The Adventure Has Begun...

In earlier blog posts, I’ve hinted at a massive change happening for my family and me. In truth, it’s something that I’ve vaguely mentioned for a few years now, actually. But, somehow, hope and intention have given way to reality, and the dream is finally poised to manifest, albeit in ways that I could have never imagined. 

This past Thursday, my family and I left the forest. For the past year, we had stayed on land that my family has owned for generations, my children being the fifth generation to live upon that land. It will always be the closest thing to an ancestral home that I can touch, that I have laid upon and felt my breath fall in sync with. It will forever be my home.

But now, we are setting off on an adventure, an adventure to a bit of land we can call our own, a place where we can lay down roots and busy ourselves with a simpler life. There’s a pocket of wilderness in rural northwestern New Mexico, to where we are headed, to start a little homestead. There is no water available but what we catch and keep, or bring in ourselves. And no power but what we can generate ourselves via solar panels, wind, or generator. Goats are in my future. Oh yes, there will be goats. And chickens. And gardens.

For now, I still have power and internet, as we are at a staging point, preparing everything to leave and gathering the last of the supplies we will need down there. Modern pioneers, with a pop-up camper for our covered wagon, and a Durango for our oxen… Ah, I did say this would be an adventure.

I will be posting updates as much as I am able, and pictures once there’s actually something interesting to share. Most likely, I will share more through twitter than here (so *ahem* follow me there for updates, and because I’m entertaining and awesome, but mostly do it for the eventual pictures of mountains, desert, and a homestead being built from the ground up by just my family and I.)

And, if you’ve any tips or advice to share, I’ve got a new bit of land, new genus loci, at the base of a dormant volcano, to woo and make friends with. But, aside from booze and song, I am unclear what else my prospective “friends” may enjoy. Tips, advice, suggestions, firsthand desert spirit wooing stories to share…. yes, please.