From May 19th to May 26th, I spent seven days at The Budlong Farm in Titonka, Iowa.
I went there to be with my best friend, Susan, after the passing of her father, Don Budlong. I went because love calls you to certain places. Because when someone you love is carrying grief, you show up if you can. Because sometimes friendship asks you to get on a plane, drive down country roads, sleep in an old farmhouse, plant flowers, cry by a pond, and simply be present.
What I didn’t expect was that the farm would become a healing place for me, too.
The Budlong Farm is 320 acres of Iowa land, history, memory, and magic. But to simply call it “a farm” feels too small. It is a living, breathing place. A place where love has been planted into the soil for generations. A place where you can feel the hands, hearts, and devotion of the people who cared for it.
The house is over 100 years old, and you can feel that, too. Not in a dusty or forgotten way, but in the way a home holds stories. The floors, the rooms, the windows, the deck, the walls — all of it feels like it has witnessed real life. Family life. Farm life. Seasons of joy and hardship. Meals and milestones. Ordinary mornings and sacred goodbyes.
And woven through it all is Trudy Budlong.
Trudy, Don’s wife and Susan’s mother, cared for that house with such devotion. You can feel her in the details. The tenderness. The way the home still holds itself with grace. There is something deeply sacred about a woman who tends a home so fully that her love remains in the walls. Not as decoration, but as frequency.
That is what I felt there.
A frequency.
A steadiness.
A kind of grounded love that I don’t think can be manufactured. It has to be lived into a place over time.
During my week at the farm, I walked everywhere I could. Across the yard. Down the roads. Around the property. Into the trees. Into the wind. Into the wide open sky.
There is something about Iowa country roads that feels endless in the best possible way. They stretch out before you like an invitation. The town of Titonka is tiny and historic, the kind of place where time seems to slow down just enough for your nervous system to remember how to breathe.
And I did breathe there.
More deeply than I have in a long time.
I slept better than I have in years.
I planted flowers. I attempted to cut the grass, which was humbling and probably entertaining to anyone watching. I became an expert at burning tree stumps with diesel fuel, hence my new title: The Stump Mistress. I rode in the Polaris, taking in the land from a new perspective. I painted a mirror to hang in Susan’s powder room remodel, a small contribution to the next chapter of a very old and very loved home.
And every night, Susan and I sat by the pond.
The pond that Don created.
That pond became the altar of the week.
We sat there laughing and crying, telling stories, remembering, processing, honoring, and feeling Don’s presence all around us. There are some places where the veil feels thin, not in a dramatic way, but in a deeply comforting one. Like love has not left. Like the soul of a person is still woven into the land, the trees, the water, the wind.
That is how Don felt at the pond.
Present.
Peaceful.
Proud.
I did not know Don the way Susan knew Don, of course. Having met him a handful of times, he left a lasting impression nonetheless. But I felt him there. I felt the imprint of his life. His devotion. His vision. His care for the land. The way his presence seemed to move through the farm not as something gone, but as something that had become part of everything.
The pond. The fields. The buildings. His art. OMG the art!!
And then there were the neighbors.
Don’s friends.
The people who showed up, checked in, told stories, offered help, and quietly made it clear that Susan is not alone. I am now calling them her guardian angels, because that is exactly what they felt like. Earth angels in overalls and work boots. The kind of people who don’t need to make a big speech about love because they live it through action.
They are part of the farm’s magic, too.
The community. The care. The way people look after each other. The way grief is not carried by one person alone, but held by many hands.
There is a sacredness in that.
A reminder that healing does not always arrive as a lightning bolt. Sometimes it arrives as a neighbor pulling into the driveway. As a shared laugh. As someone knowing what needs to be done before you even ask. As a best friend sitting next to you by a pond at sunset.
For me, Budlong Farm became a place of grounding.
Not the kind of grounding we talk about casually, but the real kind. The kind where your body starts to soften because the earth beneath you feels strong enough to hold what you have been carrying. The kind where the land itself seems to say, “You can set it down here for a while.”
And I did.
I felt held by that farm.
I felt like I had stepped into something much bigger than myself — a lineage, a story, a rhythm, a way of life that has been tended with care. I felt the sacredness of land that has been loved. I felt the power of home as a living energy field. I felt the beauty of friendship, grief, memory, and renewal all existing together.
Because healing is not always something that happens in a session, a meditation, or a ritual. Sometimes healing happens when you are walking across 320 acres of land that has absorbed decades of devotion. Sometimes it happens when you place your hands in the soil and plant flowers. Sometimes it happens when you sit near water that someone lovingly created and you realize that love does not disappear. It changes form.
Don’s love is still there.
Trudy’s love is still there.
Susan’s love is there now, too, as she steps into her role as caretaker of this historic farm and begins creating its next chapter.
And what a sacred role that is.
To care for a place is no small thing. To update a historic farm while honoring its soul is a spiritual assignment. It asks for vision, tenderness, courage, and deep listening. It asks you to know what to preserve, what to restore, what to release, and what to bring forward.
That is exactly what Susan is doing.
She is not just taking care of a farm.
She is tending a legacy.
She is honoring her parents.
She is listening to the land.
She is creating an updated version of something already deeply sacred.
And I feel so grateful that I got to witness even one small piece of that unfolding.
I will not be able to attend Don’s celebration of life this July, and that breaks my heart. But I know this: I had my own private celebration of his life while I was there. Every walk across the farm, every evening at the pond, every story shared, every tear, every laugh, every moment of quiet gratitude was its own kind of tribute.
A tribute to Don.
A tribute to Trudy.
A tribute to Susan.
A tribute to the land.
A tribute to the kind of love that becomes part of a place.
The Budlong Farm is pure magic.
Not because it is perfect.
Because it is alive.
Alive with memory. Alive with history. Alive with grief and laughter. Alive with devotion. Alive with the unseen threads that connect the people who came before, the people who remain, and the people who are lucky enough to be welcomed there.
I left the farm changed.
More grounded.
More grateful.
More aware of how sacred land can be when it has been loved well.
And more certain than ever that some places are not just places.
They are portals.
They are healers.
They are keepers of memory.
They are reminders that love, when tended over time, becomes a field you can walk through.
And for seven unforgettable days in May, I got to walk through that love.
I will carry it with me always.