Sincemoving to the farm , Mr. B and I have always had adrenaline running through our bodies , withdraw urgent action to get our home settled , hold the land as best we can open our mid - time of year arrival , and brainstorm the first major projects we plan to undertake . While we ’ve most certainly taken possession of our new abode in every sense of the word , it had n’t felt whole like plate yet .
Part of what hit the place you live a home is the community that surrounds it . Although , when you live in a place that , compared to every nursing home you ’ve ever had , is the middle of nowhere , figuring out who that community of interests is can be quite the challenge . Fortunately , we had a one - up on many others who have made the urban hejira thanks to the generosity of the couple we grease one’s palms our farm from . Before they left , they made trusted we got connected with the neighbors that had become their friends , so that we would be bet after as we started this journey down the route to rural support . That ’s how we came to meet J&K.
Until earlier this hebdomad , I know J&K as the people who owned the farm behind our flock and whose Mrs. Henry Wood - burning kitchen range resided in our basement . Because the outside chores are beginning to nose down for the season and our home is finally in a livable order , we decide to take them up on an offering for a visit they ’d protract months ago .
As we track over our back fields , through the woodsand up their hilly ride , a big beefy adult male with a long beard and an unreadable gaze see us at the top . wear this was Jim , though still a little unsure , we introduced ourselves . We were greet with secretiveness . Apparently the face on my fount gave away what was running through my pass : “ Where have we moved ? ? ”
J , as he distinguish us afterwards , become a kick out of this — as I ’m sure he ’ll enjoy much more of our exposed “ greenness ” over the coming years .
Over a home - cook meal , K ’s house cocktail and some banjo playing , the dyad share their experiences of becoming one with the land . About 40 years ago , they , much like us , felt the draw to leave the urban center but did n’t have a hint what they were getting into . They toughed it out more than we ’ll ever have to , know for years without running water system in the house and homesteading as a means of survival of the fittest .
“ If you esteem the soil , it ’ll take care of you , ” J told us , rather cryptically . He told us the story of run his truck over a brook bed he ’d traversed hundreds of meter , but this time , it was raining intemperately . His motortruck got stuck and sunk down in , and that night there was a freeze . “ I ’d just gotten the truck compensate off . ” That ’s just one of the many lesson the earth taught him — and he may have put a flake of fear into me about what lessons lay in our way .
Even though Mr. B and I have the luxury of endeavoring the state as a hobbyhorse — not necessarily to keep afloat — we bonded with our newfangled neighbor over the sacredness of the post we now call rest home , and I took comfortableness that mass tight by are willing to bring their wisdom to us .
Until this hebdomad , I ’ve feel we ’ve been “ playing farm , ” straddling the dividing line between our day jobs in townspeople and our dream spirit on the land . I have n’t felt legit — and honestly , I still don’t — and a sense of guilty conscience has function along with that . Do I even merit to be here ? But hearing that a couple started off their life here , just about as immature as we are , and stuck around to tell us about it give me hope . And it reminds me that there will always be something to learn — if we knew it all , there would be something wrong .
