30 Years! JR and I have discussed country living for 30 years. I say, discussed, because we have never actually lived in the country unless you count the trailer we lived in on the outskirts of Swansboro, NC soon after we were married. It had trees and an opossum.
We have dabbled in country things. We had rabbits, we have had gardens, we have planted many fruit trees, JR has had bees, I have composted our scraps and made bread from scratch. I have canned and made jelly, (not very well), and tried my hand at dehydrating and jerky, but we have always lived in the suburbs.
We first bought acreage shortly after 9-11 in 2001. 9-11 scared me, heck! it scared everyone. I wasn't going to possibly have something horrible happen without doing what I had always dreamed before I left this earth. We purchased 25 acres in a tiny town called Kirtley with every intention of someday moving there.
I loved it. It had a pond, a creek, mature pecan trees and even a cemetery with a few bodies from over 100 years ago. There wasn't a house, so we bought a porta-potty and the 5 of us, JR, me and our 3 daughters, slept in tents. JR rented a tractor a few times a year to keep everything mowed, but we had no country equipment of any kind. We started coming up with ideas of how we could make a living out there and make this dream of country living a reality. We visited cabin builders, drew plans, talked to a zillion different people about how they did it, but we made no firm decisions.
One of our brain storms was to manage a trailer park, but the Kirtley property wasn't set up for large campers or RVs being pulled in or out, so I started looking for other property online. 3 years after buying our place in Kirtley country, we came across acreage in Giddings. 22 acres of wooded land with all sorts of different trees: oaks, pines, cedars, persimmon, mesquite, chinaberry, etc. It had a 2 acre pond which was originally dug at 30 feet, a year round creek, a dry creek, and it was surrounded by farm land.
I dismissed it immediately because this property was way too heavily treed for an RV park and I didn't want to cut down a bunch of perfectly good trees for a bunch of campers. But JR was excited and would not stop going on about how perfect it was and how he could shoot out there and about all the water and trees it had and how it was so much prettier than our land in Kirtley.
I was mad. I was furious, actually. We were moving to Kirtley. All my dreams revolved around Kirtley and building a home and the placement of everything I might ever want out there. So I pouted, but Giddings had a nicer piece of property, so I grudgingly went along with putting the Kirtley property up for sale and starting the process of buying the acreage in Giddings.
One day while out in Kirtley, a woman, who was a professor in Houston, drove up with her 2 dogs and said she was interested in purchasing the property. I sat on our picnic table glaring at her while JR took her on a tour to all the prettier spots. She bought it. She bought it and built a tiny weekend home on it with a fenced area for her dogs. I know this because anytime we are around the area, I always make JR drive down the road, so I can see it. It was up for sale again the last time we drove past.
We bought the property in Kirtley with money I made from babysitting. It was the first important thing I had actively contributed to financially in our marriage besides small things here and there. I would make triple payments each month in the hopes of paying it off quickly, so we could move out there someday. It was everything I thought about. Even though we were moving up in beauty and quality of land in Giddings, it crushed me the day we sold the 25 acres in Kirtley. Giddings was the right decision, don't get me wrong, but it still hurt.
11 years ago in 2004 we became owners of 22 acres in Giddings. We tent camped for awhile and then purchased a used camper from friends, which we used for years and years until it was a leaky mess. We had discussed building a cabin, had gone to the model homes and filled out the paperwork, drew up plans, dreamed, but money and fear of being strapped stood in the way. This was until I lost my Mother, then my Aunt to pancreatic cancer and realized life is way too short.
You never know what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day and to live in fear of the unknown isn't how you should spend your time on earth. This is not to say you should go barreling in without using your head. There is a way to do things while still being cautious.
We went to a cedar cabin builder, the same one that we had been to 11 years earlier, and drew up plans for a small 2 bedroom, 2 bath cabin. We changed the direction of doors, put in closets, added outlets and a screened in porch, changed the outside walls to hardiplank, added spigots and lighting among other things. We created our dream on paper, then balked. Could we afford this? Could we afford 2 electric bills, 2 water bills, 2 mortgages, 2 of everything?
We looked at our finances and agreed to buckle down, pay some things off and try to reduce extra spending. We talked and talked and talked. We were in a good place financially. JR's income easily took care of all our basic needs and Kimbre's college living expenses. The money I made from babysitting was mostly used for anything extra we wanted to do, buy, or emergencies that cropped up. I saved a lot.
In February of 2014, we signed the papers with Rustic Cedar Cabins with a tentative plan for them to start building in April.
In March, my sister Nancy was visiting from Wisconsin and our sister Brenda and I all went to Round Top Market Days where there are miles and miles of crafts, antiques, food, drinks and booths with everything under the sun. Kimbre and Josh, her boyfriend, met us there and the plan was to go back to a hotel for the evening. We got the idea to go to our place in Giddings and have a campfire, along with some drinks and fire dancing, ie; Sound of Music.
When we drove up, there was a frame of a cabin sitting in the middle of our clearing. I was screaming unintelligible comments for a good hour. I can't express the feelings of uninhibited joy I felt, I just can't and even now, it brings tears to my eyes. It was one of the happiest moments of my life besides the birth of my 3 girls. My dream was happening.
In June, after months of watching each step of the process every weekend, our cabin was completed. It was red, with white trim, a cedar porch with huge cedar beams, a metal roof and exactly what we wanted.
We started the process of filling it. We brought every piece of furniture that meant something up there and then some. My Mom's desk; My Great Grandma's chair; the mahogany dish cabinet which was the very first piece I ever refinished; an antique barrister book case I had gotten for $5 at the thrift store and had refinished; my complete set of L L Bean dishes we had stored in the attic just in case; my black and white picture given to me by my friend Kris of a milkman and a little boy; a wooden shelf made by my Grandpa; a chest given to me by Grandma; my antique bottle collection; and odds and ends I had collected of other older kitchen pieces. I filled the cabin with everything I loved and that meant something to me.
We also bought a lot. A TV, a stereo system, a Blu ray player, chairs for the porch, 2 overpriced hose reels, lamps for the bedroom wall, hooks for the walls, fireplace doors, rugs, bar chairs, dishwasher, microwave, stove, refrigerator, stuff.
We went almost every weekend for a long, long time and we loved it. We still do. We love it so much, after a year of going there, we want to live there and downsize from a 2000 sq ft home to an 880 sq ft home with 2 covered porches with the intent of building a workshop. The workshop will include a garage; a workout room; a large storage area for holiday decorations,
canning jars, memory boxes, and everything we just have to have that
won't fit neatly in the cabin and a large office for JR fitted with a couch, TV and his reloading bench.
Extreme downsizing is something I have always pondered, yearned for, really. Living with the necessities and some niceties, but living more and having less. Having much less.
And this is where I will close for today.
