Before we bought our properties here, we did a lot of research. My husband’s was more practical: job, cost-of-living, and how many bugs we’d have to deal with. Me though, I ran out and got Carla Emory’s Encyclopedia of Country Living and sat down with a glass of wine and dug in. I also started to read every country-ish blog I could find to get a feel for the variance of approaches and lifestyles. It was a quick education but not at all firsthand.

Based on all that, I had envisioned me waking up, throwing on my warm sweater so I could go drink coffee on the porch while watching the squirrels run around in the light rain and planning dinner based on what I could harvest from the gardens that day. I figured after I fed the goats or chickens (or both), I’d get my work done, complete my house chores, then spend some time listening to the radio while putting up jar after jar of preserves from figs grown on my trees. Then I’d settle in at my sewing machine to finish a quilt, trim the grapevines for the next batch of Muscadine wine, and check the seeds drying for my Heirloom plants. Somewhere in there, I’d take a walk around the yard and pick a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for the dining table and get a batch of bread dough rising. A friend, or two, would drop in for another pot of coffee and I’d send them home with a dozen of my cupcakes and I’d be invited over to a craft session where someone would show me how to make biscuits or real fried chicken. I’d spend time in the yard, playing with the kids and dogs, and taking a hike to check out the surrounding nature. After dinner and homework, the husband and I would head out to the porch to discuss the day, homemade wine in hand. We’d listen to the wind through the trees, then enjoy the thunderstorm that comes in, lighting up the sky with bright yellow flashes that illuminate the bunnies trying to hide from the rain. I’d remember I needed to get some jewelry made for a friend’s birthday, and we’d talk about the family gathering we were attending on Sunday after church. I’d tell him all the random little issues that popped up — the snake I had to get away from the door, the tree branches I collected from the last storm and piled by the firepit, the anthill I had to destroy (without any bites, of course) and the decorations I planned to make from the lavender branches, along with my first attempt at infusing oil with the lavender buds. We’d sleep with the windows open to hear the silence, only interrupted by the winds and animals and tree branches, tired from a good day’s work of being primarily self-sufficient.

The reality is quite different.

There’s a lot to do — weeding, pruning, cleaning, landscape maintenance, animal care, garden planting and tending, preserving whatever you harvested or bought (as not everything can be grown in this part of the country), basic home upkeep/repair, crafting (to recycle and re-use anything you can, as well as be frugal), baking, cooking, cleaning…the list goes on. There’s so much to do, in fact, the fun things like sitting on your porch take a backseat. When the husband has a long drive to his day job, you find yourself doing even more to pick up the slack. Then there’s those bugs, that really do inhibit how much you go outside, and the oppressive summer heat that kills any and all interest in going outside to do anything other than what you have to do. The storms that have always been so appealing barely occur because each season you experience since you moved here has been “the weirdest on record” so you can go months without a thunderstorm. An area that typically gets a ton of rain can go weeks without a drop, meaning you have to hand-water areas well outside the reach of even your longest hose.

A typical day is a lot different from what we envisioned. I have yet to finish a quilt, and that lavender oil will have to wait to see if the plants survived the winter as I forgot to cover them before the freeze as I was a bit pre-occupied with extensive animal care. (See prior blog entries about our doggy adventures.) But, where would we be without goals? I still have a lot of plans to get a quilt completed, along with taking a knitting class to perfect my rudimentary skills. I will have dried lavender scenting my guest bath

before the end of 2012 is over. Experiments in wine creation will be completed, and I will get some lampworked beads created in order to make my jewelry that much more unique. My fig jam will make its way into a cupcake, and I will have a new zucchini batter to add to my carrot cake recipe for new homegrown, organic options.

In the end, the reality is that a life in the country is frequently simplified and romanticized yet it’s some of the hardest, longest days. Getting everything you need to get done is one thing, then add in the things you want to get done? Exhaustion. We also started homeschooling (third kid out of four that we’ve homeschooled) a few months back and it adds a whole new dimension. Homeschooling is a challenge, but we love it. Not only does our youngest get his academics, but he gets to learn alongside nature and his real-life skills double over what he’d get in a classroom full of kids all the same age for eight hours a day, then doing homework for an hour (or more) a night.

I wouldn’t call our city-folk-move-to-the-country experiment a failure, because it’s blessing us with a new perspective, a new appreciation and a new focus. We know we’ve ventured something, we’ve risked something, and while it didn’t work as we’d hoped (some was our fault, a lot wasn’t) we won’t go through life wondering and thinking ‘I wish we’d tried it.’ We can go back to city life glad for the break from the smog and the traffic and that our kids got an experience they’ll never get in the city. Like we had growing up, and more.

Life on a homestead isn’t for everybody, but if you can make it work, you’ll have a whole new way of life. But bring your shovel, your ant spray and be ready to go to bed tired!