Only What We Are Moving Toward

As evidenced by Fin’s tee shirt, it’s below 20-degees. Otherwise, he’d be wearing no shirt at all.

One of the challenges I face relating to my writing here is how much of our lives to share. Truthfully, it’s not something I consciously think about a whole lot; I tend to let my intuition guide me, and while imperfect, it’s a process I’m learning to trust in more and more.

That said, I’ve put a lot of thought into exactly how to share the fact that we are transitioning our homestead to land a few miles north of here. I have thought of writing about this on numerous occasions over the last few months, but the simple truth of it is that I have not felt emotionally ready to do so, and it was necessary for me to come to my own terms with it before announcing it in such a public way.

Actually, in many ways, I still don’t feel ready, but I’ve also reached a point where to not write about it feels almost deceptive. I felt this most acutely when Heather asked me to talk about the future Fat of the Land Farm. I suppose my answer was technically honest – the farm comes with us, after all, as does its profound influence on our sense of place in this world – but I didn’t feel good about it. It seemed like a politician’s or CEO’s version of honesty, which is not the version of honesty I aspire to.

There are many reasons we are making this transition. Chief among them is our desire to evolve our homestead (and therefore, our lives) in a direction that feels even closer to the land. The property we will build on this summer has no infrastructure; it is primarily forested, with significant stands of hardwoods and a beautiful year-round stream, where already the boys have tracked a bear and scouted the prime brook trout holes. It is within walking distance of an 11,000-acre conserved wildlife management area. It is in a community of fewer than two hundred residents, though it is only a 10-minute drive to a larger town. There is a five or six acre apple orchard in need of restoration, and just enough pasture to support a couple of cows. Naturally, we will establish gardens and perennial plantings. Pigs. Chickens. And so on.

Part of this evolution is our plan to construct a much smaller, simpler house than we currently occupy. We are still tweaking our design, but it will be well under 1000 square feet. Our budget is fairly slim; by the time we’ve developed a spring (and oh you should have seen the jig I danced when I stumbled across that little burbling gem, uphill from the house site, no less!) and installed a septic system (as required by town zoning), we’ll have just shy of $30,000 to build our new home. We can do this only because we have sawn much of the lumber ourselves, along with sourcing used windows and doors. We are leaving enough room in our budget to hire a good friend to help us for (hopefully) enough time to ensure we’ll actually have a place to live come next winter. Otherwise… oh, wait: There can be no otherwise.

As anyone who has read this space for any length of time knows, we think and talk a lot about how best to shape our lives so that we can live in alignment with our deepest held beliefs. This process has led us to a place of seeking an even greater degree of simplicity and the peace held therein. It has also led us to our desire to facilitate the sharing of skills and simple human interaction via the creation of a gathering space for Lazy Mill Living Arts (stay tuned for a forthcoming workshop announcement – ash berry/foraging baskets!), something that would have been difficult to do on this land, given the particulars of its layout. As soon as the roof over our own heads is secure, we intend to break ground on a shop for LMLA. Because we have decided to forego an organized crowd-funding campaign, it may take some time to get the shop built. We are okay with that. We will make it happen, and we will still host workshops in the interim.

Penny and I were married on this land. Our children were born onto the living room floor of this house; if you were here now, I could show you the exact spots. Leaving it is nothing short of heart-breaking, and we have shed our weight in tears. This place is embedded in every aspect of our beings. And yet, in way I’m at pains to articulate, it also feels as if we are taking it with us. All the experiences, everything we’ve learned, the things we’ve seen and smelled and heard, our animals: They come with us. Even the relationships with our community here, abetted by the fact that the new land is not far from here. We can still come to Melvin’s barn at chore time. We can still hay with our friends. And so on.

Despite our heartbreak, we are acting with tremendous clarity and purpose. We are carrying all these things – the heartbreak, the clarity, the purpose, the excitement, the occasional middle-of-the-night panic attacks over all that must be done and how (relatively) little we have to do it with – in our hands, hearts, and minds. But we know this is right for us. We also know it won’t be easy. We wouldn’t want it to be.

And what, you ask, is happening to this property? I am happy to say that it is passing into the hands of friends, a process that has as yet been nothing short of pleasurable, with low key dinner table negotiations and our families coming together on weekends to cut and split firewood, ensuring that everyone’s stove will be well fed next winter. It is yet another piece of this puzzle that has clicked perfectly into place for us, almost as if it had been preordained. We look forward to seeing this property evolve under their care.

In truth, we could have stayed here and remained content. The funny thing is, the moment we realized that was the moment we realized we could actually do this. It was the moment we realized there is nothing we are running from; there is only what we are moving toward.

Thank you for reading and for your ongoing support.