nadamore is the name of our new home in northern Michigan. As such, it includes the house we recently built on 2.5 acres of land, the pole barn that came with the property, and the great forest that surrounds us on all sides. This place, nadamore, is nestled into the base of a hill on the edge of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a profoundly beautiful landscape with miles and miles of sweeping vistas, freshwater beaches, forested wilderness islands and hiking trails. Our new home is all of this.
The creation of nadamore began during our final year in Des Moines IA and is still a work in progress. By the time we moved to Michigan in May 2019, the house was nearly finished. By the end of the summer we had cleaned up portions of the land, planted a variety of native trees and plants, and created various walk-ways and a firepit on the property. What started as a piece of empty land (except for the pole barn) had become much more. The creation of nadamore continues to unfold. Every day is a new opportunity to care for the gift of this place that has been entrusted to our care.
Our hope is that nadamore will be a peaceful quiet place, a sanctuary of sorts, where all who enter feel loved, seen, encouraged and able to sense the Great Mystery at the heart of this world.
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2021 Summer Guests
Our 2021 summer guest season has finally come to a close. After the pandemic solitude of 2020, it was great to see a steady stream of loved ones again. Thanks to each and every family member and friend who made their way to nadamore. Salome & Isaiah Nengean and their children, Micah (6) and Rebekah (4), came all the way from Frederick, MD in June. They were our first guests of the summer and stayed for five days. It was overcast with light rain most of the time they were here, so we ventured out between the raindrops whenever we...
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Hidden On The Land
It is by the place we’ve got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to heaven. (Wendell Berry) The 1/2 acre school property on W Cheney Rd was covered by at least a half century of debris: large fallen trees uprooted by storms over the years, knarled stumps, dense underbrush, decaying logs, dead branches, big rocks and a variety of dirt-caked items like old tires, plastic children’s toys, empty cans, rusty wire and broken glass. These things had to be removed in order to discover what was hidden on the land. ...
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RISE
The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. (Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams) There’s something new on the nadamore landscape today: something standing tall and strong in place of yesterday’s dirt. Something that didn’t used to be, yet feels like it always was. As announced by Monday’s hopeful chorus of early spring peepers, the ground was finally thawing. While we walked on the soft and sometimes muddy trails...
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Building The House
When we began to plan the construction of our house on Cheney Road, we knew we wanted to work with local contractors and builders. Peter Fisher, our realtor, helped us by providing an initial list of contractors he thought we should talk to. Since many of them were not available in 2018, they provided names of other contractors who we then contacted. It took a while, but we eventually assembled a wonderful group of construction professionals. We began the process of securing the necessary building permits in the fall of 2017. The various county and township governmental units needed applications,...
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From Campground To A House
When we purchased the W Cheney Road property in April of 2017, it was a piece of land with a pole barn on it. At the time of purchase, our plan was to live in Grand Rapids after Lloyd retired from ChildServe, and to use the property as a campground and potential gathering place for family and friends. We had no idea that within the next two years this initial vision for our property would evolve to what it is today. How did this happen? In essence, it goes something like this: We allowed ourselves to dream of possibilities, and...
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Purchase of the Property
By early 2017 we had already decided we wanted to move to Michigan after Lloyd’s retirement from ChildServe, and that Grand Rapids was the likely location. A good share of our kids and grandkids lived in Grand Rapids or further east, and our family had often used Grand Rapids as a central gathering place. Besides, we already owned a house in Grand Rapids and had been renting it out for years. We had fashioned an apartment in the basement of the house and were used to staying there whenever we came from Iowa to visit. We had already created many...
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