buried in my DNA.  They are who I was, who I am, and who I will be.

I see.  I can see the simple beauty and complex structure of the natural world around me.  I can see a composition and design that cannot come from randomness or chaos.  I see a wild creativity and an order that defies explanation.  I can perceive/see an attention to detail the goes beyond anything even close to human.  My eyes have been opened to the connectivity of people, places, and even events that I once thought  independent.

I hear.  I hear the whisper in the wind and the shout in the above the din.  I hear the call.  It comes from within and without.  I love the sound and I fear the sound.  I hear the love song AND the lament.  I hear the cries and I hear the laughter.  I hear the praise and I hear the reprimand.

I feel.  I feel alive and I’ve felt dead.  I feel a push and a pull.  I feel the stillness and the dizzying motion.  I feel the rain on my head and the sun on my face.  I feel the rain in my heart and the sun driving out the darkness.  I feel the embrace and I feel the discipline.  I feel the heartbreak and I feel the joy.  I feel for you and I feel for them.

This is why I believe.

The year started with us wondering just how long Kristie would continue to have a job as an Interior Designer at Gresham, Smith & Partners.  The Charlotte, NC office where she worked had already dwindled from around 2o employees to just 5.  While we knew that she had projects to work on we also knew that those wouldn’t last until the end of the year.  It wasn’t a good start.

The upside to Kristie’s precarious job situation is that it forced her to be serious about finding a new job which is something I had been pestering her about for over a year.  My heart and mind was in the mountains and living in Charlotte/Pineville was killing me inside.   I knew I didn’t belong there, but for some reason God had us staying put.  We (or maybe, just I) still had some lessons to learn.

I was able to learn some great lessons and make some even better friends through an opportunity that was presented early in the year.  I was invited to join a small group of photographers that met every other Thursday night to view, critique, and discuss each others new photographic work.   I was exposed to different photographic styles and points of view that really expanded my own view and personal style.   Being a part of the group also pushed me to shoot more regularly, but the best part was making some new friends and companions for my Journey.

As Spring arrived the situation at Kristie’s office got bleaker as 2 more employees were let go.  Now there were only 2 architects and 1 interior designer.    There certainly didn’t seem to be much of a future at GS&P, especially since offices in other cities were also being gutted and some even closed.

During all this Kristie had been talking to some other companies in more scenic and mountainous areas that had some possible opportunities on the horizon, but the horizon never seemed to get any closer.  Then just when our hopes were pretty thin, we got word from a friend in the industry of a position that was just being created.  The position was working in the Facilities department of the Greenville Hospital System, basically, as the in-house Interior Designer.  Needless to say, Kristie got her resumé in as fast as she could.

The application & interview process was very long and in the meantime one of the architects at Kristie’s office left to go work for a different company.  So now there were only two and there was serious talk of the office being closed.  Thankfully, though, Kristie was offered the job at GHS and thus began the moving process.

As soon as Kristie had the offer letter in hand she gave 30-days notice at GS&P and we got cracking on packing.  In addition to all the packing we had a pretty long “to do” list of small projects that needed to be completed on our house before putting it up for sale.  We worked like crazy night and day to get everything ready and got the house on the market July 1st.

Throughout this whole process we had been praying for God to guide us and strengthen us since we wanted to do everything in accordance to His will and not ours.  We also knew from previous experience how stressful buying, selling, and moving out of & into a home can be, and so we also knew we needed help to keep us from killing each other.   We barely made it through our last move and that was only across town and with only 1 kid!

This wasn’t just any move for us.  I knew that we were moving to the place where we would be putting down roots and where my calling would become a reality.  As I’ve written previously (and will write about more soon!), I’ve been called by God to gather other artists together and teach people how to worship God and tell His Story through art.  As a nature photographer I will be teaching about Creation Care / Environmental Stewardship as I show others how to photograph the beautiful (& wild) Creation around us.  Keeping all this in mind, we couldn’t just move into any neighborhood.  Our needs were fairly specific which really narrowed the properties available to us.  Again, we knew that we needed to rely on God for this, so I decided that in addition to praying I was going to fast from meat until we moved into our new home.

On the 5th of July, we accepted an offer on our house.  At the time I was pretty bummed out because I had been praying for an offer by the 4th.  Looking back, I know it was a bit silly and pretty ungrateful for me to be upset about the difference of a day, but I must confess that I felt let down.  In a struggling housing market, we put our house on the market and had an offer 4 days later.  God was working in the situation and He was showing me that it was going to be on His terms not mine.  (This theme gets beaten into my brain by the time this is finished!)

So now we had an offer on our house and needed to find a new home lickety split!  I had been looking at MLS listings in the areas north and northwest of Greenville for a few weeks and worked on narrowing the list down.  Here are some of the criteria we had:

• at least 3 bedrooms  & 2 baths
• at least 1600 sq. feet (preferably more)
• at least 2 acres of land (preferably more) & some of the land needed to be good for planting
• close to the State Parks and mountains, but within a 30-40 minute commute for Kristie.
• good schools
• home in good condition (didn’t want a fixer upper)
• barn, outbuilding, or large detached garage (to convert to office/studio)
• Under $220,000  (which with low interest rates would be a similar monthly payment to our current one)

We had a list of about 12 homes that looked good online and fit our needs and one that we thought was the right house/property for us.  This property was a bit over 2 acres and bordered a large Girl Scout camp in the mountains near the NC border on Gap Creek Rd.  The house was over 2000 sq. ft. between 2 adjacent buildings and had a large detached garage.  We loved the location and the pictures of the home so we made an appointment to see the home and about 4-5 others.

The next morning we drove the 2 hours from Charlotte to Greenville to meet our Realtor and see the homes.  Our plan was to put an offer on the Gap Creek home.  Unfortunately, the first thing we were told as we met our Realtor was that an offer was accepted on the home the night before.  Our hearts sank, but we carried on and toured the other homes on our list.  Nothing we saw really felt right until we got to the last  one of the long day.   It was relatively new and was situated on 11 acres with river frontage.  We really liked what we saw and loved the $180,ooo list price!  The one drawback was that it was a foreclosure and there was very little info on it including disclosures.

After talking about it on the drive home we scheduled a home inspection to make sure there weren’t any major problems before we put in an offer.  We met the home inspector at the home a couple of days later (leaving the kids home with a sitter) and right away started seeing things we hadn’t noticed days before.  The home was in rougher shape than we thought and the inspector began pointing out many things that made us cringe.  Basically, the home turned out to be poorly built and a money pit.  Feeling dejected and crushed we went back to our Realtor’s office to regroup.

Kristie & our Realtor combed through the MLS listings looking for properties in areas where we hadn’t looked before (& for good reason!)  I was using my laptop to also look at the listings but I was looking in the same area we had been looking.  I wasn’t very hopeful, I was quite grumpy, and my faith was pretty tattered.  However, I kept trudging down the path, one foot in front of the other.  I found one listing that I has seen a month or so before when we first found out about the job offer, I checked on the housing market in the Greenville area.  It hadn’t shown up in searches since then until today.  (We found out later that it had been on the market for about a year and then taken off for about a couple of months.  It had just been re-listed with a new agent the day before.)

We decided to go have a look even though I wasn’t too thrilled by it’s proximity to town.  I wanted to be “out in the country.”  On paper it did have many of the other  things that we were looking for so I decided to humor Kristie and go look.  Driving up to the house, it didn’t look like much, but it was more secluded than I had thought from looking at the Google Maps.   I hoped that the inside would impress me.

Now, those of you who have looked at homes for sale know that the seller usually leaves either before or when the potential buyer arrives.  Not in this case!  We were shadowed constantly.  As we found out we were dealing with some pretty strange and paranoid folk.  I’m trying hard not to write some pretty scathing stuff here about the sellers religious and political beliefs (and limited brain functions!) because they REALLY annoy me, but I will try to keep to the pertinent info. Suffice it to say that there were 13 people living in the house, the 2 sellers and their 11 children.  We were NEVER alone in the house.

Despite all that, we liked the house and the 6 acres of land it was on.  Kristie will tell you that she knew right away that it was the right house for us and that 2 other heartbreaks were getting us softened up for this one.  I was a bit more cynical (imagine that!), but knew in my heart that God had brought us here for a reason.  We left the house and told our Realtor that we would think about it and give her a call.

Kristie was really excited about the house and my excitement was growing so we called Beverly, our Realtor, and asked her to schedule an appointment the next day to show the house to our kids.  This time we expressly requested that the sellers not be present and that the 2 big dogs they owned be caged.

We drove back to Travelers Rest the next day with AJ, Brianna, and Amanda to show them the house.  Upon meeting Beverly across the street from the house in the Ebenezer Baptist Church parking lot we found out that we would still have the sellers’ oldest son shadowing us.  Aargh!  We looked at the house again and noted a fair amount of flaws and such that we hadn’t seen the 1st time through.  The flaws were cosmetic though and didn’t discourage us much.  I, however, made it a point to announce every flaw I found for the benefit of our shadow.

After spending about an hour looking at everything we went back to the Realtor’s office and put in an offer on the house.  I’m not going to bore you with the agonizing details of the process but just remember how I said the sellers were annoying and strange and you’ll get the picture.  Anyway, we got an accepted offer and moved forward with the loan process.  Good thing too because Kristie started her new job 2 days later on our wedding anniversary (July 12th.)

Some facts/features of the house:

• 6 bedrooms & 3 Baths
• over 3000 sq. feet (including finished basement)
• 6 acres including pasture, woods, and a spring
• 2 small barns
• near the elementary and middle schools
• large front porch with decks on side and back of house
• in-ground fiberglass pool
• large outdoor playhouse for kids
• attached 2 car garage
• large kitchen
• hardwood floors

So Kristie started her new job and stayed with friends, Amanda & Tobin, in Greenville while I was back in Charlotte with the kids getting everything packed.  I wish I could tell you that the rest of the buying/selling process went smoothly, but it didn’t on either account.   Our buyer was very picky about some repairs that  drove me absolutely crazy and I about blew my top numerous times.  (Our selling agent, Kent Bailey, kept me from killing our buyer on more than 1 occasion!)

Buying our house was one of the craziest and, at times, sickening roller coaster rides I’ve ever been on!  Most of the problems had to do with the appraisal coming in lower than our contract price and the seller’s unwillingness to drop their price to meet it.  There was a gap of $8000 that we couldn’t agree on and it looked like the deal was going to fall through and we were going to have to find a rental.  The sellers weren’t willing to budge at all (and really didn’t even seem like they wanted to move!)  We didn’t have the money to make up the difference since we were already put a lot down.  Our lender, Bank of America, put in a request for re-evaluation of the appraisal, but it didn’t make a difference.  We were stuck, heartbroken, and I was crying out to God asking why He was putting us through this pain.

At the eleventh hour I decided to take matters into my own hands and called the sellers on the phone.  I was sick of going through middlemen.  I got hold of the wife and explained the situation and she explained their side.  We discussed some different options and she told me of a local lender they had worked with in the past who had said they would be able to order a new appraisal.  Having no other viable options, we fired BOA and went with the new mortgage lender.  As it turns out, that was the best thing we could have done.  We ended up saving thousands of dollars with the new lender, Franklin American, lower fees, and a lower interest rate!

In the middle of all this house buying & selling I had an Interior Designer who wanted to use 100 prints of my images for use in a new hospital building in southwestern Virginia.  I was excited by the prospect of that large of an order (twice the quantity of my largest order to date!) and sent her a better than fair quote.  I heard back from the decorator who was the designer’s assistant on the project a couple of weeks later with the news that they definitely wanted to use my photos but couldn’t pay more than $50 each for 100 different prints and that they needed to be 17″x27″.   The generous quote I had given  for 15″x20″ prints on a 100% cotton archival paper (and assuming some repetition of images which is less labor intensive) was quite a bit more than $50!  I was a bit insulted, but politely explained why my prints are worth (more!) what I had asked in my quote and also why I couldn’t crop my images to the very unusual proportions of a 17″x27″ print without butchering them.   She told me that they used other photographers on previous projects who had no problems with that price and size and that the size had even come from one of the photographers.  With this knowledge I know that they had probably used work taken with a point & shoot digital camera.  I respectfully declined the offer.  Despite the fact that I could have used a $5000 dollar check, I wasn’t going to prostitute myself and cause further harm to the photographic art.

Losing a big sale, dealing with the kids, packing, putting up with buyers & sellers, and being without Kristie at home was crushing my spirit and I didn’t know how much more I could take.  BUT, I was about to find out.

As the closing date on our Pineville house got closer there were further snags in the buying of the Travelers Rest house.  It seems that BOA didn’t close out the mortgage process properly (or at least how the said they would) and the original low appraisal was rearing its ugly head again.  After a LOT of phone calls on Kristie’s part and work by Franklin American, everything was cleared up but during the few days it took, the moronic sellers had stopped moving their stuff out and our closing was pushed back.

Our buyer couldn’t move back the closing date so we ended up having everything loaded onto a moving truck or in storage and we lived in a couple of hotels for a week.  During this time AJ and Brianna both started school in Travelers Rest, AJ in 4th and Brianna starting kindergarten.   I drove the kids to school from our hotel on the other side of Greenville and picked them up for their 1st week at their new school.

We finally closed on our house and it was all I could do to keep from jumping across the table and throttling the sellers who by that morning still had not gotten out of the house.  In fact at closing they said that there were a few things they still needed to come pick up later that afternoon.  AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!  Even though the house was ours we still weren’t rid of them!

As it turned out, one of the things that they still needed to pick up was there huge dog that they had left in the garage!  We called our Realtor and she told their Realtor that they needed to come and get the dog and the rest of their belongings right away. To say that it was tense when they came back would be an understatement, but, finally, they were gone and for the first time we had the house to ourselves.

We had been running on caffeine, adrenaline, and God’s grace and now we were exhausted.  We struggled through the next few days of cleaning (LOTS of cleaning!) and unpacking, but after a few days the house started to feel less like some stranger’s house and more like our home.  The kid’s were enjoying their new rooms, and Kristie and I were starting to dream again about the possibilities that lay before us.

As we continued to make our way through the mountains of boxes, Kristie went to work every day and the 2 older kiddos went to school.  Amanda and I started to explore the area and my lonely camera started to get used again.  We were starting to get used to our new home and were developing new daily routines.

I joined the Trillium Arts Centre  and began getting my name and face out there in the community.  My green Jeep and my hat have made it easy for people to recognize me around town.  In October I had a booth at a local art festival and now have my photos in the Trillium Arts Centre and the very popular Leopard Forest Coffee Cafe.  In the February my photographs will be featured in another popular spot, The Cafe @ Williams Hardware.

Brianna and Kristie have made some new friends through the local Girl Scout Troop in which my little sweetheart is a Daisy Scout.

AJ is playing in Upward Basketball in a neighboring town since there aren’t any teams nearby.

We continue to put our stamp on this house, making it our home, and have had my niece, Robia, and my Mom & Dad visit as well as Kristie’s Mom & Step-dad.  With 2 guest rooms and plenty of elbow room we look forward to having many visitors in the coming years.

God has taught us a lot in 2010.  We have learned about our shortcomings.  We have learned to be patient and reliant upon God.  We have learned that He does things according to His timetable and will not ours.  We have learned that God’s grace is sufficient.  We have learned that sometimes we gain better understanding through pain and hardship.  Most of all we have learned that we are loved by a Creator whose vision and wisdom is far greater than our own.

A big “Thank You!” goes out to all of you who were praying for us (& putting up with us!) during our move.

We are looking forward to a great 2011 as Kristie settles into her job, the kids make new friends, and I continue to grow my photography business.  We are all continuing to travel on this trail where God has placed us and can see many great adventures ahead.   Our hope is that in some way, whether large or small, you will join us on our Journey.

Remember this:

Whether you believe in God or not, He still believes in you.

Now, I’m not saying that any of those things I did to “go green” was wrong, in fact I encourage people to do them.  Please don’t think that I am standing up on some pedestal or sitting up on a “high horse” looking down on anyone.  What I am is a person on a journey that just may be a little bit further along the trail than many, but still lagging behind many others.  I’m here to offer what little guidance and insight I can to what lies ahead if you decide to undertake a similar journey.

Though I would say that God has been preparing the trail for me throughout my life , we can take a look at where I began to tread this particular section of trail:

Even though I have considered myself a nature photographer for about 10 years or so, I really wasn’t very knowledgeable about the health of our environment nor did I really care to learn.  Sure I wanted to keep nature pretty (so I could photograph it!) and didn’t like things like litter (it isn’t pretty), but my UBER-conservative political views told me that ideals like “the free market” and “personal property rights” would take care of things and that the “environment” was the political playground of those bleeding heart liberals and their silly theory of “global warming.”  I believed that this world was created for us to use however we saw fit.  I was even part of an organization that lobbied to keep the U.S. from signing the Kyoto Protocol.

Again, I don’t tell you this to sway you toward any political party or even to say that either of our current major political parties are “right or wrong” or “good or evil”.  In fact, though I will write more about this another time, I will tell you that I think that our current system is a mess and that both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party no longer serve “We, the People.”  I write this to give you some background and to encourage you no matter where your political views may lie to listen (well, read) carefully to what I have to say because I have no political agenda.  The only master I serve now is God (and I’m sure He even finds me quite uncooperative at times.)  So now that you know that I was once a part of  “the vast right-wing conspiracy” we can get on to the pertinent details.

A few years back my ever so beautiful and patient wife, Kristie, was diagnosed with celiac disease.  If you are thinking, “What’s that?” then you know exactly how I felt.  Celiac is basically an allergy to wheat gluten and can really mess up a person’s intestines.  That diagnosis led me , the family grocery shopper and cook, to start looking at the ingredient labels on all of our food.  If you’ve never looked closely at the ingredients in the foods you buy, I can tell you that it is an eye opening experience.  There is a lot of “stuff” put into our food that we wouldn’t choose to put in there ourselves.

Not long after I started paying more attention to the food we ate, the price of gasoline skyrocketed to nearly $4 a gallon.  This caused me to look at my driving habits and make some pretty severe changes.  Having 3 children in carseats we had bought a 4-door Jeep Wrangler accommodate the entire family, but while about as efficient as most minivans it certainly wasn’t fun to fill up.  Errands were consolidated and I took far fewer trips to the mountains (& far fewer photos).

Consolidating errands especially shopping errands got me thinking a lot about my spending habits.  Looking at my spending habits during a period of high fuel prices got me thinking about where the products I bought originated.  That in turn got me thinking about the materials of which the products made.  And so on.  I started examining everything I bought and even the consumer mindset that drove me to buy them.  This last discovery linked up with another inward journey I had been undertaking.  More on that tomorrow…..

Come over here and step inside my Wayback Machine.  We are going to take a trip back into ancient times, to a day when film ruled the photography world.  Yes, dear readers there used to be a time when photographers thought in terms of “grain” rather than “noise” and had to wait a whole day or so to see the fruit of his efforts.

This particular image was shot on Fuji 100 ISO print film which at the time was some of the finest grained color negative  film on the market.  Now, some of you may be thinking, “Didn’t ‘real’ photographers shoot with slide film?”  That is partially true and I did predominantly shoot transparencies, however, I already had a foot in the digital world.  You see, I’d been scanning film almost as long as I’d been shooting with  it.  The reason I sometimes shot with color negative is that it had a wider exposure latitude (basically, held more information) than transparency/slide film and I could bring some of that image detail out using Photoshop.   (On a side note used I’ve Photoshop since version 2.5 in the early 90′s.)

Anyway……back to the image…

This photo was shot along one of my favorite sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC.  I had driven past this tree that stands on a hill overlooking the picnic area of Julian Price Park countless times.  Every time I would pass it I would think, “Boy, that sure would be a beautiful image under the right conditions.  But the conditions were never right.  Over and over I would see this lonely tree up there begging to become a great photograph, but my timing was always off.

One late Spring (maybe early Summer) day I had been shooting further South along the parkway and was heading home because a line of thunderstorms was moving into the region.  As I neared the picnic area I glanced over and saw the storm clouds moving in behind the tree, but there was this beautiful backlight making the grasses practically glow.  I pulled over quickly and grabbed my equipment.  I jumped out of my Jeep and ran with my camera, a Canon Elan 7, and my tripod across the Parkway, over the barbed wire fence and up the hill as fast I could.

As I set up the tripod I could already already feel a sprinkling of rain starting to fall.  I composed my shot, fired off the shutter twice, then adjusted the exposure & composition a bit for the next shot.  I fired off that shot and as I heard the “click” of the shutter the heavens opened up on me.   Hearing & feeling thunder booming around me, seeing flashes of lightning, and getting plastered by huge, heavy drops of rain, I put the camera under my shirt and ran faster than ever thought I could.  I don’t even remember climbing back over the fence.  Before I knew it I was back in my Jeep, soaked but safe.

The image you see above is that last frame.   It may not be the best photo in the world, or even one of my best, but is and always will be one of my favorites.

I’ve learned a lot from this photo and the experience of shooting it.  You see, at the time I started focusing on getting into nature photography I was pretty angry with God.  I believe that He existed, but I didn’t want anything to do with Him and, especially, not anything to do with religion.  I had trusted God and trusted a group of people who called themselves Christians.  I was hurt by that group and blamed God for it.  (I may go into more detail at a later time, but not today.)   It took a lot of time, 10 years, but I eventually came to realize that God promises his love & his grace, but not a life free of pain and trials.  Just like this image.  I got scared and soaked in the processes, but I ended up with a thing of beauty that I will always cherish.

Created & Creative by God’s Design,

Rich Nicoloff

Don’t forget to check out my photography: Photography from the Journey

& become our Fan on Facebook

When I close my eyes and let my mind wander I tend to see 2 different scenarios play out.  Why there are 2 different streams of this same vision in my head I don’t know but I’ll try to outline both of them.  For convenience sake I’ll call the 2 scenarios “Country” and “Town”:

Country

• Multiple acres in a rural mountain area.
• Hopefully find property that already has a house and multiple outbuildings.
• Set up like a hybrid of a co-housing and an intentional community.  A handful of families that have their own small homes but would also have shared common areas such a “Common House” that would have a large children’s playroom, a movie/tv/game room, a large kitchen and dining hall, guest rooms, etc.
• The common threads that weave us together would be our faith in God, a desire to be good stewards of Creation, and artistic/creative expression.
• There would be a building filled with artist studios, workshop and office space.  May even have a coffeehouse.
• Another building would contain a large meeting space to worship together, hold larger workshops, etc.
• Artists would hold workshops teaching their craft.  Would also like to have workshops on sustainable practices.
• Lots of gardens both vegetable and flower.
• Maybe some small livestock such as chickens & goats.

Town

• Multiple families buy homes & move to the same small mountain town.
• Buy building(s) in the downtown and aid in revitalization.
• Art studios, Coffeehouse, Gallery, Indoor Farmers Market
• Artists would hold workshops teaching their craft.
• Start community gardens.

I see either of these scenarios needing 3-4 families to start.   Obviously , either scenario would take a good deal of capital to start and I have no idea where that is going to come from.  That is why I’ve said all along that I cannot do this.  I know that I’m supposed to do this, but it certainly isn’t going to happen just through my efforts.  This is a God thing.  I’m throwing this out there into the vast Internets in the hopes that some of you will help in whatever way you can.  Some of you may feel called to help out financially, some of you may pray for me & my family, and others may feel this idea calling to them.  (Some of you may just think that I’m nuts in which case I can’t say I blame you!)  Please let me know what you think by commenting below.  Thanks for reading!

Created & Creative by God’s Design,

Rich Nicoloff

Don’t forget to check out my photography: Photography from the Journey

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While I have been learning a LOT, the whole process feels like taking baby steps.  You know the shaky, unsure, off balance kind of steps I’m talking about.  They are cute and part of the learning process, but they don’t cover much distance.   Here is a sampling of some of the baby steps I (along with my family) have taken:

I planted my first all organic garden.   Most of the plants were grown from seed & the garden was watered using rainwater collected in my 2 rain barrels.  I planted sweet peas, carrots, potatoes, a variety of beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers, snap peas, watermelon, & pumpkin.   There was a decent harvest but not the huge bounty for which I was hoping.  The true harvest, though, is what I learned about the timing of plantings,  integrated pest management, location, harvest times, etc.  This year’s garden should be a big improvement.

My family & I have been eating much more local produce & meat, though we still have a long way to go.

I made my first 2 batches of strawberry jam from strawberries grown about 3 miles away.  It is quite tasty and has renewed my love of PB&J.  I am bummed, however, that we only have 1 jar remaining.  (Would it be wrong to hide it from the kids?)  I had hoped to also freeze and can/jar some other veggies, but it didn’t work out to well.  I didn’t have enough tomatoes ready at any one time to can those and while I did freeze some snap peas, I didn’t blanch the first so they went bad.  Learning, still learning…

Yep, these past few months have been focused on a lot of learning.  I’ve been learning a lot about relationships, community (or lack thereof), sustainable gardening/farming, how the “Good news” applies in everyday life, the state of our culture, economy, & government, the role of the Church & my place in it, photography, myself and many other things that often make me feel as if my brain is ready to explode.  Honestly (not that I haven’t ever been honest with you), some of the things I now know and see I sometimes wish I could un-know & wish I could close my eyes.  Sometimes I really wish I had “taken the blue pill.”

Along with the learning has been a lot of waiting.  Waiting, waiting, waiting……and more waiting.  Whenever I start to complain about the waiting (more often than I’d like to say) I’m reminded of the apostle Paul’s years in between his conversion and his mission to the Gentiles.   He spent a number of years learning (& growing) before setting out on his journey.  (Of course, Paul had Barnabas there to instruct and mentor him, but I won’t get into that in this post.)

During this waiting period I’ve also been working.  I’ve done a fair amount of shooting of new photographs.  I’ve remodeled the website & gallery.  I’ve mentored a young photographer.  I’ve given a couple of presentations.  I’ve made some good connections.  And I’ve done a lot of crying out to God.

There have been some  positive signs but nothing I can really share just yet.

And that pretty much brings us back to the present.  Tomorrow’s post (yep, that’s right 2 posts in 2 days.  contain your excitement!) will be a clearer look at what I’ve been dreaming about and how you can help.  In the meantime please pray for God to guide my dreams and visions and to open up the doors of opportunity.

Created & Creative by God’s Design,

Rich Nicoloff

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The funny thing is I really don’t feel like I thought I would.   After all 40 is O-L-D.  I don’t feel old.  I don’t even think I look all that old.

I really don’t feel all that much different than I did when I was a kid on an early summer day in Bureau, IL.  I remember thinking as I lay on the grass of the school grounds looking up at the sky that I would be 30-years-old when the year 2000 came around.  Boy, would I be old then!  That future date seemed so distant so unreal.

Well, now it has been 10 years since the world came to a screeching halt on the advent of Y2K.  I didn’t feel old then (Though my wife thought I was and bought me a wallet for my birthday! But that’s a story for another time…) and I certainly don’t feel old now, a decade later.  In fact, other than being a little slower to get myself moving, I really don’t feel much older that when I was gazing up at the clouds.

Am I really no longer a kid?  I close my eyes and swear I can still hear the sound of a tennis ball hitting the windowless side of our 3 story brick school house as I play “tennis” with Missy Newburn.  I can smell the grass, the dirt, the tennis ball, the laughter.  I can feel the warm gentle breeze and can see the aged dark bricks.  Was it really that long ago?  Sometimes I feel like I just blinked and went from there to here from then to now.

When people get old don’t they become grown-ups?  And aren’t grown-ups supposed to be responsible and, well, boring?  Shouldn’t a grown-up conform to society and play by it’s rules and regulations?  If that’s the case then I am most certainly not some boring ol’ grown-up!

Responsible?  Me?  Now I guess there is a part of the definition that might apply from time to time (the being the cause or explanation part), when one generally thinks of “responsible” I doubt that I come to mind.  What?  Well, yes, I am married and, yes, I’m raising my 3 kids…  Hmmm?  Yes, I have my own photography business.  But…But…. Yes, I do take a leadership role when necessary, but I don’t think that…  Alright!! OK, so I am a little responsible, but not in a boring, old person sort of way.

C’mon!  Look at me!  I don’t do old, grown-up stuff.  I don’t wear a suit and go to work in a boring ol’ office and for the most part never have.  I don’t drive a mini-van.  I don’t watch any movies with Barbara Streisand or Bette Miller in them.    I really don’t conform to grown-up ideas of work, government or religion.  I’m quite the rebel, you know.  I believe in working to live, not living to work;  a government by the people for the people, not by the elite for the big corporations; and I believe in loving others, not judging others.

Well, anyway……uh…um…what was I talking about?  Sorry, I lost my train of thought.  The memory isn’t quite as good as it…..Oh wait!  Darn.  I guess, maybe I am old.

Nah!

Seriously, just because we are older doesn’t mean that we just sit around and let the rest of our lives just pass us by.  Get up and change the world.I am and, God willing, I will.