Missouri « Robin Writes

So we made the big move out to the middle of nowhere. Okay, there’s a “town” of about 200 or so within a few miles, and another of 5000 about 15 miles away. But here in the middle of our 35 acres, it sure SEEMS like that!

The moving went, well, like moving goes: long and exhausting. Even though we did move a lot of stuff over the last few months, the final push still meant finding space for everything in the house.

Turns out, I’m very thankful for the dungeon. Er, lean-to. Once we cleaned it out and started tiling the floor, it looks much better, enough so that I can store some things down there. Like extra liquor. Not sure how we accumulated all that…

Now that I’m mostly unpacked, I can tell you that moving to a homestead isn’t all about a gorgeous sunrise on the deck with your coffee, and hiking through the woods soaking up the warm weather. Or planning a garden, or measuring for your pasture fence.

Well, okay, it is, but likely while you’re gulping down coffee you’re also keeping an eagle eye on the dog so an, um, eagle or something doesn’t swoop down and grab her. And then you’re dodging boxes while trying to decide where to put what. And find stuff.

You know you have to get seeds started, and the garden plowed, and the pasture seeded—you’ve already scheduled that for Tuesday, based on the forecast, but who knows?

And then you realize that your office will actually be able to be worked in if you just stop for a moment and put together that new file cabinet you bought.

This includes an eight-pound bag of “hardware” and a part labelled C4. You realize what that part’s for when you open the directions book—not booklet, book—and decide maybe you’ll just leave your mess on the living room floor and go into the office, file cabinet be damned.

After going over your to-do list, all 124 items, you decide to just tool around on Amazon for a while…

It’ll still be nice out tomorrow, right?

See, that’s the thing—you just don’t know what tomorrow will bring. It could be snow—God forbid—or a storm or too much wind for seeding. Maybe you pull a muscle today and can barely walk tomorrow. On a homestead or farm, things need to be done NOW. You can’t just tell yourself that you’ll “do it later,” you don’t get to take breaks all day long whenever the urge strikes.

Alright, you can cut yourself a little slack, especially at first, because sometimes you’ll wonder when you’re ever going to have time for fun stuff.

You DO need to make time for all that, to do things you enjoy. But you better enjoy the farming or homestead life, or you won’t last long. Me, I can’t wait to start planting, but it’s also (near) the first of the month and the end of the first quarter, so I have work to do. The point is that it’s the PLANTING that I like to do—among other things.

Entertainment, too, can come unexpectedly. For instance, I’ll sure enough be entertained when my husband gets back from the barn and sees the mess of file cabinet pieces I left there…

So for the past year I’ve been regaling you with home improvement tales, farm improvement tales, and the horrors of yet another move. Okay, so this one has been fine, just long and drawn out.

Not like the move from Texas to Missouri, say, that took two full days for a normally ten-hour trip . . .

Starting next week, we’ll be fulltime farmers.

Just a few projects lined up:

Seeding the pasture;

Tilling up the garden, about four times the size of last year;

Fencing both of these;

Planting the garden;

Completing the perimeter fencing.

And of course, all the unpacking after the final push. Which is in five days.

Phht. This is nothing. Our second move was discovered at lunch one day, and our deadline for arrival was in two weeks. That was over 1000 miles. Two young kids and I was expecting #3. The third move was shorter, just a couple hours or so away, but with all three kids and living in hotels for five weeks—while my husband worked nights.

As moves go, this one is almost finished. Probably 80% done, but of course not including shutting off utilities and changing addresses all over the place, etc., etc.

See, the kid has an apartment starting the end of the week, and while I’m okay with staying here a couple more weeks or so, it occurred to me that I will have no place to sit in the living room and a lot of my kitchen utensils and dishes will be going with him.

Hmmm. May as well move, right?

Of course, we’ll be making trips back to STL; it’s only about 100 miles. You know, for important things like the kid’s graduation . . . 😉