Life in the country. . . Part 1

Okay so I’m just gonna be real with you.  Life in the country. . . As we began looking for our new ‘acreage’ every other person I told about our plan would say to me “that’s what we want to do! We want to get an acreage just outside of town!”  Now if that’s you please hear me- if that’s truly your dream then please! go for it!  I’m sure you know what you want!  But there are so many blogs that we all follow that make life in the country look like this perfect little slice of heaven on earth.  They post recipes straight from their home grown gardens, artful pictures of children and animals and warm coffee cups and devotionals by the wood burning hearth.  (if I do any or all of this in the future just refer back to this post and you will be able to read between the lines ;P ) But one thing it’s not, is glamorous.  Mike and I knew there’s a lot more behind this life on the farm thing.  We constantly had the same conversation over and over about how we had NO idea what we were really in for.  We knew it would be a lot of work but decided that it was going to be an adventure. OUR adventure.  And that come what may. . . .we wanted it.  And here we are.  And we still do.  Thankfully after all the hard knocks so far it IS our little slice of heaven.

But just in case any of you want to hear what it’s like out here so far, I’m going to share our experiences to date.

Let’s start with what you’re suddenly going to need once you get some space to maintain. We have 22 acres of land.  I’m not sure how many of those acres we mow but not much of it.  Mike was really insistent that we NOT get a place with a “golf course” for a lawn. We saw several places like that before we found our home.  We have some untouched pasture, about 2 hours worth of lawn to mow, and the rest we have baled once a year by a neighbor of ours .  So a riding lawn mower is a must.  THANKFULLY  we have a very generous father in law who is lending us one of his.  Those things cost quite a bit of change. In the winter we will need a way to remove snow.  We don’t have that yet so we are saving up and looking into our options.  What this place really needs is a great big tractor. (And DON’T run your lawn mower over anything that you’re not supposed to run it over.  Repair costs are not a fun surprise.)

Then there are the weeds.  The first time Mike went to use his weed eater he came back in the house shaking his head and said “Well this thing was great for my suburban home weeds but country weeds are no joke.  Guess I’m going to go buy a gas powered weed eater”  $$$  We also needed a wheel barrel, buckets, 3 kinds of shovels and a garden rake.  4 containers of what I refer to as spider killer spray, mouse traps, basement crack sealant, and a live trap for whatever else ends up terrorizing our property. We had to buy a giant ladder and thankfully this place came with a shop/garage to store all of these things. Oh yeah and a truck!  We had to buy a 4 wheel drive vehicle.  So there’s that.  Also our driveway is gravel and it’s mostly washed out so we need to acquire a bunch and spread it around.  Who wants to spend money on gravel?

Did you know that people in the country burn their trash?  Yup.  Seriously.  If you woke up tomorrow and had to suddenly burn all your trash what would you do?  Where would you do it?  Well see you would need a giant hole in the ground to do it.  Like a massive pit.  This is not something you can do with a strong back and a shovel.  Our burn pit happens to be about full.  The previous owners (bless their hearts) threw away a TON of stuff when they were clearing things out.  So now we need a new one.  Last time I checked we don’t have a skid loader or anything that would dig a hole that big.  We also don’t have the ability to haul one here if we rented it so that leaves 2 options.  1.  Pay a TON of money to rent one and have it delivered to the middle of nowhere. 2.  Find a generous neighbor that is willing to trust us and lend or rent it to us.

There is ALWAYS something that needs doing.  I happen to enjoy this for the time being.  I’ve really been loving our little homestead chores and getting the kiddos involved too.  Funny thing about working hard is you end up having more energy all around.  I find myself planning my weeks around the forecast. Yesterday was laundry and house cleaning day and today was mowing and trimming and weed pulling day.

Here are a few other things we are experiencing after moving out here.  I’ve always been into fashion, and hair, and makeup and I enjoy those things.  Here on the homestead this is not a part of real life anymore. Pretty much every day I’m rocking a pair of shorts and a sleeveless t shirt with my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head and no makeup on. I will sometimes go a week straight this way. I take twice as many showers and wash my laundry twice as often as I used to.  Farm chores are dirty. I saw my hair today and remember I got it colored a few weeks ago.  I’m like “Oh that looks pretty cool! I forgot I had that done!” But I’m loving the new freedom I have in not making this a focus.  My husband is the absolute best mirror in the world and I’ve found my self image has gone up quite a bit as a result. (I know , I got sappy for a minute didn’t I)

Country neighbors. When I lived in the suburbs we NEVER interacted with our neighbors.  I rarely had anyone just stop by the house.  Now that we are in the country we have random people stop by the house all the time and I completely welcome this.  I know several of our new neighbors and have interacted with them more in the 4 months we have been here then the 9 years we lived in my old neighborhood.  People out here are kind and generous. It’s so refreshing.

Eggs from a neighbor

More later, I’ve got stuff to do 😉