The Decision

Even though this homesteading lifestyle is something I desired, alas, I had to talk with my Mountain Man (my name for my dear husband although I sometimes affectionately call him Crusty as well) and see if this was something he would be interested in. He had spoken frequently and often of his dislike for the urban lifestyle, therefore, I wasn't too surprised when he grabbed the idea with both hands and was off scouting the internet for property forthwith.

While the decision was an easy one to make, putting it into action is not so simple. There is so much to think about and consider! Where is the best place to purchase property? How much property do we need? How much will it cost?

We soon found that purchasing property was not going to be easy.  Oh... It's easy enough if you have a lot of money in the bank, but we didn't, and I dare say most people who are considering this type of lifestyle don't either. There was no possibility of buying anything where we currently lived. Although the land was beautiful and rich, it was also very expensive. The climate while mild also had created problems.  The winters were so grey and it rained continually.  We would both go into a deep funk sometime in November which lasted until spring.  This ended up making our decision much easier, as we knew it was necessary for us to move to a sunnier, albeit colder, climate. The bonus was that land in those colder climates was a LOT more affordable. We are probably two of only a handful of people who actually desired to move from a temperate climate to a cold one. But moving also included leaving our jobs...  How would we survive?

We researched, we hunted for property, we talked to everyone we could think of.  In the end we purchased 2 quarters of land in the heart of the prairies. 320 acres!  Purchased sight unseen, (not even a picture!) with only the word of the Real-estate agent that it was exactly what we were looking for. The plan had been to purchase the land and then keep working until we had enough set aside to move there. It's funny how plans change. It wasn't long before all we could talk about was what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it. We had such grand ideas! 

And so, not too many months later, I found myself rattling down the road in a small caravan; a car, a truck, a utility trailer, every earthly belonging that I hadn't been able to part with and all the tools we thought we might need.  The funny thing is, for all our hours and hours of talking and decision making we really didn't have a concrete plan.  We were, for lack of a better word, “greenhorns”.  We had so many ideas; we had done so much research. But for all that, we had little to no experience.  Of course I had grown up in this type of lifestyle but that was many, many years ago. We just knew that we were going to do this no matter what it took and somehow, someway we would make it work.

If you have enjoyed reading the start of our journey, please feel free to share it with others.  While I am not by any means an expert, my plan is to eventually have most every resource necessary to this type of lifestyle available on this page for others who may be researching or desiring to learn more.