One of the interesting things about traveling all of the time is some of the basic human entanglements in life slide right by you. At least they did for me. Less so for Lee because he was so engaged with people online, but for me I had created a little bubble for myself, and I largely ignored things that bothered me. Confused? Well let me lay out some examples.

The “where are you from” question. – We got used to always being from “away” wherever we were but the explanation we traveled fulltime largely explained that issue. Now we are in a town that is 20 minutes from where I grew up so I answer I am from Grove City except people look at license plates (they always have everywhere by the way) and form judgements about you based on that. Since the truck still has Florida plates and the little car has California plates the reactions to our plates are wildly different depending on which vehicle we drive. It is so ridiculous in some cases that I have asked Lee to speed up getting new plates so we can just move on from that judgement. Like I said when we were moving it didn’t matter much but now this judgement is coming from neighbors and local business owners who we are trying to build a relationship with for the long term. If you screw that up you’re living with it for a while. Speaking of which…

Permanent Neighbors – Now we have neighbors and although people largely stick to themselves out here in the country no one wants to be the person who pisses their neighbors off. At least we don’t. We intentionally bought property where we aren’t on top of anyone else, but we still have a few neighbors within eyesight and shouting (or barking) distance, and don’t want any problems with them. We can’t just pull up and roll out if there is an issue so making sure we don’t inadvertently piss someone off is a big deal. Lee in particular has been extra careful about making sure our lawn stays mowed and we have no eyesores. We never were ones for political signs either, but I think we would both think hard about that as well. Things are very polarized right now and the only sign I feel comfortable with right now is an Ohio State Buckeyes sign which is sort of a religion around here.

Politics – I, by choice, was largely isolated from the extremes of politics that are impacting our country, and we mitigated that even more over the last few years by staying in places that mirrored our political beliefs. Yes, I have lost Facebook friends over differences of opinion, but that is very different than being in one place and dealing with the fallout of these disagreements in person. I was prepared for the need with casual acquaintances to just stay away from the subject, but things have gone much farther than that. Since California plates = Liberal and Florida plates = Conservative in many people’s minds the difference in treatments can be a little startling. Lee in particular who is much more open on Facebook had a really difficult time buying things from Facebook Marketplace until he changed his profile picture and marked his account as private. You may think it’s crazy but trust me we did a before and after study on his experience and it was markedly different. The worst of it though is family schisms which I largely ignored in the past but cannot now that I am here.

Family – I was always an oddball in my family, so I didn’t expect anyone to roll out the red carpet or anything when I came back, but I am surprised by how fractured my family is. There always was lots of family issues for a variety of reasons, but now it seems political differences has overshadowed most of those grievances. Over the last several years brothers and sisters have fallen out over religion and/or politics and the one thing I hear over and over again is people with differing views no longer feel welcome. Unfortunately, both of my grandmothers (who never would have tolerated this behavior) have both passed away and the schisms continue and widen with each passing year. I don’t know why I am surprised given the state of the country but to be honest I was because I truly though family bonds would transcend those issues. On the one hand I find this very disappointing but on the other hand since I have always felt on the outside of things for me personally it doesn’t change much.

Friends – Actually more difficult than family has been negotiating friendships. It’s easy to be friendly on Facebook because it doesn’t cost anyone anything, but rekindling old friendships is not as easy as one might think. A huge part of that I have to own because Lee and I have been just us for a really long time now, but I was hoping that staying in one place would allow me to rebuild a friendship network. I find myself very hesitant though to open myself up to other people and it’s not like folks are banging down my door. People have lives and friendships they have maintained through the years, and I have not been a part of that. That’s fair and since I made the choice to live relatively remotely it’s not like I am running into people I know every day. The simplest thing would be to start fresh with new relationships but at the age of 59 that can be tough. I tend to be pretty introverted when it comes to personal relationships, and it takes a pretty special set of circumstances to push me out of that. The friends we made while RVing were based on shared experiences, and a lot of my current activities (work aside) tend to be pretty solo.

Overall, I think it’s odd that I feel lonelier in a house than I did when we were on the road. I feel less isolated for sure, but loneliness and isolation are not actually the same emotion, although they often go hand in hand. I gave up a community of like-minded people (our “tribe” as my friend Greg used to call it) and I have yet to find a new one. I remind myself that it is early days yet and I have plenty of time to find my people, but I am really going to have to force myself to get out there to make that happen. It was comfortable in my bubble, it really was, but it’s time to take steps back into the world and see what happens.

After Lee read this he said you deserve some cute pictures of the farm for getting through it so here you go 🙂

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune

Well, we blinked our eyes and summer is coming to an end! This means cooler weather (finally) and the ability to catch up on all those chores we didn’t want to do when it was crazy hot. It also meant my garden was getting ready to harvest and I started putting some preserving techniques to good use. We started by freezing some corn and although we needed to buy a new Vacu-Seal (we got tons of use over 10 years out of our last one) it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. One decision I did make early on after tons of research was I was going to try freezing without blanching. I know conventional wisdom says to blanch but I don’t like the end product so decided to try it without blanching. The key is to make sure your vegetables are bone dry before you freeze to avoid crystallization. I will let you know in the winter how it turned out.

I also picked some green beans and froze as well. I was shocked by how many beans were hidden in the plants and got several bags worth. Moxie came out to help (she loves the garden) and scared me a couple of times when her head popped up. Yes, she can go outside now but only during the day, and Jack goes outside to babysit her. We did this over the course of a couple of weeks while supervised and now she will come back when I call her and can go out alone if she wants. Also, we know summer is coming to an end because Moxie caught her first mouse!! She didn’t know what to do with it other than play with it so ultimately I took care of it and heaped lots of praise on her. Yeah Moxie the Mouser!

The absolute best part of freezing veggies is I can give the bad pieces or ends to the chickens, and they love them. Actually, almost all of my vegetable waste is going to the chickens which makes me so incredibly happy. Not only does it reduce my purchased feed costs but it’s also good for the planet and seriously feeds my soul.

While training the cat to come, and the chickens to come, I also decided I wanted to train the goats. The man I bought them from suggested getting a bell (I am a lousy whistler) and within two days I had them trained to come in from the big field. They love corn mix so it’s a great motivator for them but even I was surprised at how easy it was. They are still pretty skittish, but will all feed from my hand now although they draw the line at me touching them much. I’ll keep working on it.

In the midst of all that I had a birthday, and Lee’s parents bought me the cutest things. Denny got me a bird fan which I absolutely love and Dede gave me a tiki man tissue box. I can’t get away from all things artistic have to have a purpose but that’s working fine for me!

What else? Lee finally worked on some cool outdoor projects. He built a roost and “litter box” area underneath for the chickens which has completely solved my poop in the nesting box issue and has made it much easier to clean the coop.

Another big job we both worked on was getting the center stall ready for winter. It was full of broken pallets and was actually kind of dangerous, so we pulled everything out and stacked hay on one side and straw on the other and Lee hung up all my tools. This way when winter comes things will be close by. We still have the large tent for additional hay and straw but it has holes so we put a large tarp over it.

In between my asks, Lee also went to a barn my Dad is tearing down and pulled out a hundred or so oak panels and giant doors. He spent a whole week doing this but now we have enough wood for many, many projects. My Dad was also thrilled the wood wasn’t going to waste.

I also tried freezing eggs which I heard was a good way to save summer eggs for the winter months when laying slows down. You use muffin pans and add 1/8 tsp salt for eggs you will use for savory recipes or 1/8 tsp sugar for eggs you will use in sweet recipes. General consensus seems to be that they work great when added to a recipe not as well for a standalone meal. I’ll let you know in the winter when I try it.

It hasn’t all been at home stuff though. We have been attending estate sales every Saturday which we really like and we took advantage of clearance sales to stock up on all the seeds we will need for next year. Even deeply discounted it was still $90, but good seeds are worth it because the two knock off seed packets I bought produced nothing. To get them organized I bought a super cool seed storage box and then Lee gave me his labeler to mark each box with the item and the plant dates. I feel so organized!!

It hasn’t all been work though because for the first time in forever I have been able to decorate for the fall. We didn’t have room in the RV for many decorations, and it has been a blast picking things up at estates sales and going all out. My whole life I wanted to live on a piece of property where I could have straw bale decorations for fall and now I have it!! Lee even bought me a pumpkin yard sign to add to the motif. It’s been busy and hard work but really fun and I have no regrets about moving back into a house.

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itune