The Land Is Getting Cleared… The Dream Is Real.
I don’t even know how to explain the feeling in my chest right now. This post is probably going to be all over the place because my heart is bursting, my eyes are still a little puffy from crying, and my boots are muddy from walking across what I can only describe as holy ground.
One acre of The Hammie Ranch is officially cleared.
The dozers came. The bushes came down. And suddenly, we’re standing in a wide-open space where our dreams are finally starting to take shape, not just in our heads, but in real life. And all I could do was stand in the middle of it and weep.
P.S. I also got heat stroke. I tried my best to convince myself I was fine but when your vision goes out, you know something is wrong.
You already know, there is never a dull moment here on The Hammie Ranch.
But this post isn’t really about the dirt or the bulldozers.
It’s about the prayer I started whispering at sixteen years old.
Long before I was a wife.
Long before I lived in Florida.
Long before I knew what a “barndominium” even was.
I prayed for this life. Not this exact land, not this exact blueprint… but the feeling. The freedom. The simple, meaningful, Jesus-centered, land-rooted life.
And for years, it felt like that prayer got filed away in heaven under “maybe someday.” I didn't know how or when it would unfold, and to be honest, I doubted it would, especially when life got hard, when I messed up, when it looked like my story had taken too many detours to ever come back around.
But God didn’t forget.
He didn’t lose track of that prayer. He didn’t dismiss the girl who prayed it.
And somehow, He led me, not just into a life I dreamed of, but one even better.
Because when I prayed that prayer at sixteen, I didn’t know it would come with the most amazing husband. I didn’t know it would come below the freeze line in Florida, of all places (what?! I’m a Wisconsin girl, this is WILD). I didn’t know that God would weave together our story so beautifully that we’d be building a home not just for us, but for animals, children, healing, laughter, late-night worship, and wildflower mornings.
And the moment that truly broke me?
Finding the pine tree forest in the back of our land.
That little grove did something to me.
Back in Wisconsin, our house had a pine forest behind it. My brother and I basically lived in it growing up, and he was my BEST FRIEND. We’d play cowboys and Indians, searching for raccoons, shooting our BB guns, building forts and memories, and maybe a few lifelong dreams, too.
When I stepped into that Florida pine forest… smelled the needles, heard the wind through the trees, felt the past rush in, I couldn’t hold it in. I wept.
Because somehow, that little girl’s world collided with the grown woman’s dream… all on this patch of dirt we now get to call home.
And now, the vision is unfolding.
Here’s what’s next:
➡️ The front of the property is getting fenced.
We’ve got BIG Texan posts coming in. Strong. Rooted. Rustic. They’ll hold the line between the road and the land we’re building a legacy on.
➡️ And the sign is going up.
Not temporary. Not written in chalk.
A full-on, custom-cut metal sign that reads THE HAMMIE RANCH.
It’ll be the first thing you see when you roll up. And trust me, the tears will flow again when it’s installed. Because we dreamed of this day, and now we get to drive through that gate like we belong here.
This isn’t the finish line. It’s the very first turn in the path. But it’s a moment worth remembering. One acre cleared. A prayer fulfilled. A forest that brought the past back to life. And a future that’s just beginning.
If you’re reading this and you’ve got a prayer buried in your heart, don’t give up. God is not late. He’s not gone silent. And he’s not going to waste a single detail of your story. I’m proof of that.
Thank you for believing in us. For dreaming with us. For standing in this miracle with muddy boots and hopeful hearts.
Let’s build a ranch.
—Maria
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