A Tale of a Modern Day Homesteader

(I started to title this News From the Homestead,
and I was going to write about our special Christmas
Tree this year, but then I thought some people
might be interested in the small tale of
some modern day homesteaders, and I got distracted
from my original intent. Perhaps I'll continue
this tale of a Modern Day Homesteader in install-
ments and post on a different post about our
Special Christmas Tree. Yes, indeedy, I think that
is what I'll do.)

Really there is some truth to the word "homestead" for
our famiy. When we first came to Mayberry we lived
with my dear folks for about 8 months. We are a loud
family and drove them bananas, but they handled it with
love and grace.

We had some property down the gravel from my folks; it
was a lovely spot, but had nothing on it except about 20
acres of overgrown field and 20 acres of woods. Oh, and
of course, the two ponds, one good-size at the joining
of the field and the woods and one little one up-close
to the road.

I lie, there was an old house, an old barn and two or
three old sheds, but nothing suitable for us to use as a
dwelling. After looking at all the options we decided
to buy a re-built mobile home and pull it onto the property.

It is so easy to talk of these things and so difficult to
accomplish them. There was no driveway, no water, no
electricity, no septic, ARGH! I often wished, in those
days, that we could have bought the place after it had
been lived on for 10 years, but then we wouldn't have
been able to afford it.

I have some pictures to post from those early days, but my
computery son is in the Big City gaining much university
knowledge and I am tussleling hopelessly with the scanner.
I'll post them when I can and continue the saga at a later
date.