Exodus

Maybe we’re hiding in the country because we’re a little city shell-shocked. Maybe we’re hunkering down in our farmhouse and have had so much exposure to people and places and things in the last few years that we’re just lying low and recovering. Maybe our experiment in mini-homesteading is a retreat like taking a cool shower after being out in the hot sun all day...

But sometimes we need to lie low. And slow down. And retreat.

For now, our days go a little something like this: We get up and do our outside work early in the morning before it’s too hot. The boys help until they get too hot and tired, then they hop in the kiddie pool and splash around until I get too hot and tired then we all go inside for lunch and naps. We work inside until it cools down and then we go back out and finish outside work.

Outside work has, thus far, consisted mainly of yard and garden chores. Corey built raised beds and a compost bin for a little Fall kitchen garden. We’ve tried to plant only what we anticipate being able to eat, share, or preserve. I’m actually pretty excited about canning. I’d never done it before, but the experiments in pear butter and watermelon rind pickles have gone well.

(The beans wanna grow)

We are looking for, “real jobs.” Though we would both be happy to be homesteaders and small farmers or craftspeople, that’s not a sustainable option for us at the moment. At some point the pear butter is going to run out.

Then there’s the problem of friends. Well, I should say lack thereof. We’re about 45 minutes from our former hometown which seems like quite a drive for most of our friends. In regard to travel time, most of our NY friends were 45 minutes away, but it didn’t seem like such a big deal. We didn’t have as many friends as when we had the house in downtown C-ville, but we did have friends. That’s why “Friends” tops my list of things that I miss about NY. If I were to make a list, it might look something like this:

Friends
Wind
Food (the Piggly Wiggly does not carry ginger root)
Proximity to the beach (even if I only went one or two days in a year)
Walkability/Sidewalks and Crosswalks

We have visited a couple of nice churches in our area. I am sure when we get settled and find a Sunday School class we like and get some of those, “real jobs,” that the friends will come along with. Acquiring weird grocery items will take a bit more doing.