It's cool to have land, that's for sure, and I'm thankful every day that I do have it. But I can tell you something, Vanessa, no one gave it to me. I often look at other people and what they have and wonder how it came to be. When I was younger, a lot of people I knew inherited land from their family or were given their first home by their parents. I never had that option. I am born of a lower to middle class family. I was the first in that family to go to college. I saw a lot of people around me marry well and young to men that had money or the means to provide for them whatever they wanted. I saw a lot of people have kids in their late teens and early twenties rather than go to school. I went the nerd route and I had my BS by the age of 21. Then I spent quite a while traveling as a professional biologist. But as the economy in the US went sour and our presidents changed their mandates, I found myself along with a lot of other wildlife biologists out of work as private industry was suddenly defunded and mandates requiring Timber Industry to have on staff biologists were reversed. It was a real trying time in my life and a time of introspection. I asked myself what I wanted out of life. The list got really short but really intense fairly fast.
- A place I could vacation at home.
- Lots of animals around me.
- Someday a wonderful man to share # 1 & # 2 with.
Don't think the man takes third place either. He's first place always. But anyhow, I needed cash to make this happen. I sacrificed seven years of my life to work intensely in a non-scientific field where I was home maybe 1 or 2 days out of seven and alone 24/7 the rest of the time constantly working. The money was fantastic, but it was incredibly lonely and boring. It was sometimes really dangerous too. So, when I got to the point where I simply couldn't do it anymore because I was going crazy, I found my lovely farm AND had the money to pay for it. I was married by that time, but my husband was going to school full time and working a forty hour work week as well just to pay for his school. So, you can imagine how hard it was...
And how rewarding it is.... and how I never forget to be thankful to have some space to move around. And one more thing you might not understand or realize too. Taking care of a lot of land is a full time job. It's every bit as hard as taking care of other people.