Baby cows and buttercups

We took the sign down.

Not just any sign, but the one that read Painted Peak, a name with its own stories, its own ghosts, its own time. We pulled it down with reverence, like folding away the last quilt of an old season. In its place, we raised something new — a simple promise written in bold letters: Wayfarer. Coming Soon. Just those words. No noise. Just hope.

Inside, sawdust curls like cinnamon on the air. The bar’s being created from wood that feels like it has stories of its own — thick, weathered, warm-toned planks that came home with us last night like strays we couldn’t leave behind. Rob and Geroge are working through the third draft of the menu, and let me just say, it’s shaping up to be as Appalachian as it is elevated.

But what’s got my heart these days isn’t just what’s changing. It’s what hasn’t.

I step through the back of house, and there it is again. That wide open window that frames the world just right. A painting that shifts by the hour. Right now, it’s buttercups. A whole golden field of them, swaying like they know secrets. And in the middle of all that honey-colored bloom? Cows. Mama cows with their babies, legs still unsure and eyes too wide for this world. They don’t know about construction dust or budgets or liquor licenses. They just lay there in the flowers, full of milk and morning sun, like God painted them into the moment for no reason other than beauty.

I call it living art.

Sometimes, in the noise and the doing, I forget to just stand still and look. But those cows won’t let me forget. They remind me why we’re doing this. Why Wayfarer matters. Because there’s still wonder out here. There’s still rhythm. There’s still joy if you let it catch you.

So yes, the sign has changed. The wood is stacked. The menu’s finding its voice. But the soul of this place? It’s already humming. And outside, under a sky so wide it makes you ache, baby cows sleep in fields of buttercups.

And I reckon that’s a good enough reason to keep going.