It is challenging to pinpoint the exact moment when the trajectory of our lives changed. But there’s no mistaking that we are now on a wildly different course – a family of four, two months into a homesteading and farming adventure that only three years ago seemed a fanciful dream.
That is where the story of this begins.
I worked in technology for a bank while my wife worked retail for a drugstore chain. We worked hard to afford our decent home in an equally decent neighborhood. The schools were great, and our two children could play outside without worry.
But we also lived the same imbalanced life many Americans find familiar. We carried a long-term mortgage along with other debt, student loans, credit cards and car payments. We worked full-time jobs with opposite shifts that limited our family time together. Even then, we faced perpetual job insecurity, never knowing when the latest cost-saving analysis would lead to unemployment.
Over time, the suppressed, but persistent stress of uncertainty began to affect our marriage. We internalized our pressures and avoided arduous conversations about our status quo until they erupted into arguments and blame.
In fairness, we also recognize that we had a truly blessed life. We were dedicated to our family and relished the time we spent together. We looked forward to mini-vacations, trips to the beach, birthday parties, Christmas mornings and events at school. We had the advantages that so many others aspire to.
With that in mind, we were willing to carry the burden of stress as long as we were certain that we were providing the best possible lives for our children.
As parents we often hear and repeat the refrain “I want my kids to have a better life than I had.” Rarely do we take the time to understand what that means.
Does “a better life” mean work harder, earn less, consume more, waste, and repeat? Is the measure of success a number? Is quantity better than quality? We were essentially teaching this by example and we did not want our children to become cogs in a broken machine.
Again, I don’t know exactly when the conversation changed. At first the topics were broad, mostly touching on questions and goals. Are we setting a good example? Are we contributing to a larger societal malady? If we could craft a perfect life, what would it look like? Let’s work and spend less. Let’s reduce our consumption and materialism. Let’s look for quality of experience. Let’s involve ourselves and help others where we can. Most importantly, let’s give our children the ability to honestly self-realize.
With time, the conversation began to coalesce around the “how.” How do we get from where we are, to where we want to be? We began to involve our daughter Eva in the conversation and process. She has an amazing sensitivity and awareness so that it was natural for her to contribute to the discussion.
We were also beginning to realize that we were not the first family to have a similar crisis of identity. We were fortunate to discover the modern homesteading movement through YouTube and blogs, and gained perspective from other families’ testimonials. I cannot stress how much comfort and confidence we gained from learning about the experience of others.
Our big “a-ha” moment was when we discovered “Permaculture.” For those not familiar, permaculture is an agricultural system of sustainable living that draws on many disciplines. It has been around since the 1970s, but has been in practice for centuries, in parts or whole, and under different names or nameless, by virtually every culture in the world.
I would suppose that permaculture at it’s core is the idea that humans should live in symbiosis with the whole of nature.
Most importantly for us, it was a methodology that we could specifically enact for positive change within our family and, in a broader sense through action and example, for society.
We knew we wanted a way of living that was healthier, sustainable, grounded in less materialism, and with a more direct connection to land and community. Our hope as parents was to teach our children a simpler, intimate way of living that was aware of our impact to nature, society and culture.
But like all romantic ideas, the barriers to this end seemed so insurmountable that the doubts were almost as large as the dream. Almost.
The fact that we lived in South Florida was a substantial issue. South Florida is a compressed area, squeezed by the massive Everglades on one side, and the ocean on the other. Population growth had driven up real estate prices, and once commonplace agricultural land yielded to extensive development. Even if we wanted to live a simpler lifestyle, South Florida, it seemed, was not the place. We needed to set our sights elsewhere.
When I first met my wife a decade ago, she had plans of moving to Georgia with her best friend, Nicole. Those plans gave way to our upstart family, and Nicole moved her family to Georgia on her own.
In 2014 we visited her in Georgia. We had the definite intention of seeing if it was the place to realize our ideas. We visited a farm north of Atlanta, stayed in a mountain cabin in Blairsville and visited the small Bavarian-inspired town of Helen. On our return trip, we took an out-of-the-way detour to Athens to take in the city and all of the surrounding farmland. We were inspired and in love!
On our return, we started putting together a plan. We shared our intentions with our families. We searched for properties and worked on a budget. We learned as much as we could from books and videos about permaculture, farming, sustainable living and homesteading. We spent countless hours talking about and designing the kind of lifestyle we envisioned. We started gardens, and began eating better. We curtailed our spending and saved every penny we could.
Before long, almost two years had passed. We had prepared ourselves, and understood the benefits and trade-offs of a new way of life as best we could, but we could not take that first or final step. It is not easy to leave all you have ever known, to step into the unknown. Sometimes all you can do is stand at the door and wait.
The door opened in May 2016. My employer announced that my technology department would be outsourced. They gave us a six-month lead time, and offered a severance package. While most of my co-workers were upended by the news, and rightfully so, I distinctly remember driving home thinking it was the best news I had ever heard.
I had been renovating our house for some time, but really stepped it up in those final six months. We saved our money, sold off, gifted and donated as much of our material belongings as we could stand. And while the previous two years had seemed to move slowly, the next 12 months flew by. Time moves slowly, until it doesn’t.
By the time of my layoff date on November 1, our house was up for sale. Within two weeks, it was under contract and on January 20th, 2017, we closed on the sale. We said our good-byes to family and friends and hit the road two days later, with two kids, a dog, two cars and a trailer. A month and a half, and many miles and hours later, we found our perfect seven-acre property, nestled in northwest Georgia in the Cumberland plateau. On March 20th, 2017, we signed the final closing documents and it was officially real – we had our family homestead!
Ahead of us, the real adventure begins.
