Wednesday, February 23, 2011

We Live in Town

Yes, in town.  Our 1908 farm house is on a 1/4 acre in town

We'd never lived in town before moving here.
As someone who's from out there, in the end-of-the-long-road-conspiracy-theorizing part of the world, it is sometimes difficult to tell people that I live in town.

It's town after all!

People live there!

They just show up at your place *poof* and you don't even have a chance to slip off to avoid the religious zealots that swing by.

I am from the places where if you see a vehicle you know who it is, where they're headed, how long they've lived/worked/eaten/hunted there, who their kids are and what they want if they're headed to your place.  Conversations revolve around seasons and cows, children and fencelines.

Town is different.

We're learning it's enjoyable with the right attitude though.  It can be absolutely stifling if you don't have the right outlook.  This is a work-in-progress for me.  I'm better.  I don't want to talk about it lol.

But after moving not only our things (of which we brought way too many), our 1 year old daughter, my mother, 4 horses, a heifer (Ruby), 4 dogs, 5 cats (I paid to have them spayed, therefore they were not getting left behind - OK, Crazy Lucy was welcome and my mothers two were quite near-and-dear to her) 1,000 miles in November to Montana...

we were ready to live in a house.

Any house that was warm and had a fair-sized lot.

And was cheap.  The trip cost a penny or two.

Part of the rush was that I got pregnant our first week here and we were all (darling husband, sweet daughter, myself and my mother) living in a travel trailer.

I was vomiting.

In November/December.

In Montana.

It was a touch cool.

Cabin fever was hard core.  More like cabin plague or gangrene.

We were for the most part nice to each other.

In the preceding six months, we had looked online at homes listed in the area, and kept coming back to the one we ended up buying in the end.  It just seemed like we were meant to be there.  The mortgage would be lower than the average rent in the area, and no one would complain about our living habits adjusting to town besides possibly our neighbors.

You may be confused here; as in, "What's to adjust?"

Let me introduce my husband:

He has been known to run a chainsaw at 10 PM.  In town. [insert me frowning and hollering at him here...in town at 10 PM]

He has NO problem with multiple dead vehicles/our two trailers - one of which is bright yellow - parked on premises (doesn't happen anymore, he's adjusted to the town thing in this respect).

We used floodlights, near midnight, to harvest tomatoes and tomatillos frantically before a hard frost last fall.  The kids were asleep, and it'd been a wild week.  You work when you can around here.

These are just what pops to mind, but we ultimately have most definitely had an adjustment period.  Now that it has been just over two years we're settled into the routine of it pretty well.  Our trash can even makes it out when it's supposed to and the kids sleep right through the truck when it "BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEPs" out their window.

We have several planting beds:
a 5'x60'
two 5'x20'
four 1'x20' aka "strip beds"

these are built with cast-off wood from the local mill (the bark pieces: flat on one side, bark on the other).

We have a cold frame made from boards hoarded from a nearby feedlot torn down and $40 worth of clear 6mm plastic.  We replace it yearly, convinced it's cheaper since we won't be in town long enough to justify a greenhouse.  Right?

Eventually, we'll move out of town.  But for now, this space works well...except the whole milk cow being 3 miles away bit.  It will be nice when she is "on site."  We're still working on acquiring a leased bit of land, but are certain it will be at least another year before we can sell our home and move out of town again.

Until then, we are forever thankful for our kind neighbors with thick walls and a sense of humor.

2 comments:

Debbie From The Bookstore said...

Your neighbors shudder at the thought of you not being there. We too make noise after 10:00 pm and it is often accompanied by our dog barking and my husbands swearing. We have floodlights that we forget to turn off when we pull the shades down because we no longer can see the light through our windows and we love the gardens, the dogs, the cats and we really love the kids. So if I haven't said it before "Welcome to the Neighborhood"

Erin said...

:D Thank you Debbie. I didn't even realize you had floodlights! I don't feel so bad now lol. Bill swearing makes us laugh, because recently it's been when Tonka is running around the yard with something forbidden...and Bill's trying to catch him. This should be a wonderful summer - many more flowers involved and now Cole can run around WITH Savanna and help with the garden. I am so excited!