Vagrancy, motherhood, and buying land
Although
backpacking gave me a glimpse of simplicity, I didn't have any
money to buy a farm, so I instead spent the next few years wandering
around in other peoples' woods. Every year, I moved to a new
property
where I identified the plants and animals and told the owners what they
were doing right or wrong. Some of my hosts turned out to be my
best
friends, and I got all of my maternal urges out of my system by helping
with one set of kids who I still adore (even though they're all
grown up now!)
In 2003, I finally
achieved the goal I'd been saving for and dreaming of for so long --- I
bought 58 acres of swamp and hillside about an hour from the farm I
grew up on. With no experience under my belt, I took my father's
advice and decided to build a little house by hand, first tearing down
the old house on the property to get some supplies.
Crowbarring on
winter days, I came down with carpal tunnel and ended up dropping that
dream for the time being.
| This post is part of our Decade in Review series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Sometimes I dream of throwing on a pack and wandering for a while. Even better would be throwing a tent and bag in a plane and wandering from small airport to airport for me. That would kill two birds with one stone... My new years resolutions have me getting a few steps closer to the dream.
I have mixed feelings about being in my mid-thirties and no kids. Part of me still has the urge to have kids. One thing's for sure, my mother sure wishes she was a grandmother! She's resorted to inquiring about all her neighbor's daughters!
"Backpacking" by personal plane sounds awesome.
I think that far too many people default to having kids just because that's what their parents did.
Honestly, I think that only about 1 in 10 people are really cut out for parenthood, meaning that they want to commit all that time and energy (and money!) to raising kids right. I feel profoundly lucky that Mark doesn't want to be a father any more than I want to be a mother. There's so much you can do to spend meaningful time with young people without committing to parenthood!