It’s A State of Mind

Beautiful autumn colors

Here I sit after having an epiphany. Something so simple, but to me, something so profound. You see, I have come to terms with realizing that I’ve had almost everything I’ve ever wanted at my fingertips.

You see, I grew up in a tiny town surrounded by mountains. It was not my favorite place by a long shot. There was no sunrise or sunset and the neighbors were way to close for my taste. On weekends and summer, I’d go to my grandparent’s farm and stay. I was a country girl, through and through. The farm was my love, my sanctuary. I spent almost all my time outside, with the animals, in the fields, and in the woods. Those were the times of happiness throughout my childhood.

When I grew up, I wanted a farm. More than anything in the world, I wanted a place in the country. Farm loans were not possible, since I really didn’t grow up on a farm, nor did my husband, so the bank wasn’t interested in lending us a dime. We’d try to save and every time raise time came around, the prices around us went up, too.

Long story short, no homestead. No dream would come true. No fulfillment – and some underlying sadness/depression. Then hubby got hurt – and definitely, definitely in no shape or form would we get any type of country place to retire on. End of story.

So, where is the epiphany? It hit me one day that I can do all the things I wanted to do, except raise livestock and have no close neighbors. Do I really need livestock? NO! Do I really need no neighbors? NO! We have almost an acre of land and can do quite a bit with that little bit of land.

New raised beds being installed.

At our age, we went the raised bed route for gardening. This makes things more manageable and I’m less likely to grow a garden that is too big to take care of. There’s only 2 of us now, so putting away food is not the chore it used to be. Hubby made me some new frames out of cement. He cast them himself and the first 2 were installed this fall. They are beautifully made and look so much better than the wood frames behind them. He’s done a total of 4, but the last two many not make it in before the winter weather sets in. I now have garlic planted in the one pictured.

Relaxing by a the fire with family

We have a nice little area where we can have a fire. Our property is surrounded totally on 2 sides by trees in an “L” shape, so at the corner, we have a very nice and private area where we have a relaxing area with a fire ring. Every time family and friends visit, we seem to gravitate to that area. Everyone seems to love sitting around the fire and there have been many late nights and stories told. We are blessed to have such a lovely area to call our own.

Contentment

We used to have chickens years ago. We originally had them for eggs and meat but our daughter decided to name them all and turn them into pets. Well, at least we had lots of eggs! I guess you could say we still had lots of “livestock”. The kids had rabbits, hamsters, cats and a dog. We still have 2 cats. My daughter had to leave her cat behind. She moved to the other coast and her cat was too old to travel that far. It was a hard decision for her, but was the right one. Her cat is almost 19. The other cat decided to adopt us. He was haunting our compost pile and I thought he was just the neighbor’s cat. He wandered down to the house and has been here ever since. I tried to find his owner, had him scanned for a chip and posted everywhere, but no one claimed him. He’s now part of our family.

My conclusion – It’s all a state of mind. One can be content anywhere as long as they decide to be. I’ve marked most things of my bucket list – things that I wanted to learn to do one the homestead. I still can’t go out and wildcraft on my own place, but I can do almost everything else. Life is what we make it, and I finally chose to find contentment and happiness here. I wasted a lot of time living for a dream instead of living in the moment.